The subtitle of In Covid’s Wake, a new book by Princeton University’s Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee that evaluates America’s response to the pandemic five years ago, leaves little room for doubt about the authors’ conclusion: “How Our Politics Failed Us.” Macedo and Lee offer a compelling and damning critique of the ways institutions and experts let politics rather than evidence inform decision-making like prolonged school closures that we now know was misguided.

While the pandemic-era failures are well documented, they are not universal. One policy initiative in particular had bipartisan support and can claim a record of modest successes in the education sector. Under both the Trump and Biden administrations, Congress enacted and allocated a substantial investment to the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) fund.

Critics have argued that ESSER funding was misused, wasted, or ultimately ineffective—but those claims overlook the complexity of student achievement. While it is true that achievement still lags behind pre-pandemic levels on numerous indicators across the country, ESSER funding played a critical role in preventing an even steeper academic decline. There is ample evidence that some school districts used the federal aid to expand tutoring, hire staff, extend learning time, and address mental health needs—efforts that contributed to measurable academic gains, with some districts even surpassing their 2019 standardized test scores.

The $190 billion ESSER investment was designed to minimize disruptions and provide resources for schools and students struggling in the wake of pandemic-induced school closures. While early funding priorities focused on safely reopening schools, subsequent efforts shifted toward academic recovery, with 20 percent of funds being mandated to address learning loss. Yet, despite the stated intentions behind this historic federal investment, many students continue to struggle. Recent results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show that, compared to 2019, 4th grade students performed three points lower in math and five points lower in reading, while 8th grade scores were down eight points in math and five points in reading. These disappointing national outcomes have fueled skepticism about ESSER’s effectiveness.

Certainly, there are examples of questionable spending of ESSER funds. An Iowa school district upgraded their weight room. One Kentucky school built a new football field. But leveling criticism only at non-recovery spending distorts the broader reality: ESSER provided a crucial lifeline that kept many students from falling farther behind academically. Without it, the learning loss caused by Covid-19 school closures would likely have been far worse, leaving even fewer resources available to the students who needed them most.

Early research on the impact of ESSER funds shows that federal relief played a statistically significant role in helping students regain lost academic ground. The Center for Education Policy Research (CEPR) at Harvard found that for every additional $1,000 in ESSER funding per student, math achievement increased by 0.03 grade equivalents—roughly six days of learning—while reading scores rose by 0.018 grade equivalents—about three days of learning. These findings underscore the direct relationship between relief spending and student progress.

A subsequent report also concluded that federal dollars not only contributed to academic recovery but also helped narrow the widening achievement gaps that emerged during the pandemic. In an interview with the Harvard Gazette, Professor Tom Kane, one of the study’s authors, observed, “Among districts with similar poverty rates and other characteristics, those receiving more federal funding caught up faster.”

But Kane concedes that student recovery has been uneven. At an event last February at the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School, he cited the broad discretion given to districts in spending ESSER funds as a reason some have seen more gains than others. He pointed to Alabama as a statewide success story, where the latest NAEP data show that student scores now exceed pre-pandemic levels from 2019.

Kane’s findings have been corroborated by other studies. The CALDER Center similarly found that for every additional $1,000 in ESSER funding per student, district math scores rose by 0.008 standard deviations, with a similar but statistically insignificant increase in reading scores. While the precise impact varies across studies, the broader conclusion remains clear: ESSER funding not only prevented students from falling farther behind but also accelerated recovery beyond what would have been possible in its absence.

While research highlights the positive impact of ESSER funding on student achievement nationally, there are also notable successes at the district level worthy of researchers’ attention.

Atlanta

Atlanta Public Schools (APS) exemplifies how a community-centered, collaborative approach was able to maximize the benefit of federal dollars in achieving growth. The district received more than $322 million from all ESSER packages combined and invested strategically in initiatives they believed would best align with students’ needs and improve achievement.

One significant step Atlanta took was extending the school day. Beginning in the 2021–22 school year, in response to community input, the district expanded the elementary school day by 30 minutes, ensuring that students had more instructional time to reinforce core skills. APS also implemented universal screening to assess students’ strengths and pinpoint areas for improvement in reading and math. With this data-driven approach, school leaders built robust intervention programs to provide tailored support where it was needed most. Additionally, Atlanta launched a Summer Recovery Academy, offering students extra opportunities to close learning gaps and accelerate progress.

These efforts have yielded measurable results. Atlanta stands out as one of the few districts in the country to see statistically significant growth in 4th-grade reading scores from 2022, demonstrating the effectiveness of a community-based, data-driven holistic and multi-modal approach to learning loss recovery and improving student achievement.

Scott Elementary School and its principal Langston Longley exemplify the success of Atlanta Public Schools. With 100 percent of its students qualifying for free or reduced lunch, an enrollment that is 90 percent African American and 9 percent Hispanic, and situated in an area that is only beginning to experience an economic revitalization, Scott Elementary has produced results worthy of recognition. According to Longley, being a school with high needs was both a blessing and curse. While Scott’s school leaders and teachers were familiar with the importance of the whole-child approach, their students’ needs were exacerbated during the pandemic.

Returning into the traditional instructional format with the additional 30 minutes provided immense benefits to Scott’s students. The school launched a new intervention program, focused on both remediating learning losses and accelerating student growth. This intervention was affectionately titled, WIN—What I Need. Principal Longely noted that while his campus utilized three of the days of WIN for reading and two for math, each school site in the district had the flexibility to customize the focus of the intervention period based on their own data and their students’ needs.

Utilizing numerous digital learning platforms like HMH, iReady and Duolingo math, the school was able to customize their instructional approach to each individual student and track their progress, giving teachers more time to focus on teaching. The school continually assessed students’ progress on a biweekly basis, arranging them into cohorts depending on their growth.

According to Longely, these results produced significant results. In some cases, the proportion of students achieving at or above grade-level state standards would nearly double. Longely also noted that 70 percent of his students would exceed their computer-projected growth rates from the NWEA’s MAP tests.

San Antonio

San Antonio Independent School District stands out for the inclusive and forward-thinking way it developed its learning recovery strategy. The district convened advisory councils composed of teachers, parents, administrators, and students to help decide how to invest the $276 million it received in ESSER funds. Their plan focused on adding the equivalent of 30 extra school days beginning with summer programming followed by strategically placed intercessions throughout the year. The program included a two-week session in July, five selected Saturdays, a weeklong session in January, and two additional weeks in June. This intervention lasted from 2021 to 2024, focusing not only on academic catch-up but also enrichment and social-emotional learning. As a result, according to the most recent state standardized test results, a greater percentage of San Antonio’s 4th-grade students are now reading on grade level than in 2019, before the pandemic disrupted schooling.

Compton

Compton Unified School District, where 48 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch and one in four is an English language learner, stands out as a compelling example of academic recovery done right. The district took a multi-pronged approach, offering Saturday school, summer programs, and free afterschool enrichment for K–8 students in the form of project-based learning and homework help. A partnership with a local nonprofit also expanded access to targeted tutoring. Grounded in data and student needs, these efforts paid off: from 2023 to 2024, Compton Unified saw a 2.45 percent increase in English Language Arts state assessment scores—more evidence that sustained, community-rooted interventions can drive academic gains.

Conclusions

The federal investment in education through ESSER funds played a pivotal role in mitigating a worse outcome from pandemic-related learning loss. With these funds now expired and learning loss persistent across the country, it’s easy to overlook the hard-fought gains ESSER enabled—gains that likely would not have been possible otherwise. We neglect the lessons of this investment at our detriment. A failure to acknowledge clear successes not only distorts the reality of educational recovery but also risks devaluing the educators, administrators, and policymakers who have dedicated themselves to the cause.

District successes from Atlanta to San Antonio to Compton demonstrate that when schools engaged their communities, prioritized outcome-oriented learning loss strategies, and focused on whole-child recovery, they saw real academic gains. These districts proved that thoughtful, locally driven initiatives—whether through high-dosage tutoring, extended learning time, or mental health support—yielded measurable improvements in student outcomes.

Two pressing questions remain. First, how can schools sustain and build upon the academic progress made without continued federal funding? Second, what role will the federal government play in addressing the unfinished work of pandemic recovery? With the Trump administration currently attempting to divest the federal role in education generally, it’s likely this work will fall to the states. But will the money follow?

While we await those answers, the need for strategic, long-term solutions has never been greater. Policymakers must decide whether to let this momentum fade or to build upon these investments to ensure that the progress made doesn’t come undone.

Melih Cevik is a student at Harvard College concentrating in government.