Will the American Rescue Plan’s ‘Meaningful Consultation’ Requirement Usher in Community Participation in School Budgets?

Congress didn’t ask much in return for $110B in American Rescue Plan funds for districts. But while the feds aren’t telling districts what to do with this money, they are telling them that they’d better make that decision together with their communities.

In this Forbes commentary, Marguerite Roza writes that the federal requirement for “meaningful consultation” sounds like a call for participatory budgeting, and she wonders whether it could prompt a new level of civic engagement in school spending, one that elevates the role of community, broadens the base of input on what will work to help students, and  helps press pause on business-as-usual spending plans.