Smart ways to cover the coming ‘year of ed finance’

The $122 billion for K-12 in the American Rescue Plan (ARP) is the biggest onetime federal payout to schools. Over the next several months, school districts across the country will be deciding how to spend the closest thing to a blank check that we’ve ever seen in K-12 education. All eyes should be shifting to districts to follow their choices.

In this commentary written for The Grade, Marguerite Roza offers six tips for reporters on covering ARP school spending in ways that will be helpful and compelling to readers, including linking spending to students’ lives and outcomes, matching up decisions with stakeholder priorities, and showing how decisions are really being made.