The Department of Government Efficiency revealed Thursday that public school districts burned through hundreds of billions of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief funds on expenditures that did “little” to help students — such as renting an MLB stadium for graduation, luxe hotel stays in Las Vegas and even swimming pool passes.
“Schools have spent nearly $200B of COVID-Relief funds with little oversight or impact on students,” read a DOGE post on X.
The Elon Musk-led cost-cutting initiative highlighted more than half a million dollars in spending on just four projects deemed wasteful by DOGE.
In one instance, the Santa Ana Unified School District in California spent $393,000 in COVID-19 funds to rent out the Los Angeles Angels baseball stadium for high school graduation ceremonies.
Another unnamed California school district even purchased an ice cream truck with the pandemic relief money, according to DOGE, citing an investigation from the nonprofit group Parents Defending Education.
In Utah, Granite Public Schools spent roughly $86,000 in taxpayer money to cover accommodations at the luxurious Caesars Palace hotel and casino during an annual conference.
In another case, West Virginia’s Upshur County School District spent $60,000 in federal funds on swimming pool passes.
“All of this money was drawn with zero documentation,” according to DOGE. --->READ MORE HERE
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| Ana Gioia/NY POST DESIGN |
It’s been 10 days, do you know where your children are?
More than one-third of New York City public schoolkids — or some 300,000 students — were “chronically absent” last year, according to a blockbuster study out Thursday.
The bombshell findings come as New York students’ test scores in math and reading remain mediocre, despite the state funneling more money into education than any other in the nation.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I first saw the numbers. It’s unbelievable,” said Danyela Souza Egorov, senior policy fellow at the Manhattan Institute think thank and author of the report on chronic absenteeism.
The number of K-12 students deemed chronically absent — or out for 10 days or more in the 180-day school year — has spiked from 26.5% in the 2018-19 term preceding the COVID-19 pandemic to 34.8% in 2023-24.
That means more than 300,000 students out of roughly 900,000 in the country’s largest public school system are frequently missing in action, according to the analysis conducted by the Manhattan Institute.
The results were even more dreadful in upstate school districts, where extensive absenteeism skyrocketed from 41% to 62.2% in Buffalo — Gov. Kathy Hochul’s hometown.
Severe absenteeism shot up from 44.7% to 59.2% in Rochester and 34.7% to 46.8% in Syracuse.
Only in Albany did chronic absenteeism drop, from 37.8% to 31.8%.
The report cites two factors for the surge in kids going MIA from class: a lenient shift in parental attitudes toward attendance in recent years and the state’s “ineffectiveness in its efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism.”
“Even more concerning is the recent decision by New York State to deemphasize chronic absenteeism,” Egorov told The Post.
The state Education Department’s new accountability plan—which it must publish to qualify for some federal funding — has “eliminated chronic absenteeism as a measure of school quality,” the analysis said.
That means how often students actually show up to class “will not be one of the measures by which the state evaluates the performance of school districts,” it said. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
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