ESSER and Student Achievement: Assessing the Impacts of the Largest One-Time Federal Investment in K12 Schools

We estimate the effects of federal pandemic-relief funding (ESSER) for K12 district-level student achievement in 2023. We rely on test data from almost 5,000 school districts across 28 states. Our identification strategy exploits variation in 2022-23 ESSER spending attributable to its allocation rules. We find that a $1,000 increase in ESSER spending per pupil led to a statistically significant increase in math test performance of 0.007 standard deviations. The impact of ESSER on ELA was smaller, .002 standard deviations, and not statistically significant. ESSER differentially impacted districts across poverty levels and urbanicity.

This is an updated version of CALDER Working Paper 301-0624, originally published in June 2024.