California to spend $2 billion of COVID-relief funds to address learning loss due to legal settlement
An attorney from Morrison Foerster told Fox News Digital that they proved that school shutdowns during the coronavirus pandemic were a detriment to low-income students and students of color who experienced learning loss.
An attorney on Wednesday highlighted how school shutdowns in California during the coronavirus pandemic disproportionately impacted low-income students and students of color who experienced learning loss, leading to a massive settlement from the state.
"Our challenge to the state was, basically, look, the pandemic happened. You shoveled money to the school districts and said, go teach. And, we felt that and argued that that was insufficient and documented that that was insufficient," Michael A. Jacobs, a partner at Morrison Foerster told Fox News Digital.
Jacobs went on to say, "The schools shut down. Remote learning launches. And the districts, in a sense, just assume that everybody has a quiet place to learn remotely on a computer that works with a high-speed internet connection, so it's not breaking down all the time. And that's just not the case for low-income students, students of color."
"They just didn't have that educational opportunity," he added.
According to Public Counsel, the state of California will spend what’s left of COVID-19 relief funds on tutoring and other efforts to help students recover from learning loss during the pandemic. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Nearly every school in California was locked down for in-person learning and students attended school remotely from home during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In what's regarded as "one of the largest education-related settlements in U.S. history," California is now being forced to spend $2 billion to help students recover from learning loss.
Morrison Foerster in collaboration with Public Counsel helped secure the $2 billion in funding.
The case, Cayla J. v. California, revealed the Golden State’s failure to "ensure access to digital connectivity and devices" during remote learning, Public Counsel wrote in a press release. They added that the state also failed to provide "necessary academic and social-emotional support, forcing families to navigate a lengthy period of remote instruction with little support."
The settlement unveiled that the "situation widened the opportunity gap for lower-income and Black and Latinx students."
One parent, Kelly R., a Los Angeles native, said her children did not learn anything in school.
"Between March and June of 2020, neither of my children learned anything in school," she told local outlets in light of the settlement.
She spoke with CNN recalling the struggle with virtual schooling during school lockdowns.
"The computers were glitchy… We live in the airport flight paths; sometimes we weren’t getting internet connection," Kelly said. "Sometimes the school Internet connection… wasn’t working as well."
Nearly every school in California was locked down for in-person learning and students attended school remotely from home during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. (iStock)
Parents, students, and community organizations were part of the effort to address the learning loss crisis, launching a lawsuit against California in November 2020. They aimed to redress California’s remote schooling program, which was later revealed to have deficiencies.
Among them is Oakland REACH, a "parent-run" and "parent-led" organization that made an effort to help students in low-income communities who fell behind during remote learning.
"We all must advocate for these funds to be used for solutions that put parents and caregivers in the driver’s seat and are proven to get kids reading," founder and CEO of The Oakland REACH Lakisha Young said. "This lawsuit started in 2020 December — but we didn’t just wait around for the win."
The lawsuit explained that the federal government granted public school districts more than $190 billion to address learning loss from March 2020 to March 2021.
Jacobs told Fox News Digital that California made approximately $6 billion available to school districts.
According to Jacobs, it was estimated that about $2 billion of that money was "uncommitted."
"What the settlement does is say, OK, look, that money is waiting to be committed. Let's make sure that it gets committed in a way that maximizes the benefits to the students who are most adversely affected by pandemic learning," he said.
The attorneys argued that California failed to ensure local districts used that money for students who needed the most help.
Therefore, the settlement requires existing funds from the Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant to go toward hiring tutors and taking other steps to help students rebound from learning loss. The funding is to be used to help students already facing adverse education outcomes, often children from low-income households and minorities.
"This is such a huge victory and much-deserved investment in California’s Black and Brown students who are still feeling the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic," Community Coalition’s President and CEO, Alberto Retana said.
California has also agreed to propose a new law enabling funds to be spent on "community organizations with a proven track record of improving student success."
The law mandates that local education agencies operate under a Local Control and Accountability Plan, requiring them to report on the success of any program created to help students who experience learning loss.
"We hope that the districts will undertake this work in earnest," Jacobs said. "We are discussing now how we, and, interested parties can collaborate to make that happen and make sure that happens both by way of providing materials to the school districts that ease their way through this process and also, empowers community organizations to monitor what the districts are doing to ensure that their plans meet the standards set forth that we expect to be set forth in the legislation."
Michael A. Jacobs, a partner at Morrison Foerster, discussed with Fox News Digital how school shut downs during the coronavirus pandemic were a detriment to low income students and students of color who experienced learning loss. (Fox News Digital)
The California Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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A California Dept. of Education spokesperson told other outlets the proposal includes changes that the administration believes are "appropriate at this stage coming out of the pandemic to focus on the students who were most impacted and continued to need support."
The settlement comes after the Department of Education reported in 2022 that average reading scores saw the largest decline in 30 years following the pandemic.