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Speaker 1: During the pandemic, the US government approved billions of dollars

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Speaker 1: in aid to help struggling public schools, but this money

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Speaker 1: will expire next year, leaving school districts across the country

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Speaker 1: with enormous budget shortfalls.

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Speaker 2: A lot of schools, we learned, put that money into

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Speaker 2: what are called recurring expenses, things that are programs like

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Speaker 2: tutoring and salaries that you have to pay for years

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Speaker 2: on end, and school district officials now are starting to

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Speaker 2: think about how they're going to pay for those things

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Speaker 2: without the added cushion of the stimulus aid.

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Speaker 1: That's Reporter Nick Corolla, he and Shruti's seeing writ in

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg City Lab that schools have used almost half those

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Speaker 1: pandemic dollars to try to slow the nationwide exodus of underpaid,

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Speaker 1: overworked teachers from the profession.

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Speaker 3: When we looked at the most recent government statistics on

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Speaker 3: teacher pay, what we found in the twenty twenty one

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty two school year, the average teacher salary was

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Speaker 3: just under sixty six thousand, four hundred, and that was

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Speaker 3: the lowest on an inflation adjusted basis since the nineteen

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Speaker 3: eighty five nineteen eighty six school.

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Speaker 1: Year, and later we hear from one of those educators,

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Speaker 1: Charles Ebaya, is a public school counselor in New York City.

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Speaker 4: Teachers are walking off the job because they're not getting

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Speaker 4: paid enough. So I think when the money expires, because

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Speaker 4: this is not if it's all, when the burden on

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Speaker 4: the veterans teachers that are in schools is going to

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Speaker 4: be higher, I think you might see higher rates of

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Speaker 4: teacher burnout leaving the job for something better.

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Speaker 1: I'm west Kosova today on the Big Take. Public schools

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Speaker 1: tried to fill a one hundred and ninety billion dollar hole. Nick.

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Speaker 1: I think we're all familiar with the big challenges that

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Speaker 1: schools all around the US face during the pandemic, but

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Speaker 1: I gotta say your story paints a pretty bleak picture

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Speaker 1: of what's coming next.

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Speaker 2: That's right. I think it's a really difficult time to

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Speaker 2: be a school leader or a budget leader at a

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Speaker 2: school district. As we all know, the pandemic caused numerous

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Speaker 2: problems for school officials and parents and students, but school

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Speaker 2: districts got more or less unprecedented amounts of aid from

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Speaker 2: the federal government to help smooth some of the impact

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Speaker 2: of the pandemic. The American Rescue Plan Act gave one

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Speaker 2: hundred and ninety billion dollars worth of aid to schools,

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Speaker 2: and big districts across the country got massive sums. New

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Speaker 2: York City received about seven billion dollars, and they had

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Speaker 2: a lot of latitude to decide how they want to

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Speaker 2: spend it. What we're seeing now is schools really start

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Speaker 2: to grapple with the next phase. This money is going

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Speaker 2: to come to an end around next year, and a

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Speaker 2: lot of schools, we learned, put that money into what

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Speaker 2: are called recurring expenses, things that are not one time

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Speaker 2: expenses like building a new stadium or you know, improving

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Speaker 2: your school's facilities, but programs like tutoring and salaries that

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Speaker 2: you have to pay for years on end, and school

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Speaker 2: district officials now are starting to think about how they're

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Speaker 2: going to pay for those things without the added cushion

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Speaker 2: of the stimulus aid.

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Speaker 1: Shruding Nick mentioned some of the things that this money

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Speaker 1: was used for. Can you sort of paint us a

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Speaker 1: picture of how school districts spent this money.

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Speaker 3: School districts had a lot of needs to begin with.

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Speaker 3: The pandemic brought up some needs that they had never

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Speaker 3: seen before, Like there was this emergency need to update,

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Speaker 3: say HVAC and ventilation systems, and then there was a

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Speaker 3: lot of other needs with learning loss that people are

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Speaker 3: still grappling with. And so the reoccurring expenses that Nick

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Speaker 3: mentioned are things like intervention specialists, reading specialists that are

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Speaker 3: not one time costs, like a brand new ventilation system

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Speaker 3: in a school that might have been built decades ago.

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Speaker 3: So that's one of the things that's happening, is that

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Speaker 3: these school districts have had to grapple with these facilities

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Speaker 3: and these learning needs.

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Speaker 2: We reported that about half of the stimulus money actually

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Speaker 2: went towards wages, things like salary increases for teachers and

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Speaker 2: other employees in school districts, in part to stem some

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Speaker 2: of the loss of workers who've been working in school districts.

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Speaker 2: A lot of schools in the US are grappling with

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Speaker 2: pretty severe teacher shortages, and one of the easiest ways

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Speaker 2: to try to combat that is to pay teachers and

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Speaker 2: staff more.

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Speaker 1: And one of the things you report in the story

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Speaker 1: is just how far teacher salaries have fallen in the

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Speaker 1: last several decades.

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Speaker 3: Teacher salaries have been a topic of discussion for many years.

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Speaker 3: There have been strikes around the country in past years

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Speaker 3: related to higher pay, for example, but the highest inflation

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Speaker 3: in four decades has certainly impacted teacher salaries. And so

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Speaker 3: when we looked at the most recent government statistics on

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Speaker 3: teacher pay, what we found in the twenty twenty one

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty two school years, the average teacher salary was

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Speaker 3: just under a sixty six thousand, four hundred and that

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Speaker 3: was the lowest on an inflation adjusted basis since the

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Speaker 3: nineteen eighty five nineteen eighty six school year. That was

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Speaker 3: roughly almost forty years ago. I mean that's when Ronald

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Speaker 3: Reagan was president.

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Speaker 2: A big part of this is inflation. Obviously, inflation is

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Speaker 2: eating into everyone's paycheck. We've reported a lot on the

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Speaker 2: teacher shortage and some of its causes. I talked to

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Speaker 2: teachers all the time who have summer jobs, they have

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Speaker 2: second jobs, And when you think about how much added

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Speaker 2: work these teachers had to do to deal with some

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Speaker 2: of the emotional needs that the pandemic put on their students,

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Speaker 2: it makes sense why some of them would be looking

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Speaker 2: for jobs, maybe in the private sector or other industries.

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Speaker 3: So one of the reports that we looked at was

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Speaker 3: from McKenzie and Company. And that specifically talked about why

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Speaker 3: teachers want to leave, and the pool of people that

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Speaker 3: they surveyed was about more than eighteen hundred US teachers,

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Speaker 3: school leaders, in school mental health professionals, and at the

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Speaker 3: end of the twenty twenty one twenty two school year

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Speaker 3: they said that something like a third of the survey

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Speaker 3: respondents had planned to leave before the start of the

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Speaker 3: next school year, and compensation was a major factor.

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Speaker 1: Given how much school districts really have come to depend

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Speaker 1: on this money, why is it stopping next year?

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Speaker 2: That was the design of the federal stimulus package. These

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Speaker 2: pieces of legislation gave humongous amounts of money to schools,

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Speaker 2: but the encouragement, and in some cases the mandate attached

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Speaker 2: to the money was that the schools use it to

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Speaker 2: address learning loss or some of the added expenses that

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Speaker 2: they had to bear because of the pandemic, things like

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Speaker 2: air filtration and PPE.

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Speaker 1: When we talk about.

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Speaker 2: Learning loss, that's basically comparing a cohort of students to

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Speaker 2: a similar cohort before the pandemic, trying to get a

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Speaker 2: sense of how much they're learning in a given year.

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Speaker 2: And the most recent testing data shows that the learning

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Speaker 2: loss has far from been reversed and in some cases

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Speaker 2: has even widened over the last year, which I think

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Speaker 2: is surprising to a lot of experts who understood that

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Speaker 2: this was going to be a long term issue, but

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Speaker 2: the scale of that decline is quite eye popping. Schools

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Speaker 2: have known since the beginning that this is not a

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Speaker 2: stream of money that will last forever, but also school

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Speaker 2: district and budget officials they understood that this is short

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Speaker 2: term money. But it's very hard to spend in a

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Speaker 2: school district on short term things that are going to

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Speaker 2: be really effective, like ways that you catch students up

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Speaker 2: after learning loss. Lots of research shows that tutoring and

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Speaker 2: programs that are recurring are the most effective ways. So

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Speaker 2: it was a really delicate balancing act that these budget

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Speaker 2: officials had to do it.

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Speaker 1: Truly, so school districts all around the country are looking

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Speaker 1: at this giant shortfall. Why are we talking about this

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Speaker 1: now though, Because it doesn't really come into effect until

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Speaker 1: a year from now.

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Speaker 3: School budgets are often crafted well in advance. Some of

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Speaker 3: these school districts have projections for what is going to

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Speaker 3: happen not only just next year, but several years past that,

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Speaker 3: so they're already starting to think about what their revenue

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Speaker 3: and their expenses are going to look like for the

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Speaker 3: next school year. Even though kids have just recently gone

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Speaker 3: back to school and in the last few weeks, the

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Speaker 3: budget officials are just starting to say, okay, well, next year,

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Speaker 3: if I'm not going to be able to count on

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Speaker 3: this federal revenue, my expenses aren't going down. What is

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Speaker 3: that gap going to be?

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Speaker 2: Just to give you an example, New York by its

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Speaker 2: own estimates, expects a shortfall of about seven hundred million

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Speaker 2: dollars next year. That's because of the stimulus money they received.

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Speaker 2: That's how much money they have funneled into recurring or

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Speaker 2: programmatic expenses. One really good example that comes to mind

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Speaker 2: is the New York City early education program pre K

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Speaker 2: and three K. Almost all of that program expansion has

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Speaker 2: been funded by stimulus money, and it's a really important

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Speaker 2: time sensitive question as to how they're going to pay

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Speaker 2: for that when the stimulus expires.

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Speaker 3: In Chicago, the public school system here is staring down

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Speaker 3: a cliff of about six hundred and twenty eight million

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Speaker 3: for twenty twenty six. Now, Chicago public schools have been

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Speaker 3: a system that had been stressed before the pandemic and

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Speaker 3: this infusion of federal aid really did help bolster their

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Speaker 3: financial situation, and now they're looking to go back to

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Speaker 3: some situations that had stressed their budget to begin with.

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Speaker 3: So everyone sort of is looking at it at different times,

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Speaker 3: but nevertheless it's coming for many school districts across the country.

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Speaker 1: When we come back, an inside view from an educator

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Speaker 1: in New York City. Now, let's hear from someone who

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Speaker 1: sees what we're talking about today every day. Charles Ebeya

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Speaker 1: is a tenured English teacher and student counselor at a

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Speaker 1: public school in the Bronx. Charles, New York City public

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Speaker 1: schools got a lot of pandemic aid from the federal government.

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Speaker 1: What is your school using that money?

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Speaker 2: For?

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Speaker 4: My understanding is that that money was used to fund

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Speaker 4: more school counselors, social workers, school psychologists, all those positions

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Speaker 4: that aide students, you know, in terms of their social

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Speaker 4: emotional health, especially because coming back from the pandemic, so

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Speaker 4: many students have been in homes for a year, year

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Speaker 4: and a half, and I think there was an understanding

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Speaker 4: that they were going to be coming back with a

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Speaker 4: lot of trauma. Right, So many of my students are

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Speaker 4: title I students. So they are poor students, They live

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Speaker 4: in small apartments, their families, you know, like large families

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Speaker 4: in like one or two bedroom apartments, and for a

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Speaker 4: lot of those students, school tends to be a safe space.

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Speaker 4: And just like not having that space to go to

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Speaker 4: for over a year and a half and then not

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Speaker 4: being able to go outside and see people regularly. I

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Speaker 4: think there was just an understanding that these kids were

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Speaker 4: going to come back with a lot of primary trauma,

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Speaker 4: like maybe they lost family members due to COVID, and

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Speaker 4: of course like secondary trauma, they're you know, stuck inside

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Speaker 4: and there's a lot of isolation. They don't can't see

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Speaker 4: their friends. So I think the push was hire more

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Speaker 4: of that school based support staff in order to meet

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Speaker 4: the needs of our students when they came back into

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Speaker 4: the buildings.

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Speaker 1: Charles, and you are a school counselor what are you

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Speaker 1: seeing in the schools now that they're back versus when

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Speaker 1: kids were at home for the pandemic.

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Speaker 4: We're seeing a lot more behavior issues. We are recognizing

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Speaker 4: that kids, because they were able to learn remotely now

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Speaker 4: don't see value in being in the classroom the same

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Speaker 4: way they did before. And I'm thinking back to my

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Speaker 4: own experience when I was teaching eighth grade before I

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Speaker 4: became a school counselor, you know, for many of my kids,

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Speaker 4: they had been in school every year up until eighth grade,

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Speaker 4: middle of eighth grade, and then all of a sudden

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Speaker 4: they learned, oh, we can learn over a computer. In

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Speaker 4: the beginning, it was fun get to be home, you

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Speaker 4: kind of get to be on zoom. I would say

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Speaker 4: that that's probably the biggest, one of the biggest things

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Speaker 4: that came out of the pandemic. It was nice to

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Speaker 4: learn and we can learn remotely, but there were no

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Speaker 4: rules or parameters that you could put on it that

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Speaker 4: would make it feel like regular school. And I think

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Speaker 4: without having those rules of regular school, I think so

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Speaker 4: many kids just lost the what's the word, just like

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Speaker 4: the routine, you know, like because it is routine. And

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Speaker 4: I think into the next school year when the deal

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Speaker 4: we tried to do the hybrid model with some kids

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Speaker 4: staying home and some kids being in the building. We

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Speaker 4: saw the kids that were in the building, it wasn't

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Speaker 4: as many of them. They still had to maintain distance.

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Speaker 4: For a lot of them, they felt like, well, I

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Speaker 4: might as well stayed home. In my time as a

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Speaker 4: school council. I've had kids who now who were close

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Speaker 4: to graduating, who refused to come to school because they

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Speaker 4: were saying, oh, can I just do the work remote

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Speaker 4: because that was what they could do before. And then

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Speaker 4: you saw a lot more like antisocial behavior. Right, kids

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Speaker 4: are staying to themselves, they're not interacting with teachers. They

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Speaker 4: haven't interacted with adults other than their families for so long.

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Speaker 4: And as much as we try to make it be

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Speaker 4: a welcoming place, I think even as the adults in

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Speaker 4: the building, we're concerned too, because like we don't want

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Speaker 4: to get sick, we don't have the same kind of

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Speaker 4: interactions with our kids like we used to. You don't

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Speaker 4: want to give anybody a high five because you know,

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Speaker 4: spreading germs. I think you saw a lot more like

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Speaker 4: aggressive behavior, Like people are scared, so it's like stay

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Speaker 4: away from me. You hear somebody cough. And these kids

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Speaker 4: are the kind of language they use. I won't use

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Speaker 4: it on this podcast, but you know, like the things

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Speaker 4: that they say to each other, and I think the

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Speaker 4: fear made them say even meaner things. You call and

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Speaker 4: it's like, oh my god, you got COVID. You'll stay

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Speaker 4: away from me. You get a lot of that stuff.

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Speaker 1: New York City got a lot of this federal money.

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Speaker 1: It will expire soon. Where are your concerns if that

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Speaker 1: money is no longer there?

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Speaker 4: So, just like most jobs, I think this happens right,

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Speaker 4: you get the last in or first out. So if

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Speaker 4: there's no money in the budget to pay teacher salaries

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Speaker 4: or keep people aboard, that means you have to let

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Speaker 4: them go, right And in the Department of Education, it's

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Speaker 4: called accessing. If you just don't have enough money to

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Speaker 4: pay for teachers, that means you have to let them go,

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Speaker 4: which means that now your school may be short staffed.

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Speaker 4: Staff that you may have hired in order to meet

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Speaker 4: the means of all your students. Now you don't have that,

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Speaker 4: and that means you have to start cutting someplace. That

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Speaker 4: could mean cutting teacher salaries means letting teachers go, which

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Speaker 4: means now the teachers that are in the building are

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Speaker 4: stretched even thinner than they might have been. That could

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Speaker 4: mean that teachers may have to pick up an extra period.

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Speaker 4: It could mean less money for like power professionals. You know,

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Speaker 4: when you have your special led students that need somebody

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Speaker 4: to be in the room with them. That could affect

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Speaker 4: that if the special led teacher was one of the

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Speaker 4: last few hired and you have to get rid of them. Now,

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Speaker 4: the smaller number of teachers that you have have to

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Speaker 4: teach others classes, and now you're just spreading people thin, right,

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Speaker 4: And now those people who were okay and you know,

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Speaker 4: had a good work life balance are now feeling burnt

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Speaker 4: out because they're working an extra period. And we can

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Speaker 4: already see around the country right teachers are walking off

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Speaker 4: the job because they're not getting paid enough. So I

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Speaker 4: think when the money expires, because this is not if

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Speaker 4: it's a when I think it's just going to be,

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Speaker 4: the burden on the veteran teachers that are in schools

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Speaker 4: is going to be higher. I think you might see

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Speaker 4: higher rates of teacher burnout leaving the job for something better.

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Speaker 1: Charles, thanks for sharing your experience with us.

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Speaker 4: It's been my pleasure.

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Speaker 1: After the break, how declining enrollment is actually making this

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Speaker 1: funding problem worse, Nick, So we're looking at some pretty

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Speaker 1: scary shortfalls for a lot of school districts around the country.

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Speaker 1: What are they doing to fill in the gap?

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Speaker 2: I spoke to a number of school districts for this story,

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Speaker 2: and there are just as many answers as there are

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Speaker 2: school districts in the US. So one example that comes

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Speaker 2: to mind is Denver. They have seen sustained student declines.

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Speaker 2: Like a lot of districts in the country, They're losing

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Speaker 2: a good couple percentage points of their student body every year.

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Speaker 2: That's partly because the cost of living is becoming unsustainable.

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Speaker 2: Some families wanted to move out of the public school

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Speaker 2: system for better education prospects, but many have yet to

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Speaker 2: see their enrollment bounce back, and that is a little

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Speaker 2: bit counterintuitive. You would think that there's less students to educate,

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Speaker 2: it becomes less expensive, But schools have a lot of

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Speaker 2: fixed costs, so their janitors, their electricity bills, their maintenance,

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Speaker 2: those things don't go down when the students go down,

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Speaker 2: but they receive less money if there's fewer students. So

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Speaker 2: it's a really hard challenge for school budget officials. I

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Speaker 2: talked to the CFO the Denver Public School system, who

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Speaker 2: was very careful to allocate their money in ways that

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Speaker 2: they thought were sustainable. They didn't put a lot of

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Speaker 2: their money in recur expenses, but they did not sugarcoat it.

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Speaker 2: I mean, this is going to be pretty difficult for them,

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Speaker 2: especially if there's some sort of other issue that were

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Speaker 2: to occur, if they have some big expense that is

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Speaker 2: unexpected that pops up in the next couple of years.

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Speaker 2: Balancing the wage inflation with the end of the stimulus

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Speaker 2: money is going to be really, really hard for a

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Speaker 2: lot of these budget officials.

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Speaker 3: And if you look at enrollment trends, it's really not

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Speaker 3: looking like long term that they're going to turn around.

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Speaker 3: We looked at government statistics since the pandemic started, and

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Speaker 3: as Nick mentioned, we haven't seen that significant bounce back.

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Speaker 3: There might be a little up and down, but when

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Speaker 3: we look at projections going through twenty thirty one, the

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Speaker 3: government projections show that enrollment, which peaked it about fifty

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Speaker 3: point eight million students in the fall of twenty nineteen,

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Speaker 3: may go down to something like forty six point nine

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Speaker 3: million and twenty thirty one.

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Speaker 2: And one other point I'll just mention is that school

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Speaker 2: district officials are very careful to throw around these words

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Speaker 2: unless they're absolutely necessary. But really I think what's being

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Speaker 2: talked about quietly is the possibility of layoffs and even worse,

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Speaker 2: potential school closures. In some cases, it just becomes too

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Speaker 2: uneconomical to operate a school in a place where enrollment

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Speaker 2: is dropping so quickly, and those are very politically difficult,

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Speaker 2: and they're really hard on the communities too. Closing a

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Speaker 2: school is that's like a community anchor. And so these

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Speaker 2: are some pretty hard choices that are going to be

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Speaker 2: facing school officials in the next couple of years.

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Speaker 1: Truely, if we're looking at shortfalls of hundreds of millions

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Speaker 1: of dollars, even in a big city like New York,

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Speaker 1: that's just more than a city is able to make up.

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Speaker 1: So how are they going to do it? Even with layoffs,

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Speaker 1: even with cutting back programs, it seems like they're still

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Speaker 1: going to be in a very deep hole.

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Speaker 3: I think those challenges are long term. Some of the

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Speaker 3: people that Nick and I spoke with mentioned that the

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Speaker 3: fiscal cliff that people are talking about right now is

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Speaker 3: not necessarily new to some of the school districts. They

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Speaker 3: have long faced underfunding. They've long put out calls to

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Speaker 3: state and federal officials for higher funding. So for some

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Speaker 3: of them, they're just going back to that. They're going

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Speaker 3: to argue the same points in the hopes that state

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Speaker 3: and federal officials send more money to the classrooms.

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Speaker 1: Nick, one thing you write in the story is a

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Speaker 1: possible bright spot that housing values have risen so much

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Speaker 1: that that means that property taxes are going up to

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Speaker 1: in schools in many places are funded by property taxes.

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Speaker 1: Can that help in a significant way?

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Speaker 2: It definitely can. Schools are in large part funded by

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Speaker 2: property taxes. And over the last five years, I think

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Speaker 2: the media and property value has risen more than fifty percent.

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Speaker 2: I mean, the housing market has just been on fire,

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Speaker 2: and that means in one revenue stream, more money for schools.

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Speaker 2: But again, those gains are not uniform. In some places

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Speaker 2: that's stronger than others. And in addition, part of the

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Speaker 2: reason schools are losing students is because of that very problem,

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Speaker 2: the property values are becoming too expensive.

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Speaker 1: Nick, we talked about the shortfall and teacher pay. You

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Speaker 1: write that Los Angeles has tried to counter that with

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Speaker 1: really big raises, and yet they're facing shortfalls. How were

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Speaker 1: they able to balance those books?

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Speaker 2: So Los Angeles made the decision to give their teachers

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Speaker 2: a twenty one percent raise spread out over the next

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Speaker 2: three years in their most recent round of negotiations with

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Speaker 2: their union, and that brings the average teacher salary in

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Speaker 2: LA to about one hundred and six thousand dollars. That's

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Speaker 2: a very high salary in Los Angeles obviously has one

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Speaker 2: of the highest cost of living in the United States.

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Speaker 2: And the school's chief business officer, David Hart, is a

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Speaker 2: well regarded expert in his field, and they're thinking was

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Speaker 2: this is one of the most important expenses that a

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Speaker 2: school pays, and that they would rather attract talent and

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Speaker 2: fill some of the positions than have these big lingering

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Speaker 2: expenses crop up down the line.

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Speaker 1: And sure do you if you compare that with a

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Speaker 1: school district like Chicago where you are, it's a completely

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Speaker 1: different picture, isn't it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I mean in Chicago, the City of Chicago, the Chicago

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Speaker 3: Board of Education, and the Chicago Teachers Union are going

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Speaker 3: to enter into negotiations for a new contract next year.

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Speaker 3: And four years ago, in right before the pandemic started,

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Speaker 3: the Chicago Teachers Union actually led a eleven day strike

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Speaker 3: asking for higher pay, more social workers and nurses in

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Speaker 3: every single school building. And a lot of these topics

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Speaker 3: that we've been talking about are going to converge in

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Speaker 3: Chicago next year.

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Speaker 1: And you've written quite a bit about the Chicago Teachers' Union,

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Speaker 1: which is a very active union. What role are they

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Speaker 1: playing in all of this.

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Speaker 3: Well, the Chicago Teachers' Union is seen as one of

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Speaker 3: the most powerful political forces in the city of Chicago.

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Speaker 3: The current mayor, Brandon Johnson, who was elected earlier this

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Speaker 3: year and took office in May, is actually a former

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Speaker 3: social studies teacher who was a union organizer for the

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Speaker 3: Chicago Teachers' Union. So this coming negotiation next year is

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Speaker 3: going to be closely watched to see how that all

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Speaker 3: plays out.

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Speaker 1: Nick obviously a very big, complicated problem here, without a

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Speaker 1: whole lot of solutions and a bill coming Doe in

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Speaker 1: just a year's time. Is there any talk that the

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Speaker 1: federal government will step in once again with some sort

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Speaker 1: of stop gap payments to keep these schools from collapsing.

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Speaker 2: Well, I spoke to the chief operating officer of the

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Speaker 2: New York City Department of Education, which is the largest

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Speaker 2: public school system in the United States, and they made

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Speaker 2: clear that they planned to ask for some form of

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Speaker 2: federal assistance to try to blunt the impact of this

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Speaker 2: cliff that they're facing. They were not clear about who

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Speaker 2: specifically they would ask or how much money they would

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Speaker 2: ask for, but they did make clear that at the

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Speaker 2: rate that the school district is going they have more

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Speaker 2: or less two options, which are get additional money or

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Speaker 2: face some really serious budget cuts in the years ahead.

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Speaker 1: Truly, as you look ahead in your reporting, what are

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Speaker 1: you watching for in the next year.

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Speaker 3: Some of the things that parents, government officials, budget officers,

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Speaker 3: and anyone else who watches school districts is going to

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Speaker 3: watch is what the impact is going to be of

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Speaker 3: the pandemic on learning and the lass associated with it.

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Speaker 3: What are school districts going to do to address some

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Speaker 3: of that? Now, we have these budget concerns that we

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Speaker 3: are talking about that are going to be layered on

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Speaker 3: top of that, And one of the academics that we

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Speaker 3: spoke with said, you need to care about this now,

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Speaker 3: because if you don't care about now, don't be surprised

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Speaker 3: if you have forty children in one classroom in just

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Speaker 3: a couple of years. So that's one of the reasons

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Speaker 3: that these topics are really starting to be discussed now,

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Speaker 3: because people are starting to think about what is this

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Speaker 3: going to mean a year from now, five years from

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Speaker 3: now in the classroom.

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Speaker 2: I think something also that's important to keep in mind

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Speaker 2: is that even though it may feel like the pandemic

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Speaker 2: is over, some of the test results indicate that's far

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Speaker 2: from the case. The most recent nationally comprehensive testing data

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Speaker 2: shows that some students actually backslid versus last year, so

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Speaker 2: we're still seeing an impact on student learning. And these

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Speaker 2: are things that have massive implications for students' lives and

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Speaker 2: their livelihoods going forward. There's some research that shows the

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Speaker 2: pandemic may decrease students' lifetime earnings by upwards of tens

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Speaker 2: of thousands of dollars. And it's these programs, these interventions

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Speaker 2: in long term assistance programs that are are what are

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Speaker 2: going to really make or break students' futures going forward.

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Speaker 1: Nick Shrudy, thanks so much for coming on the show.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, thanks for listening to us here at The

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Speaker 1: Big Take. It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: For more shows from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen, and we'd love to hear from you.

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Speaker 1: Email us questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: dot net. The supervising producer of The Big Take is

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Speaker 1: Vicky Ergolina. Our senior producer is Katherine Fink. This episode

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Speaker 1: was produced by Sam Gabauer and Christine Driscoll. Kilde Garcia

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Speaker 1: is our engineer. Our original music was composed by Leo Sidrin.

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Speaker 1: I'm wes Kasova. We'll be back tomorrow with another big take.