Short answer: No — not unless we build the measurement infrastructure first. New federal education grants are about to be awarded to states that have no consistent way to track whether the money produces results. We learned this lesson with ESSER; repeating it with the next round will waste another decade.
Key findings
- The ESSER experience showed what happens when funds move faster than measurement: the federal expenditure record is too distorted (rounded estimates, placeholder values, structured missingness) to support causal or equity research at scale.
- States that built data systems alongside their tutoring investments are the ones that can now describe what worked. The states that didn’t are guessing.
- Before authorizing the next wave of grants, Congress should require a baseline of interoperable measurement — common identifiers, standard schemas, audit trails — so the next $190B doesn’t disappear into the same fog as the last one.
Publication
Godfrey, J. (2026, May 1). New Grants Would Dump Education Money on States With No Way to Measure Success. The 74 Million.
See also
- Why is scaling high-dosage tutoring a measurement problem — companion piece on Accelerate
- How usable is the federal ESSER expenditure dataset for research — the AERA Benford’s Law audit
- What would an open standard for tutoring data look like — the DATAS open standard
- If the money moves do the metrics move too — earlier piece on the same theme
- How can states continue pandemic-era direct student services post-ESSER