California Aims $2 Billion at Students Hurt by Remote Learning to Settle Lawsuit

In the fall of 2020, around the height of the debate over pandemic school closures, a lawsuit in California made a serious claim: The state had failed its constitutional obligation to provide an equal education to lower-income, Black and Hispanic students, who had less access to online learning. State officials distributed more than 45,000 laptops and more than 73,000 other computing devices to students, according to court documents in the case. But as many as one million children — about a fifth of California’s public school population — were left without sufficient access to online classes through September 2020, according to an estimate in court records. Now the state has agreed to use at least $2 billion meant for pandemic recovery to help those students who are still trying to catch up. And it includes guardrails for how the money can be used. he settlement will require school districts to identify and assess students who need the most support and use the money for interventions backed by evidence. Research shows that certain interventions—such as frequent, small group tutoring and extra learning time on school breaks—can produce significant gains.