Investments That Pay Off: Pre-Pandemic Spending, Working Conditions, and Teacher Staffing in Low-Performing Schools During COVID-19

This study examines relationships between pre-pandemic spending, working conditions, and teacher staffing in low-performing U.S. schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our goal is to examine whether school spending before the start of the pandemic helped low-performing schools to better support teachers at its onset. We use multivariate regression models on nationally representative survey and administrative data capturing working conditions and teacher staffing. Results suggest that, within low-performing schools, increased spending was associated with teachers reporting more resources and higher levels of well-being during the pandemic. The findings are driven by results in the spring of 2020, when schools first closed due to the pandemic. These results provide evidence that the effect of spending is heterogeneous because low-performing schools benefited more from increased spending, relative to higher performing schools. This suggests that future school finance policies should consider strategic funding formulae that account for school performance and needs.