Schools Get "Enormous Windfall" From American Rescue Plan, Former Mass. Education Secretary Says

The most recent stimulus package signed by President Joe Biden — the American Rescue Plan — dedicates $1.8 billion for K-12 schools in Massachusetts, with Boston Public Schools getting $400 million.

“It’s going to be an enormous windfall for the school system,” former Massachusetts Education Secretary Paul Reville tells Boston Public Radio. “It’s going to mean an intensive period of first of all competition for how to spend that money.”

Reville said the next few months will be a period of politicking in Boston — in a good way — as the city goes through a mayoral race, emerges from the pandemic, and sets priorities for the future.

Biden has also just unveiled his infrastructure plan that proposes $100 billion for school construction.

Reville also discussed the state’s efforts to return students to schools, and new developments in vaccine safety for younger people.

Paul Reville is a professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, where he also runs the Education Redesign Lab. His latest book, co-authored with Elaine Weiss, is "Broader, Bolder, Better: How Schools and Communities Help Students Overcome the Disadvantages of Poverty.”