By Min Sun
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So how do we rebuild the basic education infrastructure? In a recent paper that I coauthored with Susanna Loeb and Alec Kennedy, we examined one program funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009—School Improvement Grants (SIGs). Starting in 2010, Congress invested a total of approximately $7 billion in five cohorts of SIGs. These funds typically doubled the grantee schools’ regular budget and were available for schools to use for three years. Drawing on data from four locations across the nation, which represent a geographically diverse group of states and local districts, we find that SIG program had substantial success in both short- and longer-term.
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