$10.1 Million Funding Remedial Education in Africa and Europe During On-going Pandemic

The U.S. Agency for International Development is offering $10 million to fund remedial education for grades three to five in the landlocked African country of Zambia.

In addition, the U.S. State Department is funding $150,000 for media literacy training for the general population of Romanian and Russian speakers in the Eastern European country of Moldova.

While the need for such funding in other countries may be evident, American students are struggling.

In the United States, learning has been interrupted, development delayed and there is a gap in access to technology needed for online learning.

Students fell behind in math during the pandemic, according to a report from Northwest Evaluation Association, a not-for-profit that administers standardized tests.

NWEA analyzed data from almost 4.4 million students in grades 3-8 last fall that showed students have fallen behind in math, as reported by the Associated Press.

Compared to 2019, students scored an average of 5 to 10 percentile points lower in math, the NWEA report found.

That does not include minority and poor students who were mostly missing from the 2020 testing, opting out because they stopped going to school or did not have access to reliable technology while learning at home, the NWEA said.

Is sending $10 million to other countries for their education while our students are struggling the best way to spend taxpayer money?

The #WasteOfTheDay is presented by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.