The most terrible and lasting effects of the coronavirus pandemic will of course be measured in loss of life. But a parallel tragedy will also be unfolding in the coming months and years, this one affecting those at the beginning of their lives: an unprecedented school funding crisis that threatens to disadvantage a generation of children. School districts in many states have yet to recover from the last recession, the so-called Great Recession, which officially began in late 2007 and devastated state and local education budgets. That is, many jurisdictions will be facing a possibly unprecedented funding crisis while they are still digging out from the last one. In this report, using data from multiple sources, the authors describe the effects of previous recessions, particularly the Great Recession, on K-12 education finance, as well as the federal, state, and local policies and trends that mediated--for better or worse--the impact of these downturns on public school budgets. The authors then use these lessons to offer recommendations for short- and long-term responses to our current crisis.