Sure, sometimes short term spending enables long term savings. And on an even longer time scale, how do improved outcomes figure in?

The significant factor is how a change like this is implemented in context. Within a public school system there may or may not be convincible political appetite to increase short term costs for longer term gains.

It seems that the district(s) studied are making those changes and studying the outcomes in order to make prudent choices long term, which is not flipping a switch but is doing more than nothing.