And with the Governor's signature, we have a budget. As a result, DESE has released final Chapter 70 and Net School Spending numbers (including, yes, a new complete spreadsheet: download away!).
Also, because Governor Healey did not make any changes to the budget, the conference committee numbers on the cherry sheets--for municipal and for regional schools--are now final.
Happy fiscal new year (ten days in)!
I posted about this over on Bluesky earlier this week, but I thought it also warranted attention here:
The Cambridge Public Schools moved to a model where all eighth graders take algebra, and The Hechinger Report wrote an article on it. Here is the headline they used:
Because Hechinger does good work, the resulting article is both worth reading and isn't the default "no" that Betteridge's Law has taught us to expect. This is a work in progress, and the jury is still out on implementation.
The Boston Globe sometimes picks up articles from Hechinger, and they did with this one. Here is how they chose to headline it:
Yes, I am still playing catch-up from being away!
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| the headline I saw from vacation |
The conference committee budget agreed to by both chambers does have a foundation budget review commission in it. As the guide to the outside sections notes, it is compromise language, which here means that they didn't just take the Senate's language, as, as you might remember, the House didn't have such language in the budget.
I'm going to include the text from the budget in full below; it's in two sections (64 and 111), covering the committee's charge as well as the deadline for the report of the next commission. I say next report, as the language appears to be (again, as this was also in the Student Opportunity Act) to be establishing this as a commission that is to meet periodically. The language establishes it "every ten years" but that's "[u]pon action of the general court."
There are two things that are interesting to me:
...I am not going to say "so you don't have to," because I think if you have an interest in education, you probably should at least skim the report, which is online here.
As always, this is me writing as me on behalf of me only.
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| This image deserves more space than it gets in the report, as it isn't bad thinking and it's a solid try at an outline. How is it, though, that they managed parallel structure for all but ONE of the items? The upper left one is crying out for a noun! |
completed the tasks described in the three conditions, around governance of their board
different than demonstrating sustained improvement
will have additional governance requirement; expected that they will apply for renewal next year
now having some conversation around the transportation item
condition was for them to develop a plan; they haven't fully implemented a plan
backup is here; public comment summary is here; redline is here
Martinez notes there's no money attached to this
strategic about what is in regs; "want to be nimble"
"not intended to create a significant financial burden to any of our districts"
balancing making sure that our children's needs are being met
You can find the backup here, summary of public comment here, and the redline version here.
Martinez, in introducing the topic, notes the intended move of special education from DoE to HHS at the federal level, stressing that it makes it that much more important that Massachusetts have strong laws and regulations to protect students.
