Conference Committee passed with GOOD NEWS!

The Mass Legislature's Conference Committee has come out with a joint budget for FY13, and it has some good news for K-12 education!

The circuit breaker may well be funded at its statutory level of 75% for the first time since 2008. As a reminder: the circuit breaker kicks in for particularly high-cost out-of-district placements for special education students.

And the House proposal of $11.3 million for transportation of homeless students under the McKinney-Vento act was adopted by the conference committee!

The conference committee also adopted the Senate version of Ch. 70 funding; this was the somewhat less regressive of the two budgets ('though in neither, again, is Worcester getting an "extra" $40/pupil).

with, as always, gratitude for the analysis of the Mass Budget and Policy Center