Luc Schuster on poverty in education in Massachusetts: MASS/MASC

Schuster:
Poverty in MA runs along the same trendline as the U.S., but at a lower level
poverty has gone done a little in the past few years, but we're still above pre-recession levels
same trend is true of children in poverty
productivity continues to rise, but wages have not kept pace with productivity
up to WWII, the two tracked almost directly: benefit shared with all types of workers
benefits flatlined after WWII: productivity continues to rise, but workers did not see the benefit
reference to his article in Commonwealth on what wages would be in Gateway Cities if they had tracked with incomes rising together



support for early ed and care in MA: more than 1/3 of low-income kids get no public support for early ed
annual spending on out-of-school enrichment: lowest income families spend $1450 per year per kid; highest income spend $9800 per kid per year (from Duncan and Murnane, 2011)
how does this impact school spending?
"model school budget" created in early nineties Every Child a Winner
schools offer "many students the best few hours of their days"
extra resources provided for low income kids due to need
foundation budget rates reflect greater levels of need
"basic underpinnings of this makes a great deal of sense"
looked at how this is working now, 20 years later Cutting Class
32% less being spent on classroom teachers in the lowest decile than the adequate spending level
"this can still feel a little abstract"
the Foundation Budget Review Commission looked at this last year
review done by a Gateway city looking at gap in actual staffing in schools: larger class sizes, less support for students
"Expanding Opportunity" from the Rennie Center and MassBudget
point in updating formula is to recognize real costs

Massachusetts has one of the largest gap between lower income students and upper income students BUT both are higher than in other states
comparison bears out on black/white
not serving low income Latino students nearly as well: close to the bottom of the country on reading; 10th or so on math
one issue around how well our ELL services are doing (but not all)