In the fall of 2015, a bipartisan Foundation Budget Review Commission (FBRC) found that the current formula understates costs — in particular, those for special education and employee health benefits — by as much as $2 billion a year. (The formula was set in 1993 and, by law, is supposed to be regularly retooled, but before the 2015 report, the state had not conducted a review for more than a decade.)
Since schools still have to service students with disabilities and provide insurance to teachers and staff, that means finding funds elsewhere. As a result, teachers, principals and parents complain of “death by a thousand paper cuts,” Chang-Diaz said in an interview.
“I hear things like a single social worker riding a district of 14 or 15 schools. Science has become a quote-unquote ‘special’ at schools in my district, rather than a given,” she said. “Those are the kind of choices we’re hoping to alleviate.”And $20 per pupil isn't going to do it. Here's my reminder from last year of how those "minimum per pupil" increases work out.
I'll post on Governor Baker's budget as soon as I have anything.
Oh, and:
2/2 @MassGovernor keeps referring to Ed investments as "historic" but ignores inflation. His $91m still leaves us 5.5% BEHIND fy02. #MASOTC pic.twitter.com/aeVGt5f4hu— Sonia Chang-Díaz (@SoniaChangDiaz) January 25, 2017
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