Teachers from across the city descended on the high school where 80 yellow ribbons had been fastened to seats throughout the auditorium. Superintendent Kathleen Smith, in a grim voice, told everyone to look to the left and to the right: Each ribbon represented a colleague whose position had been cut over the summer in a painstaking effort to plug a $16 million budget gap.
Many teachers, though, needed no symbolic reminders of the departed: Years of painful cuts have left many of them with more students in their classrooms than they ever imagined, in many cases far exceeding acceptable levels in the affluent suburbs. Resources are running thin, too. Brockton was able to spend just $1.28 per student on classroom supplies during the 2016-17 school year, while Weston, one of the wealthiest towns in the state, provided $275 per student.
And there are charts!
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Oh, and note, by the way, how much the words of Superintendent Smith echo those of her predecessor:
The superintendent in Brockton is of the opinion that "the Brockton Public Schools are unable to provide the programs, services and personnel that are necessary to meet the needs of its students"; that "Brockton is not adequately teaching its students to read"; that "shortcomings in the history and social studies programs in the Brockton public schools . . . have severely undercut the system's capacity to educate its students to understand the society in which they live and to help students become enlightened participants in the democratic process as they become adults."That's from the McDuffy decision.
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