Some words from Secretary Tutwiler

Much of the time when someone like the Secretary speaks, the reporting (if there is any) focuses on the policy piece. This was true again yesterday, as reporting on Secretary Tutwiler's remarks at the Conditions of Education in the Commonwealth" event by the Rennie Center focused on early literacy. 

And no complaints! We need to know that!

But I also think it matters when our educational leadership gets it, when they show where their values are, when we can see that they're thinking holistically and about all involved. I thought Secretary Tutwiler's closing yesterday did that, so I am sharing those words here:

We promise to advance equity and inclusion, because every student deserves an education system where we’ve eliminated barriers and practices that further existing disparities. 

 We will maintain a holistic perspective, because every student deserves an education system that encompasses the broad array of factors that impact their learning and development, including but not limited to mental and physical well-being and their hierarchical needs. 

 We will embrace collaboration, because every student deserves an education system that values and embraces the perspective, experience, and expertise of the communities it serves. 

 We will champion innovation, because every student deserves an education system that welcomes bold, new ideas, sources input from a broad constituency, and strives for excellence through innovation. 

 And just as we bring our passion for student success to this work, we also bring our encouragement of one another as colleagues. 

We will strive to center fulfillment, because every student deserves an education system powered by joy and resilience. 

 Those values, from equity to innovation, describe the north star we’re envisioning for ourselves, for our schools, for our educators, and for our students. 

But we can’t do it alone. 

We rely on the partners in the room to carry out the investments, policies, and the work needed to meet these goals. 

So, thank you for your continued support. And together, we’ll strive onward.

A quick note on Thursday's upcoming Worcester School Committee

With the agenda for Thursday's Worcester School Committee meeting now posted, it seems we may need a quick explainer on a Worcester (it's part of Plan E) process, as Member Maureen Binienda has filed for reconsideration of the motion to allow students to march in graduation who have yet to complete 2 credits or fewer, a vote which she lost at the last meeting, 8-1.
I wrote about this back in 2014, but let's walk through how this works for this upcoming meeting.

Three things to pay attention to from last week's Board of Ed

In the days since Tuesday's Board of Ed, I've been reflecting on a few places where the meeting raised some flags with me.

The first Worcester School Committee meeting of the new term

The Worcester School Committee had their first business meeting of the new term (and new makeup) on January 18.
While I noted the change in the budget bottom line settled at the meeting (also noted by the T&G), it seems clear that this Committee where keeping the record straight is going to be necessary, and, while I do want to recommend you take a look at Bill Shaner's piece on last week, I think keeping track of what's going on will be helpful (and the tracking was kinda shaky in this meeting, to be honest, with roll calls consistently out of order and reported incorrectly more than once).
As always, I'm not going to pretend here to be anything other than what and who I am, writing as a citizen of the city, so you can read with that in mind. The commentary is largely in italics. 

For those who might find it useful on municipal contribution

I was over at Wachusett Regional this week, presenting on state school funding with a focus on how municipal contribution is calculated. Sharing the recording and the presentation should it be useful to others. 

I do think for regionals in particular having a solid, shared understanding of how municipal contribution is calculated is really important. 

Governor Healey FY25 budget recommendation

On Monday night, I did a presentation on this year's state budget for a group of western Mass school committee members and superintendents. My 48 hours ahead forecast looked like this:

What do we know about FY25?
The good news:
Governor Healey has committed to funding full funding of Chapter 70including year of implementation of the Student Opportunity Act.
The less great news:
The revenue picture has been grim, which may well tighten other accounts outside of Chapter 70.
The inflation rate in Chapter 70 is just over 1%

On Wednesday, Governor Healey shared her FY25 budget recommendation. The Chapter 70 preliminary spreadsheets are here. And the preliminary cherry sheet estimates are here.

I plan to do a spreadsheet, as I have in past years, of the K-12 accounts. I do want to cover a few bigger things here, though. 

First, we don't tend to talk a lot about the revenue side, except possibly from the Fair Share amendment, but let's note that there are some things being done to make the revenue happen. The way we're getting the schools funded is in part funding from previous years; as reported by State House News Service in WBUR:

The budget would fully fund another year of the K-12 education funding law known as Student Opportunity Act in part by drawing down $300 million from an investment fund specially designed to cover the costs of the law. Beacon Hill built up that fund in past years when the state was more flush with cash, and the withdrawal would leave about $200 million for future use.

Healey's plan would also pull $265 million from a similar early education and care affordability fund, fully depleting its balance.

There are other places in the budget that this is also happening; those happen to be Chapter 70 and early ed. 
I want to be fair in noting that this is exactly why we have such a fund. The thing about one time funding, though, is that it's spent once and it's gone. I think we need to consider what happens next year or the year after that. 

The other big piece on the Chapter 70 aid, as I mentioned on Monday, is the inflation rate. It's 1.35% for all accounts save health insurance. I think it's possible--and I think I've been guilty of this myself--that in the implementation of the Student Opportunity Act, we may have lost sight a bit of the fundamental principle of the state school funding formula: it's driven by two things every year, which are enrollment and inflation. DESE reports: 

Statewide, foundation enrollment increased from 905,106 in FY2024 to 905,331 in FY2025, an increase of 225 students. Foundation enrollment decreased for 165 districts, while 148 districts experienced enrollment increases.

If you're in a district with falling enrollment and not a high rate of low income students (thus meaning you're not getting the driving push of the SOA increases in low income rates), a 1.35% inflation rate isn't going to be enough to push a significant increase. It's certainly made it harder for districts still in hold harmless to get back out, particularly on top of the $60 per pupil minimums last year. 

Even the Gateways--and yes, I'm including Worcester in this--aren't seeing the same increases we have in past years, when the inflation rate was being driven by the pandemic spending of previous quarters.  

And no one's budget is increasing by 1.35%. 

That's big picture. More to come. 

Here's the updated this week inflation history. 

Hey, did you see this great write-ups of Superintendent Monárrez talking about the Worcester Public Schools' Strategic Plan?

 They went up earlier this week: 

• Worcester Telegram & Gazette
• MassLive
• Worcester Guardian

You can find the district strategic plan on the website.

The Board of Ed meets in January: accountability

 and the backup is here

The Board of Ed meets in January: safety

 all we have on this is here

Anne Gilligan, who is the Safe and Healthy Schools Coordinator
The Commissioner notes that the Governor's office is doing some additional work with police and fire, so this is an abbreviated report
specifically looking at evacuation plans and medical/behavioral emergency health plan

"big three" be at the table: educational leadership, police and fire

federal grants for school safety; about 110 districts meet the eligibility criteria
webpages to support districts in the development of their plans

collaboration between public and private in districts across the state

Moriarty: speaking on facilities today, speaking to behavior at a later meeting
on the anti-bullying statute
"it has been my unconfirmed belief...that there has been a massive dysregulation of students"
He says he bases it on newspaper accounts
internal screaming about how he's deciding this

The Board of Ed meets in January: Teacher of the Year

award winners 2024 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year De’Shawn C. Washington and Milken Award winners Michelle (Shelley) Terry and Andrew Rebello

Shelley Terry from Plymouth North High speaks of her unique and engaging experiences she's been able to give students
locally developed curriculum built on the standards
"what I personally love about my department is we are not required to use a certain program or textbook"
if you think that this isn't directed at recent efforts to centrally require curriculum, you don't understand teachers
"deeply personal discussions...contribute to their personal growth and development"
"having the ability to create magic in the classroom..is what keeps me coming back day after day"
cell phone hotel; students spending hours on cell phones
"students have rarely had to be bored"
I will say that much of my generation watched TV when they came home rather than read books, to be fair here
"our world has changed"
"sometimes the most frustrating is when the student who can't read won't"
"a happy medium between the past and where we were today"
put books in people's hands, educate about screentime

Andrew Rebello from Diman Regional, notes that he is a "proud New Bedford High graduate"
work that teachers have done: 98% graduation rate, chronic absenteeism down to 4%
"turn the impossible into the inevitable"
"one size fits none"
"our life ready mission extends to everything in schools"
dress code extends to not having cell phones in schools 

De’Shawn Washington of Lexington Public Schools (who's our state Teacher of the Year)
he teaches elementary school! Isn't that great?
notes that he's the first Black man to be the first MA TOTY
building up the child in who they're going to be and in who they are
great reminder of building up civic minded individuals in our society
"I am an active and engaged learner"
developing a curriculum, developing children 
"I am still learning"
call to service in this year of being teacher of the year
supporting our students in their current being
"The call of service is a real thing...I get to do an awesome activity called listening"
"what's happening in our schools, what's happening in transformative learning"

The January Board of Education: opening comments

 The Board of Ed is holding their January meeting today at the Department's new location in Everett. 

You can find the agenda here. The meeting will be livestreamed here.

Governor Healey has appointed Dálida Rocha to the labor seat on the Board; she lives in Worcester(!).

A quick note on Worcester Public Schools FY24

 While I plan to write up what did (and didn't) happen at the Worcester School Committee meeting on Thursday (very interesting meeting!), I did want to quickly note that the T&G caught the news of the night, which was setting a new bottom line in the FY24 (current year) budget. While the backup memo is posted here, the School Committee agendas now have backups that go to Google Drive files that don't allow download or copying, so I've screenshotted and posted the full memo here. 

I hope the Committee changes that; it makes it feel as if access is deliberately being limited. As they aren't being posted as PDFs, it also means one cannot mark and link to particular pages. 

There's really two pieces of news here within this memo:

The first, coming with the final vote on the FY24 (which, remember, started in July), is that, as was noted at the first quarter report in the fall, the charter reimbursement for the Worcester Public Schools is not fully funded: it's $688,455 short. That amount was cut from the paraprofessional account--an account, as was also noted in the first quarter, with vacancies--and the new bottom line for FY24 set that much less. It's that $688,455 less from the $1.2M that was already moved out of the account in the first quarter report.

The new bottom line of the budget is $461,862,571 in the general fund.

And kudos, incidentally, to Member Sue Mailman, who, in her new capacity as MASC Division IX chair (as of January), noted that this was an issue for state level advocacy, and made a motion that passed 8-1, Biancheria in opposition, to raise at the state level, including with the state delegation. One of the pieces of the Student Opportunity Act is that charter reimbursement is to be fully funded now. Worcester's, at least, was not. That's wrong, and we should be clamoring about that to say the least. It's a core piece of the School Committee's fiduciary and advocacy responsibility to see that our reimbursements are fully funded. 

The second piece of news is the school piece of a City Council item from December 5; tucked in among the finance items the night of the tax classification hearing was this memo (that link goes to the Council version) that creates, with an initial investment of $1M, of a school capital maintenance fund.
As Mr. Allen outlines in his accompanying memo to the Worcester School Committee: 

It is, of course, a longstanding need, but it has gone unrecognized til now, as the schools' capital funding has been level funding. It is the prioritization of school facilities under Dr. Monárrez and the collaboration with City Manager Batista which means we've finally moved beyond people talking about it, to something being done about it. 

A hopeful beginning to the FY25 process in Worcester. 

Full WPS memo:

The Board of Ed meets Tuesday

 You can find the agenda here. The Board is meeting at the Department's new location in Everett. 

The meeting is opening with introductions of (and possibly presentations by?) the Teacher of the Year and the Milken Award winners. 

There is then a presentation (I guess?) on school safety

Then, yes, Commissioner Riley is pushing ahead with his insistence that the Board change the state accountability system to increase the weight of chronic absenteeism. You can find his memo on it here. In it, he says:

At the January meeting of the Board, I will discuss changing the system to include three years of data in the 2024 accountability results, with more recent years weighing more: 15 percent for 2022 data, 25 percent for 2023 data, and 60 percent for 2024 data. 

The big change, though, has been whisked away to the summary of the accountability system, In it, the proposal is to increase the weight of chronic absenteeism from 10% to 25% for elementary and from 5% to 20% for high school.

I just want to note that not putting the proposed change in weight in the memo is terrible. It looks like an attempt to slide this by. 

The Commissioner no doubt will tout their "support" for school districts, which has been $10,000 per district...which isn't enough to do much with. And then there are of course Secretary Tutwiler's ads.

Note that a change of this type at this point, 55% or so through the year, counts for more than double, essentially; less than half the year remains. This is simply irresponsible. 

And that's, of course, setting aside that there has been no attempt by the Department to find out let alone work on the reasons why students aren't attending school. 

Assuming we get through that, there will also be a budget update, the day before Governor Healey proposes her budget. 

I'll be blogging. 

As ongoingly true, and as it says on the blog itself, the above is my own opinion. Me. Personally.

Yes, Dr. King wrote this but he wrote a lot of other stuff on education, too

 Just a quick observation today that the most oft-used quotes of Dr. King today on education:

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. knew the power of education to break down prejudices & create opportunities for all. Today, we remember his commitment to a more equal & educated society. #MLKDay pic.twitter.com/oHT6xVyA2K

— U.S. Department of Education (@usedgov) January 15, 2024

...is from a piece he wrote while he was a student at Morehouse. 

It is a fine piece that makes a relevant point, but he did make many, many other points about education along his life, and it's interesting to me that this is the one we hear repeated, not those on distribution of resources, or desegregation, or any of the perhaps more challenging ones.

Reminder from a friend: 

Let's make sure we know what we're modeling ourselves on, please

 I once again and more than once this week found myself ranting about the Boston Globe (more on that to come). The first time was an editorial of January 8, which held up Worcester Tech's admission in a piece that argued that the state should move vocational schools towards lottery admission. 

Setting aside for the purposes of this post the larger question of vocational admission (I'd sum up my view as A) we're discussing the wrong thing and B) continuing to ignore how segregated our school districts are), I do think the piece gives readers the impression that Worcester Tech has an open lottery system for admission for ninth graders.

It does not. 

Pages 5 & 6 of the Teaching, Learning, and Student Support subcommittee agenda of November 14 of last year outlines Worcester Tech's admission policy. It is not an open lottery system; students are ranked by number of absences and what is called "discipline and safety" in setting those from whom the lottery will pull. Students must be "eligible" for the lottery. 

If we're going to hold things up as models, let's please describe them correctly. 

Two policy issues worth attention

Mental Subtitle: "The Eternal Quest to Get Worcester To Abide by Civil Rights Cases Already Decided"

Two issues related to fairly recent court decisions were discussed this week in relation to Worcester, and I do just want to flag them (pun, as you'll see, intended) for those perhaps not familiar. 
As always, I am not a lawyer.*

Open question on appointments for Worcester School Committee subcommittees

 Mayor Petty announced earlier this week that he wouldn't be appointing subcommittees for the Worcester School Committee until "all members are eligible for chairmanship," deeming this part of the "equitable opportunity for representation," as reflecting the new committee structure. Under the rules of the committee as passed in December, members must have taken the state mandated training in order to serve as vice chair or chair of a subcommittee.

Setting aside the the degree to which the committee may reflect "equitable opportunities for representation," this seems to miss that meeting the state mandate is of course a minimum bar; chairing a subcommittee would, one hopes, also reflect close attention to and demonstration of the role of the school committee in district governance; ability to run a meeting according to parliamentary procedure; and, ideally, experience in the ongoing work of this committee in particular. One would certainly hope that such standards would apply to the appointment of a role in leadership. 

Also, I do wonder what happens, as has been true in every committee to serve since the mandate started in 2002, save the last committee, if not every member chooses to go through training. That self-imposed "all eligible" condition would appear to rather tie the hands of the chair. 

The midyear budget cuts are bad, but the news on FY25 is worse

 Well, there's a happy headline, huh?

It was the mid fiscal year 2024 budget cuts that got the headlines earlier this week, as Governor Healey, using authority granted her under MGL Ch. 29, sec. 9C (thus "9C cuts") cut $375 million from the current state budget. While those cuts must come from the executive branch, and so couldn't hit local aid including chapter 70 aid, grant programs in education did get cut, including extended learning time, dual enrollment, school-to-career connecting activities, student wellness school support, and advanced placement math and science programs. Additionally, the allocations for both the 21st century education trust fund and the STEM Pipeline were cut. The Governor's office framed these cuts as either bringing the accounts either to what is projected to be needed or to that already awarded.

The Governor's office also rolled back the projected bottom line of this year by a billion dollars.

What you may have missed in that news what the consensus revenue figure for FY25 that was released at the same time. That figure is what the executive and legislative branches (both House and Senate) have agreed will be the bottom line for the coming fiscal year budget.

For FY25, that is $40.202 billion. That's $208 million LESS than was passed last year for the fiscal year we're in now. It will be more than what this year's budget is projected to be now that they've rolled back the bottom line, but it's crucial to understand: it will be LESS than what we used for this year during budget deliberations.

They've also agreed on $1.3 billion in surtax revenue; that's the Fair Share money. This year, it was $1 billion dollars, so this is $300 million more. As the Senate then released on Thursday that they're looking to put $170 million into community college, that's more than half spent. 

Buckle up. This isn't going to be a good budget year. 

Interesting little note on the Commissioner's push to increase chronic absenteeism in the accountability system

 ...in this WBUR piece on Secretary Tutwiler coming soon to a television near you:

Tutwiler has long argued that absenteeism is often driven by the “unmet needs” of students and their families, including stable housing. And indeed, among the 59 Massachusetts schools and districts where 30% or more of students were chronically absent last year, all but seven enroll majority low-income students.

Tutwiler acknowledged that some student needs are inevitably “beyond the scope” of educators and school administrators.

But he said that he’s “unwilling to give up,” and hopes to pursue a partnership with community-based organizations that can help families find housing, food or employment. “I feel pretty optimistic,” he added.

MCAS scores and other indicators show that the state is still midway through a fragile academic comeback that depends in part on a return to regular attendance, Tutwiler said.

He stopped short of endorsing Riley’s proposal to fold chronic absenteeism into the state’s school-accountability framework, saying only that he will remain engaged in the process for approving that change.

Hm. 

Meanwhile, we're seeing spikes in COVID, flu, and RSV, and vaccination rates are not nearly what they need to be.

Why the Kids Online Safety Act isn't

Here's one I have been intending to post about for awhile!

A bill called the "Kids Online Safety Act" sounds like motherhood and apple pie, right? Surely we all want kids to be safe online?

But much like housing developments that are named "Fox Run" or "Maple Grove" or otherwise after things that are not there, KOSA would in fact make kids--and a very particular kids about whom we already have reason to worry--much less safe online. 

This is Shadow.
Shadow is a sheep who lives in Worcester and is not a wolf pretending to be a sheep.

Yikes! State revenue still down from projections

Hey, I don't want to unduly alarm you all, but state revenues are still down. 

Hey, can we talk about how weird the Board of Ed in December was?

a white tee shirt says "A lot going on at the moment"
(as seen on Taylor Swift)
This is actually one I bought as a gift more than once.
I hope that doesn't violate an anything?

I feel like this kind of got caught up in the December crush, but can we note for a minute how WEIRD the December Board of Ed "is there an agenda/yes, there is/it only has two things/oh wait no meeting after all" thing was?

A primer to the 2024-25 Worcester School Committee

 as requested

As I regain today what Justice Louis Brandeis referred to "the most important office,"¹ I offer here in that capacity² a primer to the 2024-25 Worcester School Committee. 

This does not pretend to be exhaustive, but to, as the title notes, present some foundational elements on which to build.

Three to read which give some insight into the state of school governance

•  First up, do read Matt Barnum in the Wall Street Journal on the effort to desegregate districts. But don't call it busing (...sigh. Such a terrible understanding we have of busing)
  'Though it comes pretty far in, I thought this part was really key:
  

  Advocates now emphasize voluntary strategies to achieve integration, rather than mandatory cross-district busing, an approach that can “generate enormous amounts of public opposition,” said R. Shep Melnick, a political scientist at Boston College. 

  Gary Stein, a retired New Jersey Supreme Court justice who led the suit in that state, said plaintiffs are seeking to create new magnet schools to attract white families into urban districts and to allow students in urban areas to transfer to suburban school. 

  “We don’t think that forced busing and countywide school districts are options that at the moment are politically palatable,” he said.

• Turns out that those pushing for state funds to be available for homeschoolers may have just triggered a pushback on what has been a few decades long effort to dismantle state oversight.
  

  ...home-school advocates are also facing pressure from an unlikely source: the school-choice movement, which pushes for families’ access to tax dollars for private education. Although both movements believe public schools are failing America’s children, school-choice advocates are more open to accountability measures, such as standardized tests, in exchange for public funding.
  
  After years of pushing vouchers for private-school tuition, those advocates are now championing more flexible spending accounts that could be used by home-schoolers, too. But the proposals have divided America’s home educators, with many arguing that accepting government money and oversight is a surrender of the liberties the movement worked for 40 years to achieve.

• And speaking of school funding, the push to create a Catholic charter school in Oklahoma gets a close look in this Politico piece.
  

  Behind the effort to change the law are Christian conservative groups and legal teams who, over the past decade, have been beneficiaries of the billion-dollar network of nonprofits largely built by [Leonard] Leo, the Federalist Society co-chairman.

As Harvard goes...

 ...this is really bad news in the ability of education to resist, frankly, fascism.