interesting insight from Arizona

 In a report in The New Yorker from Arizona on a violent death of a young man by a gang in a wealthy, majority white town, there's an interesting insight into what school choice and vouchers may be doing to kids: 

Several parents told me that open enrollment contributes to a sense of unrootedness in the East Valley. That feeling was compounded when, in 2022, Arizona became the first state to implement a universal school-voucher program. Students can now have their pick of strip-mall schools, online religious homeschooling programs, or “traditional academies”—charter schools that emphasize discipline and often boast Roman columns out front. The voucher program was designed to help poor children leave failing schools, but a large majority of the money has gone to wealthy families whose children were already enrolled in private education. (The program has also led to a funding crisis for the state, which currently faces a budget shortfall of more than eight hundred million dollars.) “It’s really eroded the sense of community and destabilized what was already a pretty destabilized system,” Beth Lewis, the director of Save Our Schools Arizona, a public-schools advocacy group, said. “Parents will get frustrated with something going on, rightly or wrongly, and they just say, ‘Forget it, I’m going down the street.’ ” Weinberger, a former elementary-school principal, told me, “Schools have to uphold this image to maintain their enrollment. And, because there’s so much competition, principals are encouraged to minimize issues to keep enrollment numbers up.”

Feedback on the city's strategic plan

You can review the draft here. 
The feedback form is here.

Here's what I just wrote: 

Overall, it does not look to me as if the "partners" are actual outside partners, but are actually division assignments. And when there are "partners," being specific as to whom (rather than "non-profits," for example) would give rather more credence to the plan. 

In the health section, and throughout, any work with youth, the Worcester Public Schools must be listed as, but more than that, BE a partner. They aren't listed in several areas (youth violence, mental health), but instead are off in their own section, which isn't the best framing of this work. 

Transportation network doesn't partner with, nor mention, the WRTA or MBTA, and both are needed and should be part of priorities here. 

Focusing ONLY on funding facilities for WPS is to completely miss the ongoing responsibility of the city, which is funding operations; the city has not met net school spending for four years running. When will the city own up to having to fund *over* minimum in order both to fulfil that obligation, not to mention those to the actual children of Worcester?

It is also remarkable that rewriting the municipal agreement between city and schools is here, when it has not been mentioned by school leadership as a need. That makes me concerned that the city sees this not as a mutual process, but as a means by which more credit can be claimed for funding without meeting actual district needs. 

Overall, this priority does not have strategies that "invest in quality education."

How the state's opioid settlement distribution didn't understand school funding and how that disadvantaged cities and towns in regional districts

First, let's please give a MAJOR thank you to the teeny Harvard Press, which covers the town of Harvard, and has spent over a year working out how it is that their town received the funding it did through the opioid settlement.*

The article is here, and you are going to want to read it, even if all you care about in this scenario is school funding. Here are my bullets on why:

• Because Massachusetts has a weak county system, having the county government allocate the funds by town, as was done elsewhere, wouldn't have worked, so Massachusetts used a formula: it took spending by the town in nine categories that were potentially connected to the settlement--including education!--and then that amount was assigned a percentage of the county spending on all those categories within the county. 
  
  
• However, spending by the town to an “intergovernmental agency” was not counted, so town funding of regional school districts did not count at all.
  
  
• And majority state funded districts, like the cities are by design, were underrepresented, as only their local spending counted.
  
  

These are two flaws in this calculation that should have been immediately obvious to anyone who understands how school funding works in Massachusetts. 

Read this. Share it.

_______________________________________

*And let me just say now: if you're a bigger media outlet, and you pick up this story, you had BEST cite The Harvard Press as the source of the story. Don't be a schmuck about this.

Yes, we should be talking about Worcester Public Schools administrative spending, but not how it's been done so far

If you watched the first Worcester School Committee, you saw opening statements in which Member Binienda extemporized on publicly approved (by the prior School Committee) contracts of central administrators (as opposed to the internal changes she made as superintendent to administrative contracts not approved by School Committee, without letting anyone know) and Member Biancheria making the classic motion of the late Brian O'Connell: to cut half a million dollars from 'somewhere' in administrative spending. She did this out of order--they weren't on the administrative cost center; that will happen tonight--and she didn't have a motion on where to then move the funding.

The press, of course, obediently trotted out headlines about motions to cut administration that failed, lacking even the context of past history to tell us that this is precisely the aim: the headline, not any meaningful budgetary decision.

There is, however, a section on administrative spending that should be getting--dare we hope?--headlines, but that's in the back of the book. 

This year, the city's spending on schools calculation is reported on page 377 of the budget book; I noted in my review when the budget came out that it was the first place I check, as it's where we see if the city has met net school spending requirements. Of course, the city hasn't. 

Not every dollar spent on public education, Worcester or anywhere, is allocated by the school committee; there is money spent on behalf of the district by the municipality. On page 377, you can find that on in section 9:

For example, in Worcester, the school district doesn't get a water and sewer bill; the city tracks that, and reports it at the end of the year as school spending; for FY25, that is projected to be $735,399.
We have talked about this before when we talk about police, which is projected for next year as $542,304.

It's the third item here, the top line, that I'd like to call your attention to. There is, in any municipal district, things that only the municipality can do. They have (unless delegated) purchasing authority, for example. As anyone who has ever received a Worcester Public Schools paycheck can attest, they send out the actual checks. You can find the list of what the city and district have agreed upon as "allowable expenditures" on pages 378 and 379 of the budget. 

Notice anything about the past several years? Namely, that jump between FY23, when it was $6.6M to this current year, when it is $9M?
Yeah.

Now, let me be entirely honest: when I saw this in this year's budget, I was kicking myself, as I was on the Committee last year, and I, in my study of this page, didn't catch it! Well, there's a reason for that; here's the same section in last year's budget book for FY24 (the last column is FY24, which is the second to last above): 

Between last May and this May, the projection on cityside administration spending increased by $2.4M.
And no one has talked about that.

Because I always have Excel open, anyway, I ran us a little chart on what this line now looks like going back to  (remember, both FY24, which is the current year, and FY25, which starts in July, are projected, not actual): 

Cityside Administration Spending on WPS
FY17-FY25 (FY24 & FY25 projected)
Source: WPS budget FY21, FY24, FY25

And given what happened over the course of this year, one has to wonder if we can count on the $9.2M projection.

I'd suggest that someone should ask about this.
Oh, and yes: even with this claimed increase, the city is still under required net school spending. 

UPDATE: When this was asked during the budget deliberation:

1. the response is that this is due to the Workday system.
2. the Committee was told, in response to Member Mailman's question regarding the City Manager late in the meeting Tuesday telling the Council the city is giving the schools an additional $1.8M (the NSS budget gap for FY24). Per Mr. Allen's response: The schools are still reconciling numbers, have had additional out of district transportation costs in ...and would be looking to use it for that with some transferred to next year...full report to follow in July.
   There are eleven days left in the fiscal year. This is money that this Committee has not seen (and apparently had not been told of), has not voted a new bottom line to include, and has not allocated. When asked about the need to vote the money, Mr. Allen said that he'd need to check with the city auditor; it is a "transfer not an allocation" so it might not need to be.
   I have no idea what that means. 
   If indeed it is to be used for out-of-district transportation, that does not count towards net school spending.
   I am very confused about this, including how it is that it seems the only way anyone knew is because the City Manager told the Council during a meeting. 

Inflation, inflation, inflation

 As we've been saying around these parts since last fall, the major issue with this year's state budget on school funding is the inflation factor in the foundation budget, and Tuesday, MassBudget released their crunching of the numbers alongside some analysis of what the Governor and Legislature's failure to correct means for all of us.

The two most recent fiscal years, FY 2023 and FY 2024, had levels of inflation that exceeded the cap, reaching roughly 7 percent and 8 percent. In each of these years, the Commonwealth operated with the capped maximum of 4.5 percent, leading to a gap of roughly 6 percentage points collectively over two years.8 As it stands, the current formula is shortchanging the value of the SOA reforms relative to the cost growth now being incurred by Massachusetts schools, contributing to budgetary challenges and shortfalls. Two hundred and nineteen school districts are slated to receive less funding for the coming year than they would with a complete inflation adjustment, an issue that will carry into future allocations and imperil services for students until it is addressed. The average funding gap from unaddressed inflation for these districts is $2.1 million, but the amounts vary greatly across districts – with a maximum of over $28 million in Springfield to just $19,000 in Eastham and Rochester.

They've published a spreadsheet which runs three things:

The first scenario tracks the state aid that would have occurred without passage of the SOA; the second looks at the SOA if it continues to be implemented as it has been so far; and the third demonstrates what funding levels would be if the past two years of missed inflation was fully incorporated into the formula.

Not surprisingly, Worcester, at over $25 million, has the second largest gap in the state. That amount, of course, would have more than eliminated Worcester's budget gap for FY25.

As part of the release, there was a press conference at which Worcester figured prominently: you can read the T&G here, MassLive here, and let me know if you want to read State House News. Via MassLive: 

For Melissa Verdier, president of the Educational Association of Worcester, this year’s budget deficit is the worst she has seen in her over 20 years in the Worcester public schools.

“I’ve never seen this kind of crisis in our budget, or not one that affected so many,” Verdier said at press conference on Tuesday.

In Worcester, around 300 people are being laid off out of a workforce of 5,000 people, including classroom teachers, administrators and non-instructional staff, according to Worcester superintendent Rachel Monárrez.

Unless there is an 11th hour action in conference committee--which seems highly unlikely, as neither chamber took action on inflation in their own budget passage--it seems we've lost this year.

And those staff. And what that represents to our kids. 

Top six "wait, WHAT?" moments at Tuesday's Board of Ed

 The things that had me ranting on the way home, in chronological order:

1. Member Mary Ann Stewart AGAIN this month asking questions of a public commenter about an item not on the agenda, in this case on something on which a formal complaint has been filed against the Department, and persisting in doing so despite Chair Katherine Craven telling her not to.
   
   
2. Craven not ruling her out of order for doing so.
   
   
3. Our all learning together that MGL Ch. 15, sec. 1E does not specify "public secondary" schools for the Statewide Student Advisory Council, and so the voting student member of the Board of Ed next year is a student at a private school which is not subject to the Board's oversight.
   
   
4. Vice Chair Matt Hills asking if "from a policy perspective...not a moral perspective" if it didn't make more sense to concentrate the newcomer homeless students in districts that already serve such students, rather than districts that historically have not.
   h/t again to Chief Schools Officer Komal Bhasin for responding "with respect, our policies are influenced by our values" and to Acting Commissioner Russell Johnston for repeating and expanding on the sentiment when Hills persisted.
   
   
5. Member Marty West asking, yet again, if there isn't some way that the Board could direct districts in how they're spending their ESSER funding (yes, the funding that was directed by School Committee vote YEARS ago at this point).
   h/t to CFO Bill Bell patiently, again, explaining that the funding already had been directed and DESE had approved those plans.
   
   
6. Chair Craven responding that, if the Board couldn't do that, perhaps they could direct 3% of each district's Title I funding, as allowed under federal law?
   h/t to Acting Commissioner Johnston for observing that any such plan would have to be discussed with stakeholders, including superintendents who would now have only 97% of their expected Title I funding to direct.
   

Yesterday was haywire. Expect a coming post reviewing when everyone's terms are up!

Never ask a question to which you do not already know the answer

The above is variously ascribed to "lawyers," specified to "trial lawyers," is narrowed to "during cross-examinations," and dismissed as bad advice, but I will say this: 

if you are an elected official pursuing a certain end, and ask for a report that you believe will further that end, be very sure that the resulting report is going to show what you need to support your point.

While one could use several local issues to illustrate this point--the persistent demonstration that no, bike lanes and other road safety measures did not increase car crashes on Mill Street, no matter how many times the Worcester City Council asks is certainly one!--I would here direct your attention to the backup for this Thursday's Worcester School Committee, specifically pages 3 and 4, in response to a request for a report from Member Dianna Biancheria on district transportation.

It is absolutely crucial that whenever we discuss district operated transportation and the current Worcester School Committee, that we remember this August 21, 2021 Worcester Telegram & Gazette headline: 

Despite years of non-responsive terrible service and unfulfillment of the requirements of the contract, and despite repeated analysis that demonstrated that service would improve and would cost less--projected at $3.5M less--if brought in-house, when Maureen Binienda was superintendent, she recommended against bringing transportation in-house.

The Committee voted 6-1 (Monfredo opposed due to her opposition) to move in house in any case. 
Within the same article, the reasoning of one of those six votes in favor was given:

As any parent or student who experienced both would tell you, not only has service improved incredibly, service has also expanded, most notably to running--at no cost to families--buses for field trips and for school-related club activities. We also have much better working conditions for drivers and monitors, in part due to the transportation facility at 115 Northeast Cutoff, but also because working for the district means that the district deals with issues directly, and drivers and monitors aren't left to bear the brunt of poor service, as was the case with the contractor. 

It's also, of course, both state and nationally award winning, and from organizations that don't just take your word for it when you tell them that the numbers work. 

It thus was an odd choice when Biancheria spent part of the June 6 budget hearing--a hearing, let's remember, on a budget that has a $22M budget gap and does not meet required net school spending--asking a series of questions about the transportation line, finishing with a request for a report on all transportation spending.

That report is back for Thursday's meeting: 

Not only has the reason the district moved in house been met--we have buses that show up when they are supposed to in getting students to and from school--but the projections of $3.5M savings were lower.

The district is saving FIVE MILLION DOLLARS ANNUALLY by running their own transportation system.
$3.5M of that has gone back into the system--at a time when most transportation providers are still short drivers, Worcester will run the full 101 routes next year--and nearly $2M is being saved--at at time when transportation contract costs are skyrocketed at double digit percentages.

Aren't we glad we got this report, so we can celebrate even more success of this decision than anticipated?

June Board of Ed: FY25 budget

 Bill Bell on the FY25 budget

Senate has concluded their floor activity: they added a little over $20M in our accounts
from a process standpoint, the bill is in a conference committee
"HOPEFULLY sometime this month or early next month so we can have a timely state budget"
fourth year of SOA; continued support for circuit breaker and reimbursement for special education transportation
significant support has gone out to districts on the newcomer students: another data capture from March to the end of the school year in homeless students: probably another $10M for the period
"we await the final bill"
federal side: winding down ESSER obligation: about 64% claim rate for ESSER III; still close to half a billion dollars; "expect that to drop substantially over the summer"
district can spend through February/March 2026
Moriarty asks for a report on high dosage tutoring
West: "are there any special obligations" for district to spend the money out of 2026?
could we create a state process "with more prescriptiveness"
Bell: there is a process that we control on behalf of the federal government
districts "that have committed" funds
"there's not a new what they can spend it on; we've already blessed their grants"
"we expect the federal review is going to be light...we think that if we say it is okay, the federal government is going to say it is okay"
Craven: heard yesterday 3% "direct student services set aside": could "we reach in" which we have never done
Johnston: coming back in the fall; "we would want to engage with"
districts are used to getting 100% of their funds; then would only get 97%
"would want to engage with superintendents"
how about the SCHOOL COMMITTEES???

and adjourned! 

June Board of Ed: educational mission and vision with a focus on newcomer students

 This report is going to focus on newly arrived homeless students, but some reminders first
This is really the part where you can see Johnston leaning into the superintendency "these are the goals, and everything is tied to it" thing (which is good!)

DESE has now published the second annual Catalog of Aligned Supports to districts and schools, which is, he says, all the opportunities (PD, grants) in one place at once

June Board of Ed: Statewide Student Advisory end of year report

The Statewide Student Advisory Council reports out each year in June and this is that report, given by Ela Gardiner, departing student rep
Note that the SSAC is described at the end of MGL Ch. 15, sec. 1E which is the section that describes the Board itself; every secondary school is supposed to elected TWO representatives to their regional council

this year worked on financial literacy; MCAS graduation requirement; recycling and composting in schools; Narcan and CPR instruction

June Board of Ed: Commissioner Search

 Craven: "we are going to go back out" for search firms
hope to have more news over the summer
what nationwide reach in search 
get used to Johnston, looks like

The Board of Ed meets today: opening comments

 You can find the agenda for today's Board of Ed meeting (indeed, all of this week's meetings!) here. This meeting will be livestreamed here.

I will update this blog post as we go. 

And because I know there will be questions...

 Worcester has moved their last day to tomorrow, Tuesday, June 18:

The last day for most of the district was Thursday--for Burncoat, Friday, due to the cancellation in December due to no heat--and Wednesday was already off due to the state observance of Juneteenth. 

No doubt, some of you are wondering: Doesn't that mean the Worcester Public Schools won't go 180 days?
Yes! This  February 2011* memo from the late Commissioner Mitchell Chester explains what Worcester is invoking here, namely item 3: 

Districts will not be expected to make up any days lost to health, weather, or safety emergencies that occur after June 1.

Enjoy the break! Here's hoping Worcester gets some cooling stations and splash pads open early, eh?

_______
*Do you remember February 2011? I do. And then that was the October when we had a Halloween snowstorm...

The Board of Ed meets more than once this week

And if you thought their special Monday meeting to receive a report might be on the Racial Imbalance Advisory Council's report, which came out last week, you'd be wrong! No, Tom Kane has another report out on "education recovery"--he has a scorecard!--so they're having a special meeting. 
Gosh, it's going to be amazing when pet projects of individual Board members don't set agenda items. Also, it would be really smart if we had people OTHER THAN ECONOMISTS talking about the impact of the pandemic on kids.

Anyway, that's at 5 PM today, only online.

Tomorrow, the Board has their usual monthly meeting in Everett with a livestream at 9 AM. On the agenda (most without backups at this time): 

• an update on the Commissioner's search
• the end of year report from the State Student Advisory Council
• an update on DESE's educational vision (there's a link on newly arrived homeless students)
• an FY25 update

You're on your own for tonight, but I'll be liveblogging tomorrow. 

EDIT: I missed one: The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meets jointly with the Board of Higher Education on Thursday at 3, in an entirely virtual meeting. That agenda includes a presentation on research of K-12 and higher ed, as well as discussions of early college and the FAFSA. 

Read the report from the Racial Imbalance Advisory Council

 Don't read the Globe, which follows its usual "CITY SCHOOLS FAILING AND NO ONE CARES BUT US" storyline; read the report itself.

Even the report itself still underplays what is the main story--MASSACHUSETTS AMONG MOST SEGREGATED DISTRICTS IN COUNTRY AND NO ONE SEEMS TO CARE AT ALL--but at least its in there, and the fact that the segregation is among DISTRICTS primarily, matters.

School districts were not handed done on a stone tablet from some higher power, folks. We could change them.

for your coping

 

This is a lousy budget season, and watching deliberation may be brutal, so I made us a coping mechanism. (There are three versions.)
Remember, there are two rounds of budget deliberation, so hang onto this for June 20!

Some hard truths on the FY25 Worcester Public Schools budget

The Worcester School Committee begins budget deliberations on Thursday at 4 pm. 

As they start these deliberations, I did want to lay out a few hard truths ahead of that.

Twenty-two million dollars is a lot of money. 
As I have said every time I have said this, I don't mean to point out the obvious, but $22M is a lot of money. This is not solved through grant funding. This is not closed through administrative cuts. This is not going to be closed without position cuts in schools. 
I am absolutely certain that we are going to hear the School Committee spend a lot of time on slivers of the budget (and in some cases, probably self-righteously defend it as budgetary oversight), but unless you are actually grappling with the actual scale of the issue, you're not solving the problem. 
Don't bikeshed the budget gap.

This wouldn't have been an issue if the inflation rate was higher. 
I've heard some rather odd framing of the Worcester School Committee decision to front SOA increases with ESSER funds during the duration of ESSER, as if somehow the district was shocked that ESSER was gone and that was what was causing the gap. 
That isn't the case at all.
We in Worcester have known how much the SOA increases were due to be since SOA was passed; the only pieces of the puzzle missing have been enrollment changes--the enrollment for WPS this year was essentially flat--and the inflation rate.
And yes, everyone has known since ESSER III was passed that FY25 was the year it would be gone.
It is the inflation rate (as some of us started noting at the end of last year) that was the issue for this budget. 
With a 4.5% inflation rate, paralleling the past two years of inflation?
Worcester would be receiving $25M more in chapter 70 aid.

There's no more money coming ahead of the School Committee making allocations. 
I've recently seen some social media action decrying the proposed budget cuts, and while I entirely sympathize, the fact of the matter is that position cuts are coming, because the state chambers both passed budgets without meaningful increases for Worcester, and the Worcester City Council passed the WPS budget that is below net school spending. It is too late now to influence additional funding for the Worcester Public Schools for FY25 to stave off position cuts. 
There's a $22M budget gap. The School Committee has to deal with that, and we're going to live with the consequences.

The Worcester School Committee has to pass a balanced budget. 
Were I a betting person, I'd bet that there will be at least one, if not more, stirring "I refuse to vote for a budget that cuts [fill in the blank here]" before a split committee vote on this budget. This is not brave if you have not done a single thing to change the bottom line. The Worcester School Committee, like every school committee and municipality in Massachusetts, must pass a balanced budget. 
That means that this budget is going to involve cuts. And, as I've already noted elsewhere, the only place there is $22M in this or any like sized school district is in positions. 

Make no mistake: this is a lousy budget year.

The WPS links won’t work

Please note that due to the new WPS website, all links prior to today (dating back at least ten years) will no longer work. 

No one is more disappointed about this loss than I.