Massachusetts, we're going to need to be more accurate in how we discuss this

 Something I want to flag, arising from this article in last week's Boston Globe flagging--rightly!--the drop in immigrant students enrolling in our schools¹is a persistent miscommunication in the piece (from those quoted) about what happens to state aid to a school district if enrollment drops:

STATE AID IS NOT LOST.

Massachusetts has a "hold harmless" provision in the calculation of chapter 70 funding. That provides that every district gets at least as much aid as they got the year before.

If, once the full chapter 70 aid calculation is completed, a districts would get less aid than they would have received the year before, the hold harmless provision kicks in, and the district gets the same amount of aid they got the year before. To this then is added a minimum per pupil increase in aid, which by state law is $30/student but last year was $150/student.

While many of the districts discussed in the article are not districts that are usually in hold harmless--they're districts that not only are growing, but they have growing levels of need, both of which are provided for through the state calculation of school funding--they would nonetheless NOT LOSE state aid if their enrollment fell.

Their aid may well not grow by the levels to which they are accustomed, nor grow at a level to keep up with expenses, but it would not be "lost."

Let's not mess this one up.

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¹And huzzah again to new Boston Globe reporter Marcela Rodrigues who is keeping focused on this. It matters! And she gets the stories across well!