Talking at cross purposes on state aid

Among the recent articles covering school budgets in the past week, three caught my eye for how they nicely encapsulate how much talking at cross-purposes there are in Massachusetts education funding discussions right now.

First, The Reminder covered last week's Springfield School Committee budget discussion in "Springfield schools face $3M deficit now while $20M cliff looms"

Next year, Roach cautioned, with the end of the Student Opportunity Act and declining enrollment, the School Department is facing a $20 million cliff. Roach said the department would need to make cuts. “If we manage tight this year,” he said the department may be able to roll over some funding to cushion the impact. He explained that municipal school departments are not legally allowed to operate a general reserve fund, and therefore, the department has been unable to set aside money for this eventuality.

“Twenty million dollars is a huge chunk of our budget,” Dinnall said. “It will hurt. We will feel it.”

Roach said, “We need to start advocating now for future budgets.” Monroe Naylor said it was not enough to speak only to the Western Massachusetts legislative delegation. “We need to show up,” she said.

Springfield, of course, has been one of the biggest gainers due to the Student Opportunity Act, as it has, as a school district, a large amount of student need--86% low income in the proposed FY27 budget--and a limited local ability to fund--14.67% target share--at the same time. That means that it's not only seen large increases in its foundation budget over the past six years due to the Student Opportunity Act; much of those increases have been picked up through state aid. 

Both of those were the intent of the Student Opportunity Act, to be clear. 

Because this year is the final year of implementation of SOA, those increases, as I mentioned last month about Worcester, are done. And because those increases have been having to be used to keep up with inflationary costs (rather than new programs!), those increases are going to hit hard next year for the districts that have been seeing such increases. 

This brings me to a worrying piece in the Taunton Daily Gazette entitled "Towns want more MA education aid. Would cities like Taunton get less?" While this is clearly framed as a way of getting some more conservative legislators on the record on if they'd increase revenue (*cough* taxes*cough*) or would redistribute the aid that already exists, it does reveal a worrisome lack of understanding about how the funding system works, it appears, among some who make decisions. If all one frames this as "it's not fair if I don't get as much," one has, bluntly, an unconstitutional opinion about state aid.

Finally, Brookline is among districts facing a tough budget season this coming year. I was struck as I read "‘Unrecognizable’: School Committee, administrators detail three-year cuts if override fails" of how much of the list of what, if cut, would make the Public Schools of Brookline "unrecognizable" are things that so many districts across Massachusetts not only have never had, but would never even dream of having.

That is not, that is never, to say those aren't things students in our public schools should have. But if we are going to use words like "fair" and "equitable," lets be very aware of what the context is in which we speak. 

Thank you to the Hopedale Public Schools for providing the sign for my illustration.