Feedback on the WPS rezoning

Submitted this evening to alignment@worcesterschools.net

I went to the most recent meeting

Thank you for providing a method for feedback for the proposals for rezoning the Worcester Public Schools.
Because I have been following this process entirely through the printed reports, I assumed that I was simply missing the place that the foundational data for decision-making, that of demographic changes proposed, were being shared. I attended this past week's subcommittee meeting in expectation of seeing what had, at least, changed for that between proposals one and two.
Nothing of the kind was shared, and, I found from asking after the meeting, nothing of the kind has been requested by the district.
Frankly, this is so foundational that it is difficult to view this as an oversight; one wonders instead if this was simply not going to be raised. It was noted to me that equity between and among students of the district is not among the priorities set by the district for this work. Upon looking, I found this to be the case; those "goal and focus areas" are:
🔹Address school capacity imbalances
🔹Adjust pathways from elementary to middle to high school
🔹Potentially expand full-day preschool
🔹Potentially expand school bus transportation through adjusting school day start- and end-times
I am not clear on who set these--I'd assume significant policy changes like these were voted by the School Committee, but I do not know that for certain--but again, the oversight of improving the equity for students across the district, a district that has within its borders vast chasms of inequity of access, of building condition variation, of external support, of expectation, of green space, of HVAC, and so on down the list, is a shocking oversight.
It does, however, explain how the most significant changes from proposal 1 to proposal 2 could happen. If equity were at the heart of the work, the heckler's veto of double digits of emails plus a news article would never have removed from consideration the restoration of St. Nicholas Avenue to a neighborhood elementary school. A school that has half the number of English learners and a 30% lower poverty than the district average is not one that needs further advantage from district consideration (and I say this as the parent of a WAMS graduate). The lines of Nelson Place and Norrback, I submit, are not those that should most concern policymakers in the district, either.
Thus, my first piece of feedback is for the Committee to rectify that oversight in the direction given to the consultant who is, after all, only doing as asked. For the district to undergo such a major undertaking ignoring, intentionally or not, which children are impacted and where is an abrogation of your responsibility to us all. Are your decisions going to make our district more segregated by income, race, ethnicity, and language than it already is? Will you be further concentrating advantage?
Right now, you literally do not know.
My understanding is that this data is not only being tracked but is readily available. Please ask for it and use it.
I would also suggest that the process itself is problematic, insofar as some number of bits of feedback are enough to remove prospects from the table (leading to, I note today, possibly further misleading press coverage) for another round of proposals. The district cannot--or at least should not--make decisions purely based on the objections of a handful of those most involved. These decisions will, I suspect, outlive the attendance of all by the youngest of current students. They must be made from that perspective.

In passing, it was noted that part of how the schools are being balanced out is through the movement of sub-separate classrooms that are not considered--I guess?--really part of the schools in which they sit. For a particularly vulnerable population to be shifted through this behind the scenes slight of hand, potentially further disrupting the education of those least able to hack it, and who have parents whose plates are already far too full, simply isn't fair.

If you are going to make this big a change, this is your time to change high school start times. The science on this is incontrovertible, and we have now known that for decades. It is not in keeping with the academic best interest of students for high school to start at 7:20, period. This is also not an impossible change; we have models within the state where the entire athletic league changed high school start times at once (and we have had that information also for years now). Certainly, Worcester is of a size to lead this change. If you will be expanding services for preschool (though I observe that rather important deference to resources), you can also expand before and after school offerings. There is a right way to do this. We know what that is. Keeping high school at 7:20 is not it.

Finally (for now), I was puzzled by how access to specialized high school offerings was framed. My understanding within my WPS experience was always that programs were at particular schools in order to keep students at those schools (and in many cases, to make some provision for those who could not attend Worcester Tech). It appears that someone has now suggested that equalizing access should be provided to all programs across the district, creating a new puzzle of how this should be done.
Somehow, this is still involving what purport to be advanced programs that are continuing to admit through MCAS scores, as well, though we know there is no tie between giftedness and MCAS performance. I'd suggest to you that it is well past time for consideration of just what advantage is being conferred and to whom through such admission, in this case, as well. Those programs also were created to keep and attract particular students to particular schools; let us not deceive ourselves by pretending otherwise.
Thank you again for providing a means of feedback.

The Board of Ed meets this week

 And it is MCAS and Accountability release week.

The agenda for the Board of Ed can be found here. The MCAS data will go up on the school and district profiles at 10 AM Tuesday. As a reminder, always check the accountability data, as it's much more complex than just the testing, which will inevitably grab the headlines. 

(Yes, that's why that whole section of the website will be offline starting at 3 tomorrow.)

In addition to the release of MCAS data and accountability status, the Board has some start-of-the-year housekeeping--election of the vice chair, introduction of the new student member, the appointment of subcommittees--plus something on the literacy law implementation, which expanded the Department's authorities on determining what curricula is used, a power that had belonged to school committees in Massachusetts until now. 

There's also an update on DESE's strategic plan. In one of the ongoingly places I find the relationship between the Commissioner and Board confusing, it appears the Commissioner is simply announcing it, not presenting it for approval, despite (I'd assume?) the Board being in charge of setting of goals and overall direction. 

the first appointees to the Foundation Budget Review Commission

 While some of the Commission is set by the legislation, some are appointed. Governor Healey today announced her picks: 

 Governor Maura Healey has appointed Kristen Smidy and Amy O’Leary to the Foundation Budget Review Commission. 

Smidy is the former superintendent of the Gateway Regional School District and currently serves on the Board of Ed; O'Leary is the  Executive Director of Strategies for Children. Both are from western Mass, which the Governor notes in her press release. 

Worth a read this week

 Things I have been reading: 

• This story from The 74 on how Boulder, Colorado parents worked with their district to change (very much in process) how students with autism are worked with in the district.:
  

  Modern practitioners defend the intervention, saying ABA no longer subjects children to physical punishment. Yet documentation of its harms is mounting, as researchers — including autistic adults who underwent ABA as youngsters — gather evidence that the therapy has caused widespread PTSD. Autistic children may no longer be subjected to electric shocks or slaps to the face — and the word “aversive” may sound kinder than “punishment” — but they are routinely denied food, toys and comfort items, as well as adult attention, a strategy practitioners industrywide call “planned ignoring.” ABA providers still frequently restrain children or confine them in isolation — practices recognized as so dangerous and traumatic as to be illegal in most circumstances in Colorado schools.

   I learned from this that the person who created ABA, Ole Ivar Lovaas, also created conversion therapy, which is of course banned many places. 
  
  

• The Boston Globe looks at parents who are organizing for more recess in schools. From this I learned that there is a national "Say Yes to Recess" group. 
  I will say, though, that I'm a little tired of the Globe doing this "in a bill pending before the state legislature" coverage when the Legislature is done with formal sessions. 
  
  

• In the state ballot questions campaigns here in Massachusetts, it's Smith and Wesson bankrolling the "no" vote on question 9 (which would repeal some gun control measures), with the largest funding for "yes," which keeps the legal language, seeing its biggest funding from the teachers' union. You can find that reporting here.
  
  

  

  not hard, eh? Vote yes on 9.

  
  
• Connecticut, which is among the states that allows no religious exemption to school vaccine requirements, just had that requirement upheld in the courts.

What could one do with the Department of Education?

 As the current administration daily posts another round of  nonsense about "returning education to the states"--the place education has been overseen since we have had a constitution*--the framing of an alternative has been kind of weak. "Let's not destroy the U.S. Department of Education" is a good start, but reaffirming the mission of the Department has been rather lacking.

I was intrigued, then, to read Kevin Carey's piece in Democracy entitled "A Department of Education--and then some" which outlines a bigger vision:

The Department of Children and Learning (DCL) would do everything ED is charged with by statute while incorporating children’s programs currently located in other federal agencies, including the school lunch benefits located at the Department of Agriculture and the Head Start and child-care programs housed at the Department of Health and Human Services. As any parent can tell you, health, nutrition, and learning all go together.

The DCL would be organized around three main purposes: funding, research, and civil rights. Its mission would be ensuring that foundational education services and the latest scientific findings and technological advances are available to all students, regardless of who they are or where they come from. Existing programs that don’t contribute to this core mission would be replaced.

What is particularly interesting to me is that Carey actually talks about what very, very seldom is: school districts:

But as it is practiced in U.S. education, “local control” is a false promise. It means that local school districts—and in the privatization era, individual families—are left alone to search and struggle for enough resources to purchase what an indifferent and unforgiving market chooses to provide. It means that students destined to compete in a global economy are tied down by how much money their neighbors happen to pay in property taxes. It condemns teachers to crumbling buildings and outdated curricula. It means that the various institutions charged with the care and education of children don’t communicate, coordinate, or collaborate. “Local control” is a long con. It exploits parental anxiety by pretending to give people power, then leaves them feeling individually responsible for our collective failure.

Local communities have the right and responsibility to decide who will teach their children and lead their public schools. Those accountable for school performance should be as close to parents and voters as possible. Critical organizational decisions shouldn’t be routed through a central bureaucracy in Washington. State governments ultimately determine academic standards for their children. At the same time, all local school districts should have enough money to hire great teachers who are versed in the latest research findings and empowered by the newest education technologies. And all children should have equal rights to a free, high-quality education tailored to their specific strengths and needs, regardless of their race, family income, native language, immigration status, or disability.

As I've just again had the class I teach explore the New America map of segregation and income inequality among school districts, the vivid extremes in inequity and segregation are fresh in my mind.

And we do not talk about it, let alone do anything to actually change it. 

*and happy Constitution Day! 

Worcester Public Schools take up rezoning

I have put off writing anything regarding about this until we had, really, anything to talk about. As a result of this past week's Governance and Operations meeting, we now have a report from Dillinger Research and Applied Data, with preliminary recommendations. I thought that MassLive did a decent job outlining the big points of what is in it (that link is via Yahoo! so is not paywalled); the T&G also did five takeaways. 

The rezoning work is being updated on this WPS page, and this map (which I urge you not to try to examine on a teeny phone screen!) is what they're looking at right now. That also allows you to give feedback.

And while I am sharing useful information up front here, the rest of what they're planning this fall for meetings is this: 

Here are some initial thoughts from me (as usual, speaking solely as myself).

What I have been reading this weekend

• This is from earlier in the month, but Wired covered how AI slop is now facing a backlash.
  

  The backlash’s “why” is simple at its core. Many Americans feel like they never consented to any of this. I had no idea that my online interactions would one day be scraped en masse for AI model training. I didn’t ask for Instagram to enable deepfakes on my account. I didn’t want Google to push AI-generated answers at the top of search results. I woke up one day, and generative AI features were stuffed into every corner of all the software I rely on without my consent.

  
  
  
• The one group that is acutely aware of how much public education spends is the industries concentrating on selling schools things, and technology is one of the two big pushes on that front right now. The New York Times has a piece on exactly that sales relationship. It is an excerpt from Coding Kids: Big Tech’s Battle to Remake Public Schools by Natasha Singer, which is coming out in September.
  
  
• The other industry clamoring for education money is the security industry, and Slate has a bleak look at that, which makes this very good point: 
  

  When Gaggle quarantines a draft, when Securly assigns a kid a rolling “wellness level,” when a detection system decides the shape in a student’s hand is a gun, the software is filing a report about a young person’s intentions. And it arrives first. It shows up carrying the authority of a system that cost the district millions and speaks in the grammar of objectivity, and it lands in front of an administrator or a school cop before the kid has said a word. The student’s account comes second, when it’s generally too late.

  Hard to "believe kids" when they're always the ones responding to something that has already been invested, literally, which such authority.
  
  

•  Florida's voucher program and so-called parents' rights push has just run headlong into 2000 years of hierarchy, with the Florida Attorney General receiving, upon his push to force Catholic schools that are receiving vouchers to allow students to attend even if they are not vaccinated, a tour de force letter from the Roman Catholic bishops of Florida, which I really recommend you read.
  

  Respectfully, any insinuation that a government official can dictate to the Catholic Church (or any religion) how to apply her tenets and dogma, violates well-established constitutional religious freedom rights. It is beyond cavil that the bishops, not the state, decide how to interpret and apply Catholic principles and theology.   

  I'll note that the letter does a nice job of laying out why one might required universal vaccination, by the way, something which I'd appreciate more of our Massachusetts politicians reading.  

• Steve Revilak has been posting highlights from the Arlington, MA archives via his Bluesky account, and I very much appreciated, as a child of the 70's, this one from 1971 about the latest menace on the street of Arlington: BIG WHEELS!
  

  

  
  
  

I wouldn't call that "innovation"

 You might remember that Springfield's Empowerment Zone schools came back under Springfield School Committee control last spring, now as innovation schools, which you may or may not remember were a part of the 2011 Act Relative to the Achievement Gap. They allow for schools, under a school committee approved plan, to have individual modifications of some things, which can include schedule, staffing, curriculum.¹ 

Well, one of the schools in Springfield has a particular "innovation" in mind, WBUR reported this week: 

Springfield's Kiley Prep plans to use a model developed by Alpha School, a controversial national network that uses AI to teach academics like math and reading.

Oddly--and I'd be really interested in what's going on with this--this piece continues to talk about the school being in the Empowerment Zone, the Zone having authorities, and quotes the Empowerment Zone co-director as the authority, which seems rather in conflict with the spring decision to bring these schools back into the district. 

Back to the Alpha schools part:

 Springfield Empowerment Zone leaders had discussed bringing the Alpha model into several classrooms during the 2026-2027 school year, according to emails obtained through a public records request filed by the president of the Springfield Education Association and shared with WBUR.

The pilot would begin with about 25 students. Kiley Prep has roughly 300 sixth through eighth graders, and students score well below state averages on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, the standardized test known as the MCAS.

Matt Brunell, SEZP's co-executive director, said he hopes Alpha's model will boost academic performance.

“We're in need of doing something pretty dramatic in the wake of post-COVID learning losses,” he said. “We can at least see if this strategy could yield some success.”

Brunell posted a message on the SEZP website Thursday outlining the plan. He said parents will be notified Friday. School starts Monday, and the pilot is expected to begin in September.

Innovation schools have a very specific process through which their plans, having been supported by two-thirds of the educators in the building, goes to the school committee. If those plans, which would be required for the schools to become innovation schools, actually went forward in Springfield, I have not seen any reporting on it, and, as this change is now being challenged by the Springfield teachers' union, it would appear there's some question on that aspect of the innovation. 

¹If you type "innovation" into the handy search bar on the left of this blog when you have it open on a laptop, you get these results, which will give you some of the extensive history Worcester has had with these. In other words, yes, I know whereof I speak.

as goes Brockton...

At the School Committee meeting at the beginning of August, the Brockton School Committee was told that they should anticipate cuts for next year's--FY28--budget: 

School district leaders in Brockton anticipate cuts in the coming years as they stare down two budget time bombs: the end of the Student Opportunity Act and rapidly escalating pension costs.

"The way I see it, this does mean cuts moving into next year, and we are going to start talking about the budget early," Superintendent Priya Tahiliani said about the impact of pension payments during an Aug. 4 school committee meeting.

On top of pension costs that are increasing by over $1 million every year through 2032, Tahiliani has warned committee members about the end of the Student Opportunity Act following the 2026-27 school year. The act has poured millions in state aid into districts like Brockton that serve more high-needs students than average.

While the increases in pension obligations is specific, the end of the implementation of the Student Opportunity Act--and thus the end of those increases in state aid, which were, for districts getting the big bumps on this, covering the actual cost increases, because the inflation in the formula does not--is not only a Brockton thing. It is a Worcester, Springfield, Holyoke, New Bedford, Fall River, Lowell, Lawrence--are you sensing a theme here?--thing.

This is not being talked about enough. It is not making enough noise locally in those cities, let alone at the state level. 

I happened to be behind a log truck on 202 last week,
and while I have not seen that movie, I have seen the clips.
Think of this post as a warning of much more certain danger.

yes, most federal grant funding is still coming from the U.S. Department of Education

 With ongoing thanks to Mark Lieberman for keeping his eyes on this: 

Congress in February approved more than $12.5 billion for K-12 schools to flow to states on Oct. 1, including $10.8 billion through the Title I formula grant for schools serving low-income students and $1.7 billion through Title II for teacher professional development.

In a statement to Education Week, the department confirmed that those funds will go through the department’s existing G5 grants system, rather than through a portal run by the Department of Labor, where the Trump administration has moved most K-12 programs.

This was true of the round of funding that went out July 1; today's statement confirms the same will be true of the funding going out on October 1.  

exploding a few myths of the coming Massachusetts school year

•  We do not have new graduation requirements. The council created to submit a report has done so. Those are, as I noted in my post about it, recommendations, most of which will take new legislation to implement.
  I know there are timelines in the report, but what the timelines don't take into account is the authorities necessary to fulfill the requirements. 
  Not only is that not happening for this coming school year, I would suspect that it unlikely to happen for next school year, either, as the Legislature will begin a new term in the spring. New term means new committee assignments, and so things won't get moving until spring at least.
  
  
• We do not have a state-mandated cell phone policy in schools. Yes, both the House and the Senate passed cell phones in schools bills, but they are wildly different. While that did go to conference committee, the Legislature ended formal sessions on July 31. We will only see non-controversial legislation passed in informal session, which is what remains.
  If you're seeing a new cell phone policy in your district, that is something your district is choosing to do; it is not required by state law. 
  
  
• We will not see a major revision of the school funding system ahead of the next budget. The new Foundation Budget Review Commission's report is not due until October 2028. 
  Sorry, but the next budget--the first post-SOA budget--is not going to be assisted in this fashion.  

How we are starting the school year

 ...without herd immunity in more than 70 percent of classrooms:

image from the Washington Post's look-up tool (gift link)

As Massachusetts now has the lottery online...

 ...it might be good to remember that more teens are getting hooked on gambling:

A recent national survey from Common Sense Media found that 36% of boys age 11 to 17 in the U.S. have gambled in the past year.

"It's a lot of kids," says Michael Robb, the head of research at Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that promotes digital safety for kids. "A third of kids is a lot of kids."

AI slop: coming to a classroom near you?

Is there bad news on AI in education?
There is ALWAYS bad news on AI in education!

Chalkbeat earlier this month had a look at the AI slop on the Teachers Pay Teachers website: 

The poster depicting famous inventions by Black figures throughout history should show the invention George Crum is widely credited with: the potato chip.

Instead, the picture labeled with Crum’s name shows a firefighter in an ominous gas mask next to a stop light. There are no potato chips to be found.

But there is a typo-ridden description of Crum that reads: “Created the popular crispy snack when a customer is polated thinner fried potatees.”

For $1.99, they could also download an alphabet coloring worksheet missing the letter F. And for just $1.50, they could get a poster of U.S. presidents that uses an asteroid hurtling toward anti-slavery demonstrators to illustrate the idea that Martin Van Buren was resilient.

We're losing kids on free lunch

 Hey, remember how we've noted that as we lose SNAP enrollment, we're going to lose free lunch enrollment?

That has now started to be seen happening, per EdWeek

In addition to Miami-Dade, some schools in nearby Palm Beach County, Fla., Houston, the San Antonio area, and Hardin County, Ky., have also announced the end of universal free meals in recent months because they no longer qualify for CEP.

Hysom anticipates more districts will follow suit.

Don't go spending that $100M yet

 The chair of House Ways and Means weighed in yesterday: 

House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz has “some serious concerns” about the governor’s election-year proposal to spend $100 million on public schools before they’ve even collected the revenue to support it. 

“The ink hasn’t dried yet on the actual fiscal year 2027 budget, so I think we’d like to see that be implemented first,” the House budget chief said. “There’s a lot of concerns related to raising that Chapter 70 number further, may further complicate things for future budgets.”

It has been rightly noted that Healey's proposal doesn't actually raise Chapter 70 aid--while it's general aid for K-12 schools, it is not being distributed via MGL Ch. 70, sec. 1--and it explicitly does not raise the chapter 70-designated aid received by schools this year, which sets the floor for next year.

I will observe again, though, that concerns about "future budgets" are very much appropriate given that this is the final year of the Student Opportunity Act implementation.  

Things I am reading this week

•  Not specific to education, but this lengthy piece on "AI mania" in the workplace is a very "the Emperor has no clothes" description, where no one can say the Emperor has no clothes because no one else in business leadership will.
  

  The reality is thus: the people in charge either have no plan, or see no path forwards other than keeping their heads down. Not at banks, not at hospitals, not in our government institutions. The world’s organisations have been captured by people in the throes of frothing excitement, and saner people who now live in a state of constant commingled fear and frustration.

  I again reiterate: for education to put any eggs in this basket is badly thought-out.
  
  
• My main takeaway from Chad Aldeman's look at K-12 education spending hitting a trillion dollars is what a huge difference single payer health care would make: 
  

   In 2023-24, schools spent $197 billion on employee benefits. As another way to look at it, for every $1,000 that a school spent on salaries, it also paid $438 in benefit costs. These trends may help explain why districts with rising personnel costs are not boosting take-home pay for their workers. 

  Imagine if we had all that money to spend on any aspect of education, because employees all already had health care. 
  
  
• It's worth reading Matt Barnum's interview with Ary Amerikaner, who co-founded Brown's Promise (and I say that not only because it echoes some of what I question about the lawsuit). 
  
  
• Not sure if it's because the seniors involved have graduated or just coincidences of timing, but there are good pieces covering two separate episodes of attempted throttling of student reporting that came out this week. Wired covers Redwood High in California, where a student journalist turned up a connection to the Epstein files to his local community. In that case, the decision making was in the hands of the students, though this quote from their advisor deserves mention: 
  

  “With all due respect,” Schneider remembers Bishop replying, “under California’s student press law, being afraid of a lawsuit or backlash is not a valid reason to call for the takedown of content.”

  Colorado Newsline covers Grand Junction High, where the advisor was reassigned apparently due to a single complaint by another staff member over a student editorial on the Gaza conflict most recently; the student paper itself published a piece about student press freedom being under threat from their administration in June. 
  
  
• One would really like to think something like the national civics competition would be outside of meddling from this federal administration. It appears that is not the case.

It is July and so my daisies are in bloom.

keeping an eye on that $100M

 Regarding the $100M of Fair Share Governor Healey filled a supplemental budget to spend, a smidge of insight yesterday from Colin Young at State House News Service (here being interviewed by NEPM): 

Relatedly, yesterday, both the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education¹ and the Department of Revenue sent out this letter from Healey addressed to "municipal leaders," praising what the letter terms "a total of $200 million" coming to them in Fair Share, of which the $100M which she has requested is half; in other words, there isn't $200M yet. And there is a LOT of credit being taken for how much the executive branch is "partnering" with local communities. 

Does this strike anyone else as an untoward use of departmental communication to municipalities and school districts? While there is not an overt "call your legislator" included in the letter, it's strongly implied. 

We look forward to continuing to work with the Legislature to secure this important investment for schools and to building on our partnership with cities and towns as we continue working together to strengthen communities across the state. 

This, about $100M in non-formula funding requested in the summer of an election year, is all feeling pretty icky. 
And again, this is not funding being distributed in a way that meets the highest needs, nor is it funding we have, nor is it a thoughtful consideration of the needs of districts in the current context.

¹which, despite it continually escaping at least this and the last governor, does not work for them. The Governor appoints the Board, which has, save one member, non-conterminous terms with her, and THEY oversee the Commissioner who runs the Department. She cannot fire them. She does not oversee them. I wish we saw more evidence than anyone knew that legally, this is how this is outlined to work.

Skunk at the garden party time

They're kind of cute, though, aren't they.

Though it is, of course, not the done thing to express anything but enthusiasm for additional funding…It is time again for one of my periodic skunk at the garden party posts.

Things I am reading this week

•  Please add me to those not at all shocked that little kids are finding their way around various kinds of restrictions on school laptops to get up to all sorts of nefariousness. 
  

  Kids have been off task and distracted in school long before Chromebooks or iPads existed. But some parents and experts say devices only make it easier to engage in non-academic, inappropriate and even dangerous content.
  This is especially challenging for young children whose brains, self-regulation skills and self-control are still developing.

  
  
• The storied Financial Times of London is out this week with an article on employers pulling back on their encouragement or even insistence on employee use of AI. In an excellent example of Goodhart's Law, when employers made massive uses of AI something that mattered, employees made maximizing use, rather than doing actual good work, their focus.
  I really hope that educators are watching how quickly things are changing in the workforce on such usage, as that keeps being the argument for why we MUST have students using it in schools. We are very much watching a tech bubble in real time. It's unwise to train kids for the bubble. 
  
  
• And speaking of educators and AI use, please do yourself a favor and review this piece of "meta-meta-analysis" from Patrick E. O’Neil, looking at the major flaws in significant parts of the research propping up AI use in schools. From his introduction: 
  

  The audit found that none of the examined meta-analyses provided a valid basis for the claims they advanced: none had a coherent construct, none sufficiently assessed publication bias, and all had severe heterogeneity. Statistics were misapplied, miscalculated, and misinterpreted. A majority (61%) of the randomly vetted primary studies were problematic, most commonly because the outcome measured didn’t match the meta-analysis.

  I await any of the educational publications I read, all of which have ongoingly significantly boosted this breathless urgency of such use in education, to put this one of their front page. 
  
  
• And speaking of research, I took a look at this research into (essentially) what districts did with their ESSER funding, specifically looking at if such grants were used to offset local property taxes. The piece found it did, which might be what you end up seeing circulating.
  What matters a lot though, is what districts they looked at: in order to have groups to compare, the researchers used the 5% poverty rate used for Title I as their cutoff, looking at districts just to either side of the line.
  What that means is they looked at what wealthy districts did with ESSER that got it.; 5% is a very low rate of poverty in a district; as best as I can find, the national average is closer to 13%, and that would leave out all of the very largest districts in the country.
  That's not really the same thing as saying "here's what happened with ESSER funding" at all. 

and we have official FY27 numbers

 And with the Governor's signature, we have a budget. As a result, DESE has released final Chapter 70 and Net School Spending numbers (including, yes, a new complete spreadsheet: download away!). 

Also, because Governor Healey did not make any changes to the budget, the conference committee numbers on the cherry sheets--for municipal and for regional schools--are now final. 

Happy fiscal new year (ten days in)! 

How you frame the tale

 I posted about this over on Bluesky earlier this week, but I thought it also warranted attention here: 

The Cambridge Public Schools moved to a model where all eighth graders take algebra, and The Hechinger Report wrote an article on it. Here is the headline they used: 

Because Hechinger does good work, the resulting article is both worth reading and isn't the default "no" that Betteridge's Law has taught us to expect. This is a work in progress, and the jury is still out on implementation.

The Boston Globe sometimes picks up articles from Hechinger, and they did with this one. Here is how they chose to headline it: 

I'm not at all the first to observe that the Globe doesn't really write the coverage--particularly of issues like education--for people who live in Boston; they're looking just over the city line to the wealthier and whiter suburbs. The message, as so often for such audiences, is "be very afraid; your children are being failed and will fail as a result." 

Rarely does one see it so well illustrated. 

There is a foundation budget review commission in the conference committee budget

 Yes, I am still playing catch-up from being away!

the headline I saw from vacation

The conference committee budget agreed to by both chambers does have a foundation budget review commission in it. As the guide to the outside sections notes, it is compromise language, which here means that they didn't just take the Senate's language, as, as you might remember, the House didn't have such language in the budget. 

I'm going to include the text from the budget in full below; it's in two sections (64 and 111), covering the committee's charge as well as the deadline for the report of the next commission. I say next report, as the language appears to be (again, as this was also in the Student Opportunity Act) to be establishing this as a commission that is to meet periodically. The language establishes it "every ten years" but that's "[u]pon action of the general court."

There are two things that are interesting to me: 

I read the state graduation council report

 ...I am not going to say "so you don't have to," because I think if you have an interest in education, you probably should at least skim the report, which is online here.
As always, this is me writing as me on behalf of me only. 

This image deserves more space than it gets in the report, as it isn't bad thinking and it's a solid try at an outline. 
How is it, though, that they managed parallel structure for all but ONE of the items?
The upper left one is crying out for a noun!

June 2026 Board of Ed; Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School

 the report is here

completed the tasks described in the three conditions, around governance of their board
different than demonstrating sustained improvement
will have additional governance requirement; expected that they will apply for renewal next year
now having some conversation around the transportation item
condition was for them to develop a plan; they haven't fully implemented a plan

June 2026 Board of Ed: translation and interpretation regulation

backup is here; public comment summary is here; redline is here 

Martinez notes there's no money attached to this
strategic about what is in regs; "want to be nimble"
"not intended to create a significant financial burden to any of our districts"
balancing making sure that our children's needs are being met

June 2025 Board of Ed: special education regulations

 You can find the backup here, summary of public comment here, and the redline version here. 

Martinez, in introducing the topic, notes the intended move of special education from DoE to HHS at the federal level, stressing that it makes it that much more important that Massachusetts have strong laws and regulations to protect students.

1. amend definition of individualized education program to reference state law, which aligns with federal law
2. add new section on discipline procedures for eligible students; incorporating provisions in federal law

changes made in response to public comment:

• ESL staff specifically listed as required to be trained (already required for all staff, anyway)
• consideration of English learners' needs in IEP dvelopment
• "change in placement" definition streamlined
• definitions for "controlled substance," "illegal drug," "serious bodily injury," and "weapon" all directly from IDEA
• notices comply with state discipline law requirements
• language on appeal of a placement as a result of a disciplinary decision
• reference to state law regarding transmission of student records to law enforcement 

June 2026 Board of Ed: Civics

 Super weird to me that the update includes this "look this curriculum is everywhere"

civics law passed in 2018

student-led civics projects

Oddly, this presentation is from iCivics, not from DESE staff or school district people, or...this is kind of weird; 

"goal of schooling is produced informed engaged citizens"
"health of our constitutional democracy requires sustained commitment"
now speaking about the We Declare! challenge

Here's the Boston Green Academy winning video

June 2026 Board of Ed: State Student Advisory Council

 State Student Advisory Council 
for some reason, they never link to the presentation from the SSAC on these...I wish they would

used extensive amounts of data in their work
host successful regional and statewide stakeholder engagement events

June 2026 Board of Ed: opening comments

 As I noted earlier this week, this agenda has the end-of-year group of reports today: one on civics, because 250th anniversary of the Declaration; the end of year Student Advisory Report; probably some talk about the statewide graduation report, which had its own meeting last night; the Mitchell Chester award; plus they have regulations to update.

There's a pre-meeting rally happening in the courtyard outside about immigration, 'though there has not been a lot directed to the Board on that (and the Governor issued guidance on this topic last month)

The livestreaming video is here.

from my walk to the meeting

News of interest

 Some things I have been reading: 

• The Wall Street Journal covers the parent rebellion on about screentime at schools, particularly looking at Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania, where the school board recently removed an opt-out provision on tech that they'd previously passed. (Cue "that's a bold strategy, Cotton" gif here). 
  It isn't going away, and the level of resistance in some local administrations to even having the discussion is really...odd? I guarantee every district that has an administrator dismissing parent concerns has, somewhere, something about family engagement somewhere in goals (and in Massachusetts, "two-way" communication is part of the state standards for evaluation!).
  
  
• The good news on education policy and such from New Hampshire is sometimes few and far between, so we'll take that Governor Ayotte (a Republican) has vetoed a trans bathroom bill for the fourth time, each of those times by a Republican governor. 
  Republicans in N.H. are also joining with their Democratic colleagues in considering a tightening oversight of the so-called "education freedom" accounts, the thing where families can just take the money allocated for public schools.
  
  
• Continuing our looking north, Vermont signed into law language restricting ICE access to schools, modeled on the policy of Winooski, which has of course received national attention for standing up for its immigrant students.
  
  
• In case you wondered if the Pioneer Institute has changed, the answer from today's Boston Globe editorial page is a resounding 'no.' "Boston charter schools went DEI" is not going to fly, folks.
  
  
• Special education oversight moving to HHS got lots of press, but it appears that Senator Cassidy, who chairs the Senate education committee, is not on board, considering a vote next month to bar it. You might remember that the Senate is what saved the federal education budget last year (implementing this year) from draconian cuts; this actually doing oversight appears to be continuing. 

It's a two meeting week for the Board of Ed

 As a reminder: the Board has a special meeting tonight (Monday) at 5 PM virtually, specifically on the recently released graduation report. 

They have their regular June meeting tomorrow at 9 AM (yes, both agendas are a single page) in Everett. That agenda includes the end of the school year things--the Mitchell Chester award, the end of year report from the student rep from the State Student Advisory Council--along with some end of year informational reports (off agenda) including both the chronically underperforming schools report, and the non-operating school districts report (my personal favorite Massachusetts education trivia question!). 

There is also a report on civics education (you might remember this was a request of the chair at the last meeting) and a report on the operating conditions of Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School, who the Commissioner is recommending being released from their current conditions but:

 While I recommend that the Board remove the current conditions, concerns remain about the board’s governance practices, such as an Open Meeting Law violation and other deficiencies in complying with the Open Meeting Law; inconsistent implementation of the board’s review and approval processes; and, based on review of board and committee meeting minutes and observations of board meetings, indications that board trainings have not led to improved governance practices or a clearer understanding of the role and responsibilities of the governing body. 

This is pretty interesting, as (as you would see if you searched their history on this blog), PVCICS has had what I'd call a storied history when it comes to their relationship with the state that charters them. Among other interchanges, they're the only example I remember of Paul Sagan, when he was chair, being utterly exasperated by something publicly, when they applied over the head of the Commissioner for an expansion that had been refused by the Commissioner. I would say that they have a culture of going their own way, so to speak. Speaking so directly to their governance is interesting. 

There are also two rounds of regulations up for vote: special education (which is aligning regulations with state and federal law) and interpretation and translation. I did a brief thread on my own comment on the proposed regs yesterday on Bluesky, but I do recommend reading the public comment summary overall. 

I won't be on for tonight's meeting, but I'll be posting tomorrow from Everett. 

Do they read all the comments? Yes! There's mine.

I was going to write up something on the literacy bill

 ...but instead I am going to tell you to read this, from someone in Connecticut, because we could learn from their example!

You can do whatever you want creating (blue) hills of paperwork for teacher prep programs to prove to you that they’re doing what you already require them to do. But when it comes to fascism masquerading as curriculum reform, that’s a Yeah-No. Friends don’t let friends.

You’re like: all schools need to have high quality curriculum. I’ve BEEN SAYING there is no such thing, but it’s like you guys are stuck at a rotary and can’t find the damn exit. You’re Charlie on the MTA never getting off. You’re like trying to find ya clickah and coming up with bupkis.

There's Matt Damon, there's Dunkin', you should read it.  

Some days are like that

 We had a one-two punch of "who's in charge of this, anyway?" around public education late yesterday:

• The Trump administration announced that they are moving special education and civil rights enforcement out of the Department of Education; special education is going to Health and Human Services and civil rights to the Department of Justice. This has of course something that this administration been warning of/planning for some time, but it appears they now are rolling forward. 

  The change will move some of the most essential and integrated functions provided by the federal Education Department to two separate agencies and further accelerates the dismantling of the department without congressional approval. Senior department officials said the changes would not reduce or affect students’ rights and would instead lead to more effective services for students and families. But many details are still being worked out.

  I think it's fair to say, given what we have seen of this administration, that this is not going to work out well for students and families.

• The conference committee working on the literacy bill for Massachusetts came out with their joint work, which can be found here. DESE is now going to have a list of what curricula a district may use, and districts have to choose from the list unless they can get a waiver to use curricula that they can prove works (no room, note for new curricula there). No curricula included may include:
  

  implicit or incidental instruction in word reading, visual memorization of whole words or guessing from context and picture cues, also known as MSV or three-cueing, as a substitute for identifying a word.

  
  Words mean things and barring "implicit or incidental instruction in word meaning" from reading instruction may be the silliest inclusion I have read recently.
  Already, it has been asked if barring "guessing from context and picture cues," which is a large reason we actually use picture books with children, would bar the use of picture books:
  

  "Does it mean you can't show a student a picture? Of course you can. Children's books are always illustrated."

  That isn't a ridiculous question, and that it isn't well understood how VARIED are the methods by which children gain access to the quite complex skill of reading underlines that this is not a decision that should have been made by the Legislature. 
  Oh, and they stripped out the $25M fund for implementation. 

The graduation report is out

 ...and now rather than talking about what people think it might say, it can be read. You can find the whole thing here. (I haven't read it yet.)

The report says it is to the Governor and "Legislative Colleagues," but the first formal discussion will take place at a special evening meeting of the Board of Ed on Monday evening at 5 PM. The agenda isn't up yet, but the livestreams come over this YouTube channel. 

State House News (link via WGBH) reports that two things of note for those who have been following this: 

1. This isn't going to happen right away: "The report proposes the implementation of the first MassCore cohort entering 9th grade in 2027-2028, and the implementation of the other requirements the next school year with incoming freshmen."

2. The Council appears to have doubled-down on the recommendations that the state-administered final exams count when it comes to graduation: 
   

   The report recommends one state-designed exam in English language arts, one in mathematics and one in science, while also encouraging further exploration of a history and social science assessment. The tests would be designed, administered and scored by the state and taken when students complete specific courses.
   Unlike the December recommendations, however, the final report explicitly states that "Performance on the EOC assessments will meaningfully count toward students' academic record and path to graduation." 

   Exactly how much those exams would matter remains on open question. 

   The report says, "Following additional planning and engagement of stakeholders, the Council co-chairs will determine the specific role that EOCs will play in students' academic record and graduation." 

   That language leaves unanswered whether graduation could ultimately depend on passing the exams, and seems to contemplate a significant role for test performance.

   As a number of us have been consistently noting: the state is the entity required to ensure there is a public education system that fulfills its constitutional obligation to each student. 

The voucher question is not entirely sliding below the radar in Massachusetts

 ...as it was mentioned today on NEPM in this exchange between Carrie Healey (NEPM) and Colin Young (SHNS): 

Pressure is mounting on Governor Maura Healey to opt Massachusetts into a new federal scholarship tax credit program. Donors can make contributions of up to $1,700 to an approved scholarship group in a participating state that would be distributed as aid.

This is an issue that has quickly turned into a nationwide political football. While Democratic governors in states like Wisconsin and Kentucky have vetoed participation over concerns that the private voucher system lacks public accountability, Republican gubernatorial hopeful Mike Minogue has upped the ante for Healey by promising a maximum campaign donation if she signs on now (and pledges to enact it himself on day one if he's elected.) So, what is known about how this program would impact Massachusetts education funding?

There's not a lot specifically known.

Now, the teachers unions have come out in full force against this. They argue that this is the same as what's known as the voucher system, where they see it as a siphoning of public money towards private education, where by giving people tax credits for these donations that largely benefit private organizations and private schooling, that it's taking money away from public education.

Now, people being able to take a $1,700 tax credit could help in the name of affordability, at a time when Massachusetts has a really high cost of living and our governor is up for reelection, pledging to tackle that high cost of living. So, she has a real tough spot to be in right now.

What are we hearing from the Healy administration regarding her timeline for a decision?

They're playing the 'wait and see game' big time. They have said they have not decided that the state will not opt in, but they want to see more detailed rules from the US Treasury and the IRS before they actually decide to opt in.

And has the other Republican gubernatorial candidate, Brian Shortsleeve, weighed in on this issue?

He has. He's in support as well. He has said that if he's elected, he would opt Massachusetts in on day one as well.

If they're waiting on more detailed rules, we'll be waiting until the end of September.

It is very worrisome and disappointing that a Democratic governor in this state which prides itself on our public educations system would even need to think about this one, though. 

SCOTUS reject second student free speech case in two weeks

 As we're winding down this session of the Supreme Court, there have been two decisions recently that centered on student speech in schools, and in both cases, the Supreme Court declined, backing up earlier decisions that have sided with school districts. 

The first centered on a 3rd grader wearing a baseball cap with a AK-47 and the words "come and take it" on it. The Appeals Court found: 

...school officials made a reasonable forecast of substantial disruption to the school’s educational environment

...in part due to both the age of the students involved and that it was not far from Oxford High School in Michigan. 

The case most recently decided centered on the perception of the school expressing a view: 

A freshman identified as E.D. sought to hang flyers for a local chapter of the national organization Students for Life of America at Noblesville High School in the fall of 2021. But a dispute over a political photo included in the advertisement led the clubs to be shut down.

The lower courts sided with Noblesville, using a four-decade-old precedent on student speech known as Hazelwood School Dist. v. Kuhlmeier. The 1988 ruling concerned the regulation of school-sponsoned publications, allowing administrators some control over content that might be perceived as the opinion of the school.

While the student could use the school bulletin board to advertise for the club, the school objecting to the political statements used as the illustration was backed by the courts.

School buses as tourist attraction

 

You may not know this, but not everywhere on earth has yellow school buses. For many, well, let me quote a visitor: 

“I have waited my whole life for this,” said Martin Friel, a teacher from Scotland, explaining that the only time he’d ever seen a yellow school bus before Saturday was in an episode of “The Simpsons.”

I mentioned back in May that the Scottish soccer fans--the Tartan Army--rented school buses to take them from Providence, where many of them are staying, to the matches in Foxboro. WGBH rode along on one of the buses this weekend. 

And if you've ever wondered why it is a U.S. thing to have yellow school buses, just today, that question was asked over on Ask Historians on reddit, and you can find that thread here.

Also, if you find school buses interesting, I recommend Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation by Matthew Delmont. This is particularly true if you are engaged in Massachusetts education and have been given the impression that the Boston busing decision was a failure of policy. 

A voucher by any other name

 ...still doesn't smell sweet, with all apologies to Shakespeare.

You may have noticed a recent flood of reporting around the--let's call them what they are!--vouchers that are a creation of the OB3 bill. This is due to Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Kevin Salinger having delivered remarks in a closed-door session earlier this week which were subsequently released. The provision of the bill goes into effect in January; guidance was expected, well, now, but now we are told is coming the end of September. I think that this this summary from Education Counsel out of D.C., is also useful, as is this resource guide from In the Public Interest.

You might remember that this is a pass through: those able can donate to an organization that then provides scholarships from those funds to those eligible, in any state in which the governor has opted into the program, who are from a household with income no greater than 300% of the area’s median gross income. The voucher piece of this is a redirection of what would be federal tax dollars instead to, through the pass-through, private education; per K-12 Dive: 

Starting in 2027, taxpayers will be able to donate up to $1,700 annually to a scholarship-granting 501(c)(3) organization. They then would be eligible for a 100% federal income tax credit for their contributions.

You get a federal tax break if you do this. 

You might remember from the write-up I did of the first round of the Massachusetts push about this the rosy picture of what this can be spent on doesn't bear out. Josh Cowen, whose work on vouchers I appreciate a great deal, came out with what I'd characterize as a "get that money" post this week. As he outlines: 

Yes. Even under the most narrow interpretation of the law, school districts can provide services that students may purchase in addition to their state-funded base funding that comes with enrollment.

The key words there are "may purchase." This is not funding that flows to schools from the public education they, by law, already provide. This for additional programs that families can CHOOSE TO BUY from the school district, that the district creates (or I suppose already has, if a school already charges for some sort of bonus services). The problem, and I again think Peter Greene has outlined this well, is that this has nothing to do with the provision of public education to all students: 

...schools could be explicitly offering a Basic Minimum track. That Basic Minimum could be funded by local taxpayers, and everything offered in the Premium track would be funded with federal dollars, leaving the “extra” offerings at the mercy of donor generosity and federal rule-making. Instead of moving closer to fully funding public schools, federal vouchers will provide excuses to fund them less.

Again, these are not dollars that are going to flow into public schools to "support" programs we already are required to have. The only way this will go to public schools is if they are for shiny special programs that cost more and are outside of the requirements of the school. Anyone who argues otherwise hasn't done the reading. 

Cowen's main point (I think it is fair to say) is that these dollars are going to be coming from every state, and so every state should be sure that they can also receive them. I will say that this "money only flows out" argument doesn't hold a lot of water with me, as I am familiar with the way the federal revenue and expenses work with relationship to my state. 

I also don't buy the idea--agreeing with Joshua Weishart, who outlines it well in this thread--that there isn't a real cost to public education in this system. First, we have ongoing concerns over if federal education funding is going to continue and continue to serve those most in need. I do think this gives fodder to those looking for cuts, if what they see are 50 states opting into systems that remove dollars from federal public coffers and redirect them to private (or privately directed) education. We don't need Title I any more then, right? Or IDEA?

There is a basic question here: Do we believe in public education of all at the public expense or not? It thus isn't entirely a surprise at who we see, even here in Massachusetts, coming out in favor of such a program; this is another round of neo-liberal education reform, which was unfortunately popular on both sides of the aisle. To again quote Peter Greene: 

But what is not being discussed is the effect that such a system could have on the public school mission. From “we are going to try to give your child the best possible education we can afford” to “we are going to give your child the bare minimum and if you want more than that, you’ll have to either pay for it yourself or go shopping for a voucher.” From a system funded and controlled locally with assistance from the state to a system that depends on donations funneled through the federal government.

I will again say that I am concerned that this may have popularity near the Governor's office. We need to be clear: this is not money that can support the programs we need to provide in public schools. 

Here comes Alpha Schools in Massachusetts

 The Boston School Committee this week approved the opening of an Alpha School in Boston. I think those comments quoted are of note: 

The approval was largely a formality. Under state law, the committee had to evaluate whether Alpha met the basic requirements for a school in Massachusetts, though the board has no supervisory role over private schools.

Superintendent Mary Skipper called those state requirements “fundamentals” that don’t guarantee that a proposed private school will succeed.

“I can say that what lies on paper, and what actually it takes [to] make it successful, are very different things,” Skipper said.

Board members also criticized the state evaluation process because it takes resources from Boston’s public school system.

“We are basically approving competitors at a time when resources are short and parents have needs and the needs are great,” said Jeri Robinson, the committee’s chairperson.

Don't think Boston will be the end of it; my understanding is that they have also applied to open in at least Lexington.