and speaking of children and ICE

 Don't miss this piece from ProPublica on the children in the detention center in Dilley Texas. 

When I asked the kids to tell me about the things they missed most from their lives outside Dilley, they almost always talked about their teachers and friends at school. Then they’d get to things like missing a beloved dog, McDonald’s Happy Meals, their favorite stuffed animal or a pair of new UGGs that had been waiting for them under the Christmas tree.

They told me they feared what might happen to them if they returned to their home countries and what might happen to them if they remained here. Thirteen-year-old Gustavo Santiago said he didn’t want to go back to Tamaulipas, Mexico. “I have friends, school, and family here in the United States,” he said of his home in San Antonio, Texas. “To this day, I don’t know what we did wrong to be detained.” He ended with a plea, “I feel like I’ll never get out of here. I just ask that you don’t forget about us.”

ProPublica features their letters here.  

Don't miss their art, as well as their words. 

ICE kept kids out of school in Maine

 The Portland Press Herald this weekend took a look at the attendance in Maine due to ICE activities: 

More than half of all multilingual students in South Portland, and nearly half in Portland, were absent on some of the most affected days. Between Jan. 20 and 28, Black and Hispanic students in Portland missed school at a rate 30 percentage points higher than their white peers.

Absence rates varied on a school-by-school basis: In Portland, one elementary school was missing as many as 34% of students some days, while others were missing less than 10%. At Biddeford’s PreK-2 school, 23% of all students — and 58% of multilingual students — missed school one especially stark day during the second week of the operation.

They do a nice job with graphing.  

point five, Worcester

 When I posted about the Worcester School Committee taking up the FY27 budget projections for the first time, we didn't yet have the FY25 net school spending compliance report. The summary file of that is now available, and now we can see what impact the $3.8M the City Council transferred from free cash, as highlighted in yellow in Ms. Consalvo's presentation here: 

Note that part of the reason that the city had as much ground to make up as it did is that in FY25, the city underfunded the schools by $1.9M (99.6% of required). That gets carried over into the next year.

That puts Worcester at a projected point five percent over required net school spending for the current fiscal year (FY26). 

Statewide average (projected) for FY26 is 26.3% over required

of note from San Francisco on AI

 San Francisco Unified signed a contract with OpenAI before putting it before their school board, where it appears on their consent agenda. 

As the San Francisco Public Press notes in their coverage: 

Even if students do not have direct access, data such as school work, academic records, behavioral information and digital interactions can be especially sensitive, since minors have special legal protections. Once shared with vendors, student information can be stored, analyzed or reused beyond public view.

Artificial intelligence chatbots can present privacy problems for schools, said Lee Tien, legislative director at the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, which scrutinizes how many public institutions, including schools, use technology and collect private data.

The timing and handling of the agreement raised questions about how San Francisco school administrators evaluate and approve technology tools, and whether meaningful oversight occurs, Tien said. When procurement decisions come in advance of review by accountable leadership, public discussions about surveillance and transparency can be shortchanged. “It’s simply rubber-stamping decisions that were being made, and you don’t know why they were being made,” Tien said.

Such a procurement decision, unless it exceeded five years, wouldn't even need to come to the school committee in Massachusetts at all.  

on the attractiveness of school buildings

 The days on which I agree with the American Enterprise Institute are few, but this opinion piece by Robert Pondiscio, entitled "Why are school buildings so ugly?" struck a chord: 

A century ago, we built schools that looked like cathedrals: soaring, columned, sunlit. Even in modest communities and small towns—especially there—they were grand civic statements, rooted in the idea that public education was a serious and noble undertaking. Just as courthouses and libraries once signaled dignity and permanence, so too did public schools. You were meant to feel small walking in, but in the best way: awed, inspired, aware that something larger than yourself was happening here. And once you were old enough to set foot inside, you were part of it.

I will gladly concede that my opinion might be Philistinism; I don’t know enough about architecture to fill a thimble. Perhaps my tastes are outdated and anachronistic. But to my untrained eye, too many schools built from the post-war decades to today resemble garages, warehouses, even prisons. Instead of announcing themselves with architectural pride, they disappear into the landscape. At worst, they actively depress it. That transformation isn’t just aesthetic. It’s moral, cultural, and political; I cannot shake the nagging sense that uninspiring school buildings reflect our shrinking vision of education itself—from temples of intellectual and moral formation to utilitarian spaces built for the drab instrumentalism of “college and career readiness.”

but is there bad AI news this week?

 I'm so glad you asked: there is indeed!

Recent research published by Judy Hanwen Shen and Alex Tamkin at Cornell University has found that "[n]ovice workers who rely heavily on AI to complete unfamiliar tasks may compromise their own skill acquisition in the process." From the coverage in Ed Tech Innovation Hub: 

The findings have implications beyond software development, particularly for education systems and professional learning environments increasingly adopting AI tools. The researchers argue that AI-enhanced productivity should not be assumed to translate into long-term competence, especially in settings where individuals are expected to supervise, verify, or correct AI-generated work.

The study also raises concerns about overreliance on AI in safety-critical or high-stakes domains, where human oversight depends on strong foundational skills. Without intentional learning design, AI use may reduce the very expertise needed to manage automated systems effectively.

The authors emphasize that AI can support learning when used intentionally, but caution that widespread adoption without structured pedagogical approaches could weaken skill development over time. They conclude that organizations and educators should focus not only on what AI enables people to produce, but on how it shapes the process of learning itself.

(emphasis added)

These are conversations that are badly, badly needed in education. They are absolutely not being had, in the mad rush to ensure it is adopted in classrooms. 

since I see tech and AI use is in the news here locally

 I thought this, from The Harvard Crimson's reporting on the Cambridge School Committee, was of interest: 

The School Committee also addressed growing concern over technology usage in schools, an issue raised repeatedly during public comment. The discussion followed a policy order last year asking the district to assess students’ screen time and set a formal policy on AI usage.

Murphy said the district’s responsibility is to ensure the benefits of using technology in the classroom are not “outweighed by the types of risks and potential detriments that are also associated with technology being as ubiquitous as it is.”

He recommended the discussion on AI use be moved to the School Committee’s curriculum subcommittee to “provide a forum” for parents, educators, and students to voice their concerns. The district also announced plans to conduct focus groups to gather feedback from educators across different grade levels.

“Trying to strike that balance and understand that nuance — that we want to capitalize on what's available to us, while not falling into, or falling prey to some of the pitfalls,” he said, “I think that's a really difficult conversation.”

A few things of note here: 

1. The "growing concern" is recognized a valid and one, that warrants real engagement.
2. The superintendent recognizes that there is an actual cost/benefit analysis that needs to be done. 
3. Engagement with both families and with educators across grade levels is formally being planned.

I will of course note again that a single "AI policy" is not a thing that can responsibly be done, due to the significant number of areas that AI impacts.  

"Should so much come too short of your great trespass /As but to banish you, whither would you go?"

If you haven't yet seen Sir Ian McKellan's delivery of the Sir Thomas Moore monologue on Stephen Colbert's show, please do watch and listen:

 

Minnesota educators sue to keep ICE away from their schools and bus stops

 Yesterday, two Minnesota school districts (Twin Cities suburbs) and Education Minnesota, the teachers' union, filed suit against the Department of Homeland Security¹ to keep ICE agents away from their schools and bus stops. From K-12 Dive:

“DHS’s presence in and near school property has created an atmosphere of fear, for native-born citizens, naturalized citizens, and legally present immigrants alike,” the lawsuit, filed by Fridley Public School District and Duluth Public School District, said. “Parents across the state are afraid to send their children to school, and schools have had to adjust their programs.” 

The grounds for the suit, per The New York Times:

The lawsuit argues that the policy change usurped decades of federal precedent. Since the 1990s, the lawsuit says, the federal government had instructed immigration agents to minimize impact in places with children present and to get special permission and operate discreetly if necessary.
The suit asserts that the Trump administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law that requires certain notice and procedures when making a policy change.

Never rule administrative procedure out. 

____________
¹ The name always feels ironic, but particularly here.

Worcester School Committee starts talking about FY27

I'm not able to attend this evening--training another committee!--but I did want to note that the Worcester School Committee is receiving their first look at FY27 (next school year's budget) at tonight's meeting. You can find the presentation here. 

This has now become when we also get the first look at the cover art of the budget book, which I always appreciate: 

enjoying the spooky overtones here; are we foreshadowing FY28?

we have a federal budget

 And when it comes to education funding, well, I'll let Mark Lieberman of EdWeek take this: 

You can read Mark's coverage (which I recommend) here. The highlight: 

Ultimately, Congress comprehensively rejected the Trump administration’s proposals to slash billions of dollars from federal education investments. Schools nationwide can expect roughly similar year-over-year funding levels this fall for key programs like Title I for students from low-income households, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act for special education services, Title II for professional development, and Title III for English learners.

The final legislation doesn’t require the Trump administration to halt efforts to shift Education Department programs to other agencies, and it doesn’t explicitly prohibit the administration from taking further steps to diminish the Cabinet-level agency.

It does, however, include requirements for the department to consult more closely with Congress on the status of its efforts to shift responsibilities to other agencies. It also includes nearly $400 million for Education Department staff compensation, only slightly less than for the previous fiscal year despite recent staff reductions that have nearly cut the agency’s ranks in half.

The legislation also supplies funding for several smaller agencies the Trump administration had already moved unilaterally to defund, including AmeriCorps and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Remember, we're now talking about next school year's funding: 

Most education funding is forward-funded, which means allocations for the current fiscal year will hit schools in the upcoming school year. Typically, formula funds for schools start flowing to states in July. Grant program competitions can happen throughout the year.

Do remember that both how much goes to each state and how much then goes to each district has to be recalculated each year based on the factors in the formula for each grant, so how much your district gets may not be the same as last year. But we aren't seeing the deep cuts that Trump campaigned on and continued to promise once elected.

They aren't popular. 

one for the Open Meeting Law fans

 The Office of the Attorney General, Division of Open Government--aka, They Who Oversee The Open Meeting Law--filed their annual report with the OML Advisory Commission late late last week. State House News Service coverage is here. 
Of note: 

During 2025, 395 OML complaints were filed with the Division for review; 9 of those complaints were subsequently withdrawn by the complainant. Many more complaints were filed with public bodies in the Commonwealth but not filed with the Division for further review, likely because either the complainant was satisfied by the public body’s response and remedial action taken, or because the complainant understood from the public body’s response or from communications with our office that the issues raised did not fall within the scope of the OML. In total, the Division received notice of 703 complaints filed with public bodies in 2025.

And: 

The most frequent violations found were: 1) insufficiently specific meeting notice; 2) inaccurate or insufficiently detailed meeting minutes; 3) deliberation outside of a posted meeting; 4) convening in executive session for an improper purpose; and 5) meetings not accessible to the public. 

Only six were found to be intentional violations (good!), and yes, they are listed in the report by name.  

MSBA 2025 statewide school building survey

 for your reading and activism

Do note: 

Site visits at recently completed schools established a baseline for comparison in future assessments. Site visits were not conducted at schools in the MSBA’s Core Program pipeline unless construction had been completed

You can download the full survey results here. 

And while I knew this--it's true here in Worcester, after all!--I'm a little mesmerized by where this timeline starts: 

 

ICE activity around schools

 Now being tracked by K-12 Dive here

A DHS spokesperson later clarified to K-12 Dive that immigration enforcement activity in schools should be “extremely rare” and would first require “secondary supervisor approval.”

K-12 Dive filed another request for records in January 2026 and is awaiting a response on their release. DHS has also not responded to multiple requests for comment. 

Columbia Heights, Minnesota

 From The New Yorker this week: 

Among the untold thousands of children nationwide who have been swallowed up in ICE dragnets, six of them are students in the Columbia Heights school district. One is a fourth grader who was abducted with her mother when they were driving to school; they are currently being held in the notoriously abject South Texas Family Residential Center, in Dilley, Texas. Two seventeen-year-old students were also taken: one, a boy, is back home, but the other, a girl, is in Dilley. On Thursday, a pair of siblings in the second and fifth grade were taken into federal custody with their mother; they, too, are in Dilley.

So is the sixth student, Liam Conejo Ramos, a five-year-old boy from Ecuador. A single image of the little boy, snapped by a neighbor at the scene of his abduction, has become iconic of Operation Metro Surge, which is what the Department of Homeland Security calls their occupation of Minneapolis. In the picture, Liam stands next to a salt-stained S.U.V., bundled up for the cold and wearing a bright-blue winter hat with fluffy white bunny ears. Behind him, the disembodied hand of a federal agent grips his Spider-Man backpack.

Liam, along with this father, was the subject of a scathing court order by Judge Fred Biery yesterday; the full text is here

: 

Liam and his father were released yesterday and are back home in Minnesota. Though he is home now, note that the impacts of what happened to him will be long-lasting.

What it's like to be the superintendent there now: 

From HuffPost: 

Even Zena Stendvik, the superintendent of the Columbia Heights public school district, often patrols outside with parents and staff.

“I stopped wearing my high heels to work,” Stendvik told HuffPost. “I wear my boots to work, because I have had to run out onto a corner or into the back of the high school.”

“I stay on the perimeter of our school and help direct students, either to go back into the building or, you know, just stay with me and watch for a second to make sure it’s OK,” she said. “We have numerous staff and, like you said, grandmas and grandpas and other people at every corner of every school building, every morning, every afternoon.”

What it's like to be the chair of the school board there now (this from The New Yorker, as well):

Granlund, in her capacity as school-board chair, has repeatedly demanded that ICE agents leave public-school property; in the first of these encounters, a few weeks ago, a masked ICE agent used his phone to record Granlund, her car, and her license plate, while reciting aloud her full legal name and address. Teachers at Highland Elementary School routinely stick around after dismissal to patrol the perimeter of the high school next door—where Homeland Security agents often loiter—as it lets out for the day. “I’ve seen first-grade teachers and music teachers with whistles in hand, running toward ICE,” Zena Stenvik, the Columbia Heights Public Schools superintendent, told me. “Literally, educators are putting their bodies between ICE agents and children.” On January 21st, an ICE vehicle pulled into the loading dock of the high school; in a video of the incident, taken from a classroom window, students can be overheard in a hubbub of jeering, incredulity, and fear.

Recently, Granlund was picking up her son from the high school when she heard that ICE had descended on a nearby apartment complex, one that is home to many students in the district. She ran with some teachers, blowing their whistles, to the parking lot where ICE agents had been spotted. In a video of the incident, about a half-dozen women, unarmed and dressed for the classroom, square off against at least four masked agents of the federal government, their chests puffed out under bulky tactical gear. The women scream at ICE to get out, that they are not welcome in their community. “Are your moms proud of you?” one calls out. “Do they know what you do? Do they know that you separate families?”

One of the most wrenching passages I read this week was this one, also from Columbia Heights, from Minnesota Public Radio: 

 Kuhlman said the children’s mother called the school early Thursday to tell them she’d been detained and asked school leaders to bring the kids to her at the Whipple Federal Building near Fort Snelling because there were no family members in Minnesota to care for them.

“We had to deliver them to a detention center,” Kuhlman said.

“The kids were with us. They were safe. They feel comfortable with us because we’re caring adults. But to ask educators to deliver them is horrible, you know?” he added. “I will always abide by a parent’s wishes. And she wanted to be reunited with the boys. She wanted to go together. But great goodness (for ICE) to put us in a position like that. I don’t have words.”

He said the boys cried when he told them what was happening and were frightened and asked to hold a school nurse’s hand when they walked into the Whipple Building.

“She was holding both their hands. It’s a lot of people in there with guns and weapons and formality and security and masks,” said Leslee Sherk, principal of Columbia Academy, another Columbia Heights school leader who helped deliver the children to the Whipple Building.

Those are the second and fifth grader mentioned above. 
They are not home in Minnesota and safe.
They should be. 

UPDATE FROM MONDAY MORNING: Columbia Heights has had to cancel school today due to a "credible threat."

FY27 Governor's budget proposal

As I noted on Wednesday, Governor Healey has filed her proposed FY27 budget; as this is the second year of the legislative term, this is "House 2," as she files the bill with the House. 

As per usual, I'm keeping a running "account-by-account" for K-12 over here. This year, I honestly started by downloading this page from the state website and then playing with it; you might also find that useful. 

As always, dear readers, I post here for me and for you and in an entirely unofficial capacity. 

On revenue

I think the big story here is one Sam Drysdale at State House News Service caught and covered and then...no one picked up their coverage, as best as I can tell, so it is (sigh) only behind their paywall¹. 

Was there AI coverage this week?

 There is ALWAYS AI coverage!

• For those considering AI in education, please be sure you've read this NPR piece speaking with Chanea Bond about her making her high school English classroom analog. I'm familiar with Mrs. Bond from social media (here she is on Bluesky), and I've always appreciated how she approaches her teaching, as well as the relationship she clearly has with her students. 
  And in this case, it's one of her students I'm going to quote: 
  

  "Take a second and think about it. Would you rather really grow from an experience of actually doing some work and critically thinking about the things you're writing or talking about, or just taking nothing away from it and just use a robot?"

• Those quoted in the above piece as being pro-AI (and really in just about every article I have read in which educators are arguing that it must be included in schools!) sound exactly like this video from Mike Daniels "It's the future" where the answer to "what does it do?" is...kind of the point.
  
  
  
• This week, Dartmouth discovered that the pro-AI op-ed submitted by a student for their college paper was something the student had been paid by their administration to write, and the administration reviewed the piece prior to its submission. 
  You're not convincing us here, people. 
  
  
• I am currently working my way through the essay "How AI Destroys Institutions" by Woodrow Hartzog  and Jessica Silbey at BU School of Law. The abstract reads as follows: 
  

  Civic institutions—the rule of law, universities, and a free press—are the backbone of democratic life. They are the mechanisms through which complex societies encourage cooperation and stability, while also adapting to changing circumstances. The real superpower of institutions is their ability to evolve and adapt within a hierarchy of authority and a framework for roles and rules while maintaining legitimacy in the knowledge produced and the actions taken. Purpose-driven institutions built around transparency, cooperation, and accountability empower individuals to take intellectual risks and challenge the status quo. This happens through the machinations of interpersonal relationships within those institutions, which broaden perspectives and strengthen shared commitment to civic goals. 

  Unfortunately, the affordances of AI systems extinguish these institutional features at every turn. In this essay, we make one simple point: AI systems are built to function in ways that degrade and are likely to destroy our crucial civic institutions. The affordances of AI systems have the effect of eroding expertise, short-circuiting decision-making, and isolating people from each other. These systems are anathema to the kind of evolution, transparency, cooperation, and accountability that give vital institutions their purpose and sustainability. In short, current AI systems are a death sentence for civic institutions, and we should treat them as such.

  As education is foundational to these civic systems everywhere, but particularly in a democracy, we should take this quite seriously before inviting AI in.
  
  
• And the good people at McSweeney's this week brought us this gem: 
  
  
  
  You can find that here. 

To read on snow days

 Once we got through this year's/week's round of "how do superintendents decide on snow days, anyway" followed by "here are people who disagree with whatever this week's decision was," we got--thanks, I think, to how BIG last weekend's storm was!--a round of "what do snow days do for learning?" And in two cases, they found Professor Joshua Goodman's 2014 paper "Flaking Out: Student Absences and Snow Days as Disruptions of Instructional Time" (good title!). He was interviewed by NPR here and is included in Chalkbeat's newsletter here, from which I quote: 

Goodman compared test scores in years where there was more or less snow. A year with lots of heavy snow (days with more than 10 inches) had no effect. Yet math scores were lower in years with more days of moderate (4-10 inches) snow.

These counterintuitive results can be explained by how schools responded to different levels of snow. Heavy snow meant more snow days. Moderate snow meant more days when schools stayed open but attendance was sharply down, particularly among low-income students.

In other words, snow days did not seem to set students back much; missing regular school days due to snowy conditions did.

The takeaway is not that schools can close indefinitely without consequence, and Goodman did find some small negative effects of closures for high-poverty schools. But the study suggests that a few snow days won’t be terribly harmful because teachers figure out ways to adapt.

Yet when schools are open and a big chunk of students are missing, teachers are in a tough spot. Some may continue teaching new material, and then try to help students who missed the original lesson catch up. This creates a dual challenge, though: The makeup work isn’t quite as effective, and teachers’ time and energy is diverted from moving everyone else forward.

I will be interested in seeing if anyone cites this in future decisions!

PS: Don't miss this cartoon from The New Yorker.

Ed tech: mostly useless?

Just want to recommend that among the things you choose to spend time reading this weekend, you read this piece in The Economist: 

Although ed-tech companies tout huge learning gains, independent research has made clear that technology rarely boosts learning in schools—and often impairs it. A 2024 meta-analysis of 119 studies of early-literacy tech interventions, led by Rebecca Silverman of Stanford University, found the studies described programmes that delivered at best only marginal gains on standardised tests. The majority had little effect, no effect or harmful ones. Jared Horvath, a neuroscientist and author of a book called “The Digital Delusion”, has reviewed meta-analyses covering tens of thousands of studies. His verdict: “In nearly every context, ed tech doesn’t come close to the minimum threshold for meaningful learning impact.”

(You are going to tell me that it is paywalled, but all you have to do is input your email address and you can get the column. I promise.)

 The prevalence of tech in schools owes less to rigorous evidence than aggressive marketing. Teachers are now flooded with daily offers for free tech. In 2024 American schools spent $30bn on education technology. Globally, it is a $165bn industry. Technology does save money on textbooks and streamline lesson planning. But licensing and training costs add up, and many teachers feel burdened rather than liberated by all the admin and dashboards.

Not to mention what it might be doing with all that data.  

Hey, the Governor's FY27 budget is out!

 MORE ON THIS COMING BUT, some links for you:

• The Governor's proposed FY27 budget is here. If you're here, you're probably looking for local aid distribution.
  
  
• Local aid is best covered in the cherry sheets. You can find the preliminary municipal cherry sheets here; the regional cherry sheets here. 
  
  
• The preliminary chapter 70 and net school spending requirements information is posted over here. If you want to dig in, download the complete formula spreadsheet. I notice they also helpfully included preliminary charter school tuition and enrollment projections this year here, as well.

And cheers, by the way, to the Division of Local Resources at the Department of Revenue and the school finance folks at DESE for having it all up at 1 PM today! No hitting refresh this afternoon! Thank you!

I will have more on this, but a few big numbers: the foundation budget is set on a 2.76% rate with insurance (benefits) increasing 8.29%. Thus for context, ask yourself if your local school budget is and/or can go up by only 2.76 percent (setting aside insurance increases). If the answer is 'no' (and I bet it is), you know if we're covering the costs of educating kids here.

Thus while I am certain attention will once again focus on the (legally mandated) $75/pupil minimum increase, I will again BEG people to PLEASE look at the inflation rate. 

More on this as I have a chance to pull things apart more. 

On young people and social media

 TechDirt entitles this "Two Major Studies, 125,000 Kids: The Social Media Panic Doesn’t Hold Up from the yet-more-evidence-that-haidt-is-wrong dept"

 We’ve covered study after study showing that the relationship between social media and teen mental health is complicated, context-dependent, and nowhere near as clear-cut as Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation” would have you believe. As we’ve noted before, correlation is not causation, and the timing of teen mental health declines doesn’t actually line up neatly with smartphone adoption the way the narrative claims.

I look forward to the day that we stop making policy based on Haidt's fearmongering.  

Now there's a headline you won't see most places

 I had to darkly laugh when I saw this headline in the T&G last week:

headline reads
"City Council passes 90-day parking ban near Worcester elementary school"

...I mean, do you like being an elected official?

Board of Ed for January: budget update

Martinez: not going to share detailed numbers, as Governor releases budget tomorrow
will give a detailed memo shortly after the Governor's budget, so overview of process today
hint, hint: RELEASE THAT PUBLICLY PLEASE

 Bill Bell: a day early, if it were Thursday, we'd be able to roll through
"continued investment"
will have details out to shortly
Governor files with House clerk; goes to House Ways and Means committee; then repeats itself in the Senate
Joint Ways and Means hearing sometime in March; Commissioners and Secretary will present and will take testimony from professional organizations
tomorrow Governor will release her proposed budget, which starts the process

Board of Ed for January: Commissioner's goals

 the backup memo is here: I'm going to stick the whole text below for easy reference

and oh dear it is Matt Hills again, whom we cannot hear

Board of Ed for January: student records

 memo on this is here 

no public comment received, so no presentation

again, this is just aligning with the change to competency determination, definition of "transcript"
use more inclusive language 

Board votes approval

Board of Ed for January: seal of biliteracy

 up for vote for change in regulations

this is coming back from public comment, the summary of which is here

DESE is proposing two additional changes in response to public comment; the proposed final regulations are here

Board of Ed for January: on educator prep

 There is a memo here.

Erin Hashimoto-Martell
Claire Abbott who is really soft and hard to hear
there are over 1200 preparation programs; 62 sponsoring organizations; 4300 completers on average each year
periodic formal review done by DESE (itself; not outsourced); approval generally is for seven years

Board of Ed for January: opening comments (and a bit on Lawrence from me)

Today's Board of Ed meeting has been moved to fully remote--you can catch the livestream here--which I presume means that they're actually allowing remote public comment (which they should do all the time, not that anyone asked me). In addition to two rounds of regulations coming back for votes (on the seal of biliteracy and on student records), the main presentations are on educator preparation and "accelerated early literacy program" and the Commissioner's goals. 

My driveway yesterday,
for some perspective on why the meeting is remote

While we wait, I'm going to write a little about Lawrence, which I've been meaning to write about...

The big news, of course, remains that the Commissioner has appointed Deputy Commissioner Lauren Woo as the receiver of Lawrence, meaning that the strange appointed board that didn't seem accountable to anyone at all is out. I suspect, and it was explicitly stated in the letter to Lawrence, that this is designed to move them closer to being out of receivership: 

In the letter, Education Commissioner Pedro Martinez said an individual as receiver, rather than an organization, could better prepare the Lawrence School Committee to take over leadership of the school district when it’s ready.

“This change is designed to support a thoughtful and phased-in transition while also allowing the work to move efficiently,” Martinez said in the letter.

Also of note, the Department actually responded to the letter sent by Lawrence School Committee member Jonathan Guzman about current Superintendent Ralph Carrero: 

“Since the appointment of the current leadership, Lawrence Public Schools has descended into a culture of fear, intimidation, and retaliation,” Guzman said in the letter.

The letter claims that “promotions and hiring decisions” were made based on “personal and political connections” and that 23 people were hired who “are known to have personal and political ties to leadership.”

The current leadership was also accused of “belittling staff in front of peers, employing intimidation tactics, and engaging in retaliatory actions,” Guzman wrote.

“The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has seen Mr. Guzman’s letter and appreciate him bringing his concerns to us,” a spokesperson for the agency said in a statement sent to the Globe on Friday.

“We take these allegations seriously and will work with the receiver to take appropriate next steps. The Department also continues to work closely with Lawrence Public Schools to support its students and staff.”

Deigning to answer--something I don't think we previously saw a lot of--acknowledges that the Lawrence School Committee has legitimacy in representing the city and its students, which is also something we haven't seen much of previously. 

Open tabs tonight

 Tabs I have open tonight:

• I urge you to read "A Letter from a Minneapolis Mom" by Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl:
  

  This is the story of trying to be a good and moral mom in the city of Minneapolis over the last decade, just like Renee Good and Melissa Hortman were, and how you do it full of uncertainty, in between loads of laundry and grocery runs and kids rolling their eyes at you and generally thinking you’re reckless or a coward, between the Mother’s Day cards that tell you you’re the greatest mom ever

  
  
• Dana Wormald offers commentary on the New Hampshire House Education chair supporting schools segregation, tracing how this gets us (them?) further on support for vouchers.
  
  
• Mark Lieberman went back and did the math to come up with at least $12B that the Trump administration has interfered with in his first year in office.
  
  
• I do recommend reading Matt Barnum's take on the interview last week with Lindsay Burke, 'though I think he's being too generous in finding some explanation in why the federal education policy is incoherent. 
  
  
• I really cannot believe that Massachusetts has two chambers of the Legislature that have decided in all of the things we actually need them to do, they need to weigh in on how we teach kids to read. This straight-up swings the pendulum all one way on reading instruction, which is just not actually how it works¹. And they're going to make it state law, and then we'll be stuck. Such a disservice to us all.

__________________________________

¹stop calling it "evidence-based" and "high quality" in the coverage, by the way; those are not descriptors, but arguments

School in Minnesota this week

I know we're all tuned into different things at different amounts, so I thought I'd share a few things that perhaps you may have missed about school in Minnesota this week.

• The school attended by Renee Good's son Southside Family Charter School had to switch to online learning after threats. It's a teeny little school:
  

  The school was founded in the 1970s as a community initiative to help families, briefly served as an alternative school in Minneapolis Public Schools, and became a charter school in 2006.

  As it focuses on social justice, which was the focus of a New York Post article, it drew attention from...this isn't even a right wing thing. People who don't think children should work towards a more just world, I guess.
  
  

• St. Paul's schools have cancelled school for Tuesday and Wednesday this coming week (Monday is a holiday) to give time to prepare for a remote option for students which will start on Thursday the 22nd.

On Friday, Jan. 9, amid the federal enforcement crackdown following the Jan. 7 killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis, 51% of students whose home language is Spanish did not show up to school. That compares to absence rates around 20% during comparable days a year ago, in January 2025.
Students whose home language is Somali saw an absence rate of about 24% on Jan. 9, up from about 18% a year ago. Others, including Hmong and Karen speakers, saw small but noticeable increases in absences as well.

• As you may have seen, among the places Minneapolis residents have been keeping watch is around schools: 
  

  People who normally might be organizing parent-teacher association meetings are arranging security patrols at their kids' schools to watch for immigration agents. 

  Some parents not on patrol are escorting foreign-born teachers or staff members, driving them to and from their homes and schools to make them feel safer. Others are delivering groceries and prescription medicines to immigrant families who are too afraid to leave their homes or send their kids to class.
  

  You can read more about their work in this Minnesota Public Radio piece. 

If you're looking for ways to support those resisting ICE occupation of Minneapolis and the surrounding area, you can find ways to Stand with Minnesota here.

I was really struck this week by Jenny B. Potter's "I want to write about what it's like in Minnesota right now," which I saw on her Instagram. She also has links in her bio on ways to help.

Not about school specifically, but don't miss the Minneapolis Art Sled Rally, which was yesterday:

Transportation consolidation and lack of competition

 sound familiar? There's some good coverage from Vermont this week:

Brooke Olsen-Farrell, superintendent of the Slate Valley Unified Union School District, said only one company, Bet-Cha, responded to the district’s last two bids for service. This is despite the supervisory union hiring a transportation consultant to drum up more bids across the Northeast, she said.

Olsen-Farrell said her district faces similar school bus workforce challenges and concerns with lack of vendor competition identified by the Agency of Education’s report.

What's great about this report is it goes back into some causes: 

 Private equity’s presence in the market has generated concern among advocates and school officials around the quality of service available to school districts. Some fear it could magnify workforce shortages and the small vendor pool. 

Azani Creeks, a labor issues researcher and campaigner for the nonprofit Private Equity Stakeholder Project, said the trend is part of an emerging pattern at public schools of outsourcing and privatizing systems like health care, data management and food services to private-equity-affiliated companies.

Private equity companies have been investing in the student transportation sector for at least 15 years, Creeks said, according to tracking by the Chicago-based watchdog organization.

Remember, a private corporation exists to create profit for shareholders, not to provide service for students and their families. 

And this part will sound locally familiar: 

While many districts contract out transportation services, some Vermont school districts, like South Burlington and Champlain Valley, operate their own systems — albeit not without their own workforce challenges.

Jean-Marie Clark, the South Burlington School District’s director of finance and operations, said having an in-house fleet with drivers on staff allows the district a certain level of flexibility and control that they may not get with a third-party company.

“It feels like we are in control of what’s happening and what routes are running and what routes aren’t running, as opposed to that being told to us,” she said.

Staffing shortages remain a persistent issue, officials said, although some districts have found more stability after they increased wages

I'll note again: there are other things districts collaborate (note the word on); this is another to be looking at. 

Chalkbeat talks to Lindsey Burke from the U.S. Department of Education

Here's the thing: I am not a video watcher, but I'd recommend watching or listening to this from this afternoon

Lindsey Burke is  the deputy chief of staff for policy and programs at the Education Department. She used to work at the Heritage Foundation and she wrote the chapter on education in Project 2025. 

The reporters subsequently wrote up the interview here; if you'd like to read real time reactions, I think you can see the Bluesky thread here. My takeaway is that we actually have people running these things that think they can make two contradictory remarks and have us not notice. 

FY27 MA state budget built on a 2.7% increase

 So far only State House News has this (sorry, they're paywalled), but next year's revenue figure (at least for now) has been agreed upon and released: 

Secretary of Administration and Finance Matthew Gorzkowicz, Senate Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues and House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz said their tax estimate agreement includes money coming in from the surtax on high-earning households. Excluding surtax revenue, the agreement foresees $42.2 billion in tax revenue for fiscal year 2027, an increase of 2.4% over the current fiscal 2026 benchmark. The most recent national measure of inflation showed prices rose at an annual rate of 2.7% as of the end of 2025.

The headline reads 2.7% because it includes the Fair Share funding:  

Budget managers also agreed to assume $2.7 billion in surtax revenue will come in during fiscal 2027 and to cap surtax revenue spending at the same amount. That would make $300 million more in surtax revenue available for spending compared to the current budget, they said. Massachusetts collected $3 billion from the surtax in fiscal 2025 and that revenue by law is supposed to only be spent on education and transportation.

So they're underbudgeting again...sigh.

 

AI risks outweigh benefits in schools

Rhetoric arguing that technology adoption in and of itself represents innovation and progress is not only false but undermines society’s ability to discern how to effectively harness AI to advance children’s education.

...though I would dispute that the last is possible.

Headline from NPR this morning: "The risks of AI in schools outweigh the benefits, report says" in one that probably landed on your screen. It's from a Brookings release, and while the full report is over 200 pages (add it to your "to be read" list), the summary (from which the above quote is taken) is certainly digestible.

and in today's edition of people's rights being up for debate

 The U.S. Supreme Court today hears arguments today on barring trans athletes from sports:

Tuesdays test cases are factually very different. One involves an Idaho college student barred by state law from trying out for the Boise State University varsity women's track team. The other case was brought by a West Virginia middle school student barred by state law from competing in school sports.

There are laws on the books in 27 of the 50 American states now, barring trans youth from participating in sports. Depending on how the court takes up the arguments, consequences could vary: 

 Block's fear is that the Supreme Court will ultimately rule that transgender rights generally are subject to the lowest level of legal scrutiny—something called rational basis, which essentially means that a state law is presumed valid as long as the state legislature has some rational reason—pretty much any reason— for its law. And he argues that using that test, trans kids could arbitrarily be kicked out of school...

The Supreme Court has lots of choices about the path it will take in these cases, and whether it will go big or small, observes William and Mary law professor Jonathan Adler. "There's a real question whether the court will confine what it says to the specific context of sports where there's always some inherent line-drawing that may seem arbitrary, or whether it's going to do something more broad," he says. "And the broader the court goes, certainly the more significant these cases are."

As the Washington Post notes in their quoting of Becky Pepper-Jackson, who brought the West Virginia case, the impact on students now is real: 

“It’s really hard to get used to being constantly judged and silently looked at like you’re a monster,” Pepper-Jackson said. “I try not to let it bother me, but it’s a shock every time.”

Some tabs I have open

•  If you're a history buff, you might be interested in the events going on across the state in commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the "Noble Train of Artillery," led by Henry Knox that brought the cannons of Fort Ticonderoga to Dorchester Heights. They crossed from New York into Massachusetts Saturday (Hillsdale, NY to Alford, MA, to be exact).
  As you may know, the cannons arriving at Dorchester Heights are what caused the British to leave Boston, which those who grew up in Suffolk County know well happened on March 17. 
  It'll be in Worcester January 31:
  

  Prior to the program at AAS, reenactors with horses and sleds, accompanied by fife and drum musicians, will walk from Worcester City Hall along Main Street to Institute Park.  The procession from City Hall will begin at 1:00 p.m.  At approximately 3:30 p.m., following the program at AAS, reenactors will fire a canon at Institute Park.

  
  
  
• Great work by Mississippi Today on student absence in Simpson County which actually looks at some of why students aren't in school: 
  

  Aaron Thompson drives his two elementary-aged children to school each day, but only when they aren’t sick or the road isn’t flooded. The family of four lives off a ragged stretch of concrete bounded on one side by a hunting trail and, on the other, by a worn bridge dotted with orange traffic cones....The reasons vary by family, with explanations oftentimes exposing a fraying social safety net now relying on younger helpers around the house to take care of elderly relatives and toddlers and teenage laborers in town, who work to contribute to their household income. 

   

• Intriguingly, Matt Barnum (now back at Chalkbeat) is having ​​Lindsey Burke, the current U.S. Department of Education’s deputy chief of staff for policy and programs, on a webinar on Wednesday at noon to discuss "why the administration wants to eliminate the agency, how officials are already working to do so, and what all this means for students, educators, and parents." I have RSVP'd, though I'm going to see how my blood pressure is doing by Wednesday before deciding to tune in or not. 

Minneapolis Public Schools offering remote learning for a month

 Due to ICE activity in the district, Minneapolis Public Schools are providing remote learning through February 12. Per the AP: 

Immigration enforcement in cities across the U.S. has led to dips in attendance, parents and educators say. Advocates in other cities facing federal interventions have sought remote learning options, particularly for immigrant families that might feel vulnerable, but Minneapolis appears to be one of the few districts to reintroduce the option of virtual learning.

“This meets a really important need for our students who are not able to come to school right now,” a Minneapolis school administrator wrote in an email to their staff late Thursday.

Administrators’ emails to staff indicate the decision to offer remote learning wasn’t a quick one. They refer to long meetings with input from school principals and the teachers union, acknowledging the planning and coordination required to deliver virtual school.

That piece also covers more of what happened at Roosevelt High School on the same day Renee Good was shot by an ICE officer. 

On the same day as the shooting, immigration enforcement agents detained someone outside the city’s Roosevelt High School around dismissal time, which led to altercations with bystanders. The Minneapolis Federation of Educators said agents deployed tear gas and detained an educator before releasing them.

The Minnesota Star Tribune coverage of that is here.

 

federal funding waiver doesn't live up to the hype

 I entirely understand how it is that people might have missed this, but if you do pay attention to school funding, you may have caught U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon touting "returning education to the states" through approval of a waiver for Iowa for combining federal funding, in essence, block granting their funding. As the Department's release says: 

Today, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) approved Iowa’s Returning Education to the States Waiver, empowering state education officials to have more discretion over their federal education dollars. Iowa is the first state to apply for and receive such a waiver, which will allow state leaders to focus federal dollars on work that best improves the achievement of Iowa students.

Iowa’s waiver permits the state education agency to combine four federal funding streams into one. Iowa leaders seek to focus more federal resources on improving student achievement rather than federal compliance. This waiver’s flexibility will reduce compliance costs, allowing nearly $8 million to be redirected from bureaucratic red tape to the classroom over four years. State education leaders will use the redirected funds and the greater flexibility they afford to expand support for evidence-based literacy training, strengthening their teacher pipeline, and narrowing achievement gaps.

If you know anything of how much federal funding flows to states, you may have had that *record scratch* sound in your head when you to the bit about "nearly $8 million" up here. 

Excellent work from Mark Lieberman over at EdWeek gives a more clear eyed assessment on this one: 

 ...in contrast with proposals the state put forward roughly a year ago, the new federal approval touches only 5% of Iowa’s overall allocation of federal education funds, the part that’s set aside for the state education agency. The bulk of federal dollars that flow to school districts each year—$900 million worth—will retain their current structure and spending and reporting requirements.

This announcement could signal an acknowledgment from the department that its legal authority to flatten discrete funding programs and implement unrestricted block grants without congressional approval is limited, said Anne Hyslop, the director of policy development for the nonprofit advocacy group All4Ed, and a former senior policy adviser at the Education Department who helped implement the Every Student Succeeds Act.

It also foreshadows an uphill battle for other states aiming to convert federal education funding to block grants, including Indiana, which submitted a request for that flexibility, along with relief from certain school accountability requirements, in October.

I realize that it isn't going to surprise anyone that the Trump administration is being less than forthcoming on what they're actually doing, but it's always worth calling these out. 

What are we doing here, Worcester?

 I am of course posting this after the Worcester School Committee meeting at which this was discussed. This is partly because this isn't intended as anything other than my thoughts, but it's also rather been a bleak week. It's a hard week to pull together the through line to write. 

New enrollment numbers for Massachusetts are up

 For those who follow such things--and, as it has funding implications, that's many of us!--note that DESE released 2025-26 enrollment figures yesterday. 

Remember that the foundation enrollment is not this enrollment; this is bodies in seats, while foundation enrollment includes charter students, and students who school choice out, while not include students who choice in.

Minneapolis Public Schools cancelled for the rest of the week

 Note that the Minneapolis Public Schools have cancelled for the rest of the week; the following went out last night:

The plural on "incidents" is due to students outside of Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis being sprayed with "chemical irritants" by ICE yesterday afternoon, in addition, of course, to the slaying by ICE earlier in the day of mother and poet Renee Nicole Good.

Minnesota Public Radio has more on the Roosevelt High incident now: 

The move came after officials at Roosevelt High School said armed U.S. Border Patrol officers came on school property during dismissal Wednesday and began tackling people, handcuffed two staff members and released chemical weapons on bystanders. 

“The guy, I’m telling him like, ‘Please step off the school grounds,’ and this dude comes up and bumps into me and then tells me that I pushed him, and he’s trying to push me, and he knocked me down,” a school official, who spoke to MPR News on condition of anonymity said. 

“They don’t care. They’re just animals,” the official added. “I’ve never seen people behave like this.” 

 

Please go get a flu shot

 Massachusetts, as I noted yesterday, has had its first pediatric deaths from flu this winter: 

The flu has been associated with the deaths of four children in Massachusetts, health officials reported Tuesday as cases continue to surge in the state.

Two of the four deaths were of children under the age of 2 in Boston, according to the Boston Public Health Commission.

The Hill offers this map for the week ending December 27:

 

And note: 

“It is not too late to get a flu shot,” said Dr. Andrew Pekosz, a virologist and professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said during a media briefing in December. “We’re really at the beginning of the influenza season here in the U.S.”

Please, please, ensure your family is vaccinated. This flu is putting people into the hospital and is killing people, including children. From ABC News yesterday:

The CDC estimates there have been 120,000 hospitalizations so far this season, a 48.1% increase from the prior week.

Additionally, the CDC says there have been at least 11 million illnesses and 5,000 deaths due to flu so far this season, including at least nine pediatric deaths.

To read so far this week

 Hey, we're off to a not-great beginning of the year here--among other terrible things, Massachusetts just had its first reported pediatric deaths from flu, so please get vaccinated, regardless of what RFK Jr says--and news in the education universe is likewise mixed. Here are some things I'd recommend reading:

• Politico takes a look at how Trump may further mess with education in 2026. Remarkably, this is NOT actually a depressing article!
  
  
• California, like Massachusetts, does not require kindergarten. CalMatters looks at if this might be the year that they do. 
  (California is at least discussing it; to my knowledge, this isn't being raised in Massachusetts at all.)
  
  
• Vermont is undergoing another look at their school district arrangement. As Vermont is largely rural, this Hechinger Report piece is relevant elsewhere.

Not that anyone asked me but: on state education priorities

In their past two meetings, the Board of Ed has established priorities; in November, for the FY27 budget request, and in December, for the Commissioner, which he proposed as being the foundation of a strategic plan. 

I'd first note--and I do realize that the Board here is constrained by state deadlines on budget--that the above is really backwards; you always want to establish your priorities before you do your budgeting. You set your values before you spend your money. 

With that in mind, then, let's consider first the priorities, with a connection to what one would then need for budgetary priorities. 

Let's first note that he started with this slide: 

...which I just find super disheartening as framing. Someday, someone is going to note? remember? that public education is guaranteed by the state "for the preservation of their rights and liberties" and that it is for the good not only of individual children, but for all of us. THAT is what we should be leading with, anytime we are asking how we are doing.