Professor Moe Cunningham at MASS/MASC

Friday at MASS/MASC: Professor Moe Cunningham who has been doing work on dark money in ballot question 2.
Handed a "bag of dark money," Cunningham notes "it's bottomless."

Looming financial disaster (and why you should vote No on Question 2)

Let's start with this excellent and petrifying chart from the Boston Public Schools administration:

Slide deck has 10 slides by City of Boston, 6 slides by #BPS #NoOn2 #KeepTheCap pic.twitter.com/5Me9d93xkU

— Kristin Johnson (@KrissyCabbage) September 21, 2016

The Boston finance office notes that this is a 25% increase over time which they thought was "reasonable." So it could be even more severe than that.


School spending increases in Massachusetts isn't tracking at anything close to that steep line. It isn't even tracking at the 3 new schools a year line.
And that's just Boston.

There's been this tennis match on claims on school funding during this Question 2 debate: increase funding to district/pull money away from districts. If you're interested in how it works, I'd recommend MassBudget's post on that (and that probably needs a post, too), but here's what isn't entering into that assertion from the cap lift side:  

If in fact the cap lift proponents intend no change other than removing the cap on charter schools (which is what the ballot language actually says), the state is going to need money for up to twelve new charter schools a year. That's facilities money (charter schools aren't eligible for the Massachusetts School Building Authority, so they have an increment for that), and then, after they've redirected the per pupil amount to the charter, there's the state reimbursement, allowing the district time to make the coming budget cut.

The state already isn't funding that amount in full, and it hasn't for several years; the last calculation I saw estimated that we'd see 54% this year. That means that maybe they'll get to all the first year 100% reimbursements (after they do the facilities amount), but they won't get much, if any, farther. So, as others have pointed out, the reimbursement isn't some windfall of money, anyway, and it also isn't being funded.

If we already can't fund the reimbursement with the number of new and expanding charters we have, how are we going to fund 12 new ones a year?

Vote no on 2.

On the "yes on 2" claims from this weekend

I'm having a bit of trouble keeping up with these, and they tend to keep ending up on Twitter as a result. You can see my quick response to the money Big Lie on Facebook here:

(That's the "blogger" page where I also post education links that I might not get to here.)
I'll come back to that at greater length here later.

Today, I saw the "lift the cap" crew claiming that there is district need for cap lift. That doesn't line up with the facts on seats, as below:

By DESE's own measure, these districts ARE NOT near the cap.

Thus, again, this is an assertion which is simply untrue.

Boston: 2941 seats
Lawrence: 1235 seats
Chelsea: 517 seats
Holyoke: 290 seats
Lowell: 1340 seats
Fall River: 967 seats
as of 2/16 #NoOn2

— Tracy Novick (@TracyNovick) September 4, 2016

(Note that Boston's charters again ran it up against the cap as they do every year. Other expansions, however, were in Springfield and Everett.)

By DESE's own measure, these districts ARE NOT near the cap.

Thus, again, this is an assertion which is simply untrue. #NoOn2

— Tracy Novick (@TracyNovick) September 4, 2016

DESE's list, should you be interested, is here. The final column is a very simple "1" if near cap, "0" if not near cap.
More as I have a chance! #NoOn2

"Count me among them."

John E. Walsh, former chair of the state Democratic party, on why he's voting no on Question 2:

When a parent hears from a friend how much their community or a neighboring district already loses to the state charter funding formula and then how Question 2 allows unlimited expansion with no local control, the weakness of Question 2’s approach will become clear. Parents, educators, local taxpayers, and the local elected leaders who must balance school budgets each year are organizing against a state mandate that would allow state bureaucrats to approve 12 new charters schools a year, every year, forever, with no limit on how much money a single district could lose. This would nearly triple the number of charter schools in just 10 years – each year taking more and more resources from local district schools that are educating the highest performing students in the nation.

Well worth reading and sharing it all. 

DFER in Philly with their eyes on Massachusetts

So while the Democrats are having their national convention in Philadelphia, it might seem that attention has shifted off the other things on the fall ballot, like the four ballot questions.
Not at all!
In fact, those supporting the charter school ballot question are attempting to woo support for it among the Democrats who are in Philadelphia by sponsoring their breakfasts:

So one of the groups advocating to raise the cap on charter schools, Massachusetts Democrats for Education Reform, has sponsored two of the convention's breakfasts to help win over the party faithful.

My guess is that most of the elected officials probably already have an opinion on this question (I suspect most of the Legislature knows they can't afford it), but it's the rank and file Democrats who have no idea who DFER is that presumably are those they're hoping to convert. Also, this is a healthy reminder of who has money in this issue!

They also had a "Camp Philos" event, well covered by Molly Knefel in TruthOut, which is particularly interesting for several things. First, Massachusetts Joint Committee on Education House Chair Representative Alice Peisch was there and was quoted regarding the future of education reform:

Both Ruiz and Massachusetts State Representative Alice Peisch suggested that education reform had a PR problem. To fix that, they argued, reformers have to emphasize that they're not just about testing and closing schools, but about addressing educational inequality.

Second, when the discussion on school integration happened--specifically, if integration should be forced-- Peter Cunningham (who worked for Secretary Duncan in both Chicago and D.C.; he's now at Education Post) had a fairly dismissive perspective:

Maybe the fight's not worth it. It's a good thing; we all think integration is good. But it's been a long fight, we've had middling success. At the same time, we have lots and lots of schools filled with kids of one race, one background, that are doing great. It's a good question.

Also, the perspective of the person DFER had interacting with Knefel is weirdly hostile:

During the lunch break, interestingly enough, a DFER staffer asked me if I was with Ravitch or the unions. I don't believe Ravitch was at the gathering, so I have to assume that she meant "with" Ravitch in the ideological sense. I told her that I was attending the event as a member of the press. In addition to being an after-school teacher, I am a freelance journalist and regularly cover education. She suggested that I wasn't actually with the press, but there just to tweet. Just for the record, I had not tweeted or retweeted anything critical that day, and I said again that I was with the press. She replied that it was totally OK that I was there, but that I should just "be honest." The interaction betrayed the thinly veiled sentiment beneath the morning's oft-repeated message of harmony with unions. The assumption was that if I attended the event in a critical capacity it must be because of a secret union affiliation. I am definitely not a union member, but I was still unsure of how welcome I was at the proverbial table.