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. 

Wait, what? moments from last week's Board of Ed

Due to the Consensus Revenue hearing starting at noon, I did not liveblog the last section of the Board of Ed meeting last Tuesday, which was on the interim graduation report. I did watch it later in the day--you can read my MASC coverage here--but much like the Commissioner's goals, feedback was not so much focused on the report as it was talking around associated items. 

Please enjoy this waving snowman from Palmer.
The snowman has nothing to do with the post,
but we need to take our happy things where we can.

There were five eyebrow raising moments during the meeting--two from the Commissioner's priorities, and three from the graduation discussion--that I want to be sure we don't miss, as much as everyone's attention right now may be elsewhere. 

Good news from the courts yesterday on ESSER funding

 New York federal Judge Edgardo Ramos issued a preliminary injunction in the case that 18 states and the District of Columbia filed to get the extension on ESSER funding back:

...Education Department is prohibited from enforcing the cancellation of funding under the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief program during the litigation or until a further court order. The reprieve only applies to the states that sued for access to the funds.

For Massachusetts, this should mean that the state can go back to drawing down those funds against the federal government; you might remember that DESE has continued to allow districts to draw down their funds against the state. 

Chalkbeat has more coverage here. 

Board of Ed for April: the BUDGET

update here; plus a spreadsheet

Bell; actively engaged in state budget process for FY26
House currently debating House budget
no significant amendments so far in debate
changes from Governor's budget; second step of three or four step process
about $425M over this year's spending; obviously big driver is state education
sixth year of Student Opportunity Act change
minimum per pupil aid is proposed at $150/student; costs about $76M in $7+B proposal
circuit breaker would be fully funded by House, instructional and transportation
significant investment in transportation: about 95% regional transportation
fund non-resident regional transportation as well
support universal free meals; paying close attention to free meals
potential changes in federal changes to child nutrition changes; federal reimbursement rates would impact across the change
"but that's a statement you could make across the state" on changes of the state budget
slightly different appropriation level on Literacy Launch
adult learners: House not quite as strong

Federal budget: working with federal FY25: approved for spending through September through continuing resolution
waiting, based on that, on grant awards for upcoming year
"not expecting any significant reduction" just awaiting award letters
if any reductions would be in finalizing FY26, which would begin in October, which would impact FY27 at state and local level
had shut off access to ESSER: still had about $160M in about 20 school districts plus two non-public schools
state has joined multi-state litigation on that
state has made commitment to those districts, state has been making those claims; state just cannot then draw down reimbursement from federal government 

Moriarty: was supposed $150M for Literacy Launch
"word has just got to get to Legislature that we're in a literacy crisis and we cannot solve it on the cheap"
Tutwiler notes full support for high dosage tutoring

holding May 19 evening for a special meeting
May 20 meeting in Methuen (1 Ranger Road in Methuen)

Massachusetts may be "under attack" but so is everywhere else

The end of the federal ESSER extension announced by Trump Secretary of Education McMahon Friday hit the Massachusetts news wires today, largely because the executive branch issued a frankly not very helpful press release, which goes for impact without starting with what the funding actually is. 

And now we have news articles and headlines that are only making that worse, so in lieu of banging my head against the train window here, let's try to parse more of this out.

The U.S. Department of Education cancelled all the ESSER spending extensions Friday night*

 As EdWeek reports, the U.S. Department of Education told states on Friday that all extensions on ESSER spending were cancelled:

McMahon alerted state education chiefs in a letter dated Friday that the deadline to spend all remaining funds was that same day at 5 p.m. EST.

She said the additional time “was not justified” and that states and school districts “have had ample time to liquidate obligations.”

Because the department can reconsider its decisions, McMahon wrote in the letter obtained by Education Week, “you could not rely on the Department adhering to its original decision.”

“By failing to meet the clear deadline in the regulation, you ran the risk that the Department would deny your extension request,” McMahon said. “Extending deadlines for COVID-related grants, which are in fact taxpayer funds, years after the COVID pandemic ended is not consistent with the Department’s priorities and thus not a worthwhile exercise of its discretion.”

May I add as an aside: how snarkily unprofessional in tone is this?
I haven't seen an number yet on how much is outstanding.
Also, because of the way federal funding to districts flows--they draw against the state, which then draws down from the federal government--it's not clear who is going to be left holding the bag, so to speak, on the contracts already committed to that now have to be paid. 

Remember that at least some of this was funding overdue facilities projects that ran into supply line issues (remember those?) during the pandemic, and thus needed the time for completion.

McMahon's letter does extent a new wavier option:

McMahon said in her letter to state schools chiefs that it would now consider extensions “on an individual project-specific basis.” It asked states to submit a statement explaining why an extension is “necessary to mitigate the effects of COVID on American students’ education” and “why the Department should exercise its discretion to grant your request.”

Coming on the heels of that very weird video threatening Maine, I can only guess what one will have to agree to in order to get an extension.

As there is more, I will share it. 

NOTE: this does not impact most districts (including, yes, Worcester) as most districts have fully expended their ESSER funding already. There are some that received extensions for very particular circumstances, though  

____________________________________

*taking notes from our former Governor and Commissioner, one presumes

If we lived in a reasonable country

 ...leadership would look at something like this: 

Many districts also used their one-time funding to take care of longstanding needs, like replacing aging infrastructure and outdated textbooks, that schools previously wanted to tackle but could not afford to do so.

...and realize "hey, there's an UNFILLED NEED here! Maybe we should do something about this!"

But instead, no, they're going to waste time persecuting trans students.  

on so-called 'pandemic recovery' in education

 I honestly find the way this is discussed most of the time exceedingly irritating, as much of the time, it's essentially adults saying, "but I thought we'd be over THERE" about a road that no longer exists. I did, though, want to note two things from recently circulated items:

Top six "wait, WHAT?" moments at Tuesday's Board of Ed

 The things that had me ranting on the way home, in chronological order:

1. Member Mary Ann Stewart AGAIN this month asking questions of a public commenter about an item not on the agenda, in this case on something on which a formal complaint has been filed against the Department, and persisting in doing so despite Chair Katherine Craven telling her not to.
   
   
2. Craven not ruling her out of order for doing so.
   
   
3. Our all learning together that MGL Ch. 15, sec. 1E does not specify "public secondary" schools for the Statewide Student Advisory Council, and so the voting student member of the Board of Ed next year is a student at a private school which is not subject to the Board's oversight.
   
   
4. Vice Chair Matt Hills asking if "from a policy perspective...not a moral perspective" if it didn't make more sense to concentrate the newcomer homeless students in districts that already serve such students, rather than districts that historically have not.
   h/t again to Chief Schools Officer Komal Bhasin for responding "with respect, our policies are influenced by our values" and to Acting Commissioner Russell Johnston for repeating and expanding on the sentiment when Hills persisted.
   
   
5. Member Marty West asking, yet again, if there isn't some way that the Board could direct districts in how they're spending their ESSER funding (yes, the funding that was directed by School Committee vote YEARS ago at this point).
   h/t to CFO Bill Bell patiently, again, explaining that the funding already had been directed and DESE had approved those plans.
   
   
6. Chair Craven responding that, if the Board couldn't do that, perhaps they could direct 3% of each district's Title I funding, as allowed under federal law?
   h/t to Acting Commissioner Johnston for observing that any such plan would have to be discussed with stakeholders, including superintendents who would now have only 97% of their expected Title I funding to direct.
   

Yesterday was haywire. Expect a coming post reviewing when everyone's terms are up!

June Board of Ed: FY25 budget

 Bill Bell on the FY25 budget

Senate has concluded their floor activity: they added a little over $20M in our accounts
from a process standpoint, the bill is in a conference committee
"HOPEFULLY sometime this month or early next month so we can have a timely state budget"
fourth year of SOA; continued support for circuit breaker and reimbursement for special education transportation
significant support has gone out to districts on the newcomer students: another data capture from March to the end of the school year in homeless students: probably another $10M for the period
"we await the final bill"
federal side: winding down ESSER obligation: about 64% claim rate for ESSER III; still close to half a billion dollars; "expect that to drop substantially over the summer"
district can spend through February/March 2026
Moriarty asks for a report on high dosage tutoring
West: "are there any special obligations" for district to spend the money out of 2026?
could we create a state process "with more prescriptiveness"
Bell: there is a process that we control on behalf of the federal government
districts "that have committed" funds
"there's not a new what they can spend it on; we've already blessed their grants"
"we expect the federal review is going to be light...we think that if we say it is okay, the federal government is going to say it is okay"
Craven: heard yesterday 3% "direct student services set aside": could "we reach in" which we have never done
Johnston: coming back in the fall; "we would want to engage with"
districts are used to getting 100% of their funds; then would only get 97%
"would want to engage with superintendents"
how about the SCHOOL COMMITTEES???

and adjourned! 

Board of Ed: update on the House budget

 budget director Julia Jou: there is a memo ('though it is pre-amendments)
$104 minimum per pupil increase (Governor had $30 per pupil)
notes 

60% of ESSER III has been claimed by school districts
Hills asks (maybe) how much is encumbered
Jou: all grants are encumbered; DESE's are mostly encumbered
May be seeking late approval for DESE projects

Jou stresses that outstanding question of what the Senate will do in their budget in May

oh, if only they were fooling

 On this, the holiday that I loathe most, it is appropriate, I suppose, that the education reform opiners at Reason have their opinion piece, a piece of poorly informed illogic entitled "Public schools wasted COVID funds, Biden’s education budget tacitly admits" in The Hill.

None of that is true or follows, to be clear. 

The argument, lest you go melting your brain looking for it, is that, since the President's proposed budget has "$8 billion grant program to further support public schools’ COVID-19 recovery efforts," the three rounds of ESSER funding didn't work!

But nearly three years after Biden signed ARP, students still aren’t caught up, despite the federal windfall.

Well, golly, people, what have we been doing out here? 
I cannot roll my eyes any harder at this.

That part is quite stunning all on its own, but we can add to that the evidence of "waste" that they cite:

Researchers at Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab estimate that 20 percent of ARP K-12 dollars have gone to facilities — HVAC upgrades and building repairs

Now, WHY, during a pandemic in which the contagion is transmitted via air, would schools want to do HVAC upgrades?

I have heard milder versions of this a number of places: how could schools--fill in the blank--add staff, pay staff more, add services when they knew this was short term funding?

This continues to lose sight of what the funding was for: it was to help schools deal with the pandemic. At the beginning--remember the spring and summer of 2020?--this included questions of if we would have state and local funding for schools at all, and if that would mean we'd need to lay staff off. As time went along, it became clear that students needed (among much else) mental health supports, which means either staffing or outside services (or both). They needed supplemental learning supports, which means either additional pay for the staff schools have currently, or additional staff, or both.
One time funding is enormously appropriate for facilities repair--a massively underfunded issue with American schools--and whether it is directly cleaning up the air or making it a bit more likely that schools won't crumble into pieces. 

I am not going to defend every last dollar spent in ESSER. I can't. I'm not all of those places. But this nonsensical and ongoing scolding, which somehow mysteriously never appears municipal side is exhausting. 

I have long since come to the conclusion that some people just don't like public entitites, even ones who are more accountable to and closer to their constituents than any other branch of government, to have money to spend on behalf of those under their care. 

Gosh, I'm tired of it.

If you'd like a look at what we know of what hasn't yet gone out to districts yet (remember: there's a delay on reporting!), K-12 Dive today looks at the 6 months left report.

A few notes from the Worcester School Committee legislative breakfast

 I promise I'll go back and post on last Thursday's Worcester School Committee, but before we get too far away or lose the impact, I did want to share a few notes from Friday's Worcester School Committee legislative breakfast, As it was a posted public meeting--it had to be, as the School Committee was discussing the budget, which is under their purview--I attended and took a few notes.

The presentation at the breakfast was largely (though not exactly) the preliminary budget presentation the School Committee heard from Deputy Superintendent Brian Allen in February after the release of the Governor's budget; my highlights of that are here. You may remember that the upshot of that is: 

If you're at all looking at headlines across the state, you will have caught that the picture has only gotten more grave since then (there are so many articles I could link to there that I don't know where to start). As shared at the breakfast by Mr. Allen, last week MASC/MASS/MTA/AFT-MA sent a joint letter of advocacy on inflation to the state legislature. 

Some recommended reading

 A few things I've been reading that I'd recommend:

• You've no doubt caught some of the coverage of the Brockton Public Schools' financial woes (and ensuing city woes). The report from the independent third party can be found here. It's only a few pages long, and worth a review.
  
  
• The maddening lack of American society to really accept the pandemic has been particularly frustrating in a few places, education among them. Conor Williams (who I always find worth reading) does a really nice job with this in this piece in the 74:
  
  This odd unwillingness to recognize the pandemic as an unavoidable calamity is part of why we’re still endlessly relitigating pandemic mitigation measures in schools — closures, masks, quarantine policies, and the like. If, in 2019, we’d conducted a thought experiment, asking folks to predict the educational impact of a then-hypothetical viral pandemic that would be transmitted via breathing and would kill nearly 1.2 million Americans, most of us would agree that kids wouldn’t steam forth making the usual academic progress. 
  
  
  
• This year's "and then ESSER was gone" gets some coverage in K-12 Dive.

Looks like the U.S. Department of Education is in a time warp

Kids cannot focus on learning if they’re hungry or worrying about where they’ll sleep that night.
Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, child poverty rates have plummeted, and kids can simply focus on being kids.

— Secretary Miguel Cardona (@SecCardona) October 30, 2023

...child poverty rates HAD plummeted, Mr. Secretary, but that is no longer the case: 

Child poverty more than doubled last year:

The poverty rate among children saw a sizeable increase, more than doubling from 5.2% in 2021 to 12.4% last year, census data shows.

Why?

 The increase in the child poverty rate comes after the child tax credit expansion ended on Dec. 31, 2021.

(Thus no, it hadn't fallen due to ARP funding.)

And children being hungry? 

 more than 13 million children experiencing food insecurity, a jump of nearly 45 percent from 2021

It's pretty exhausting to have the people who are supposed to be on team "let's make sure kids have what they need to learn" get both their facts and their causation wrong.  

September Board of Ed: FY24 update

 Bell on the FY24 budget

third year of Student Opportunity Act implementation
weighted to districts with greater need
increase in minimum aid to $60 per students; costs about $16M to the Commonwealth
"basically halfway through the investment called for in the Student Opportunity Act"
commitment to support districts with extraordinary special education costs (circuit breaker): to about $500M
impacts of increased tuition rates through special education private schools
$5M to $20M for assistance for the current year (as circuit breaker is a reimbursement), plus $75M sent by Governor to Legislature in supplemental
increase in almost $10M in rural aid
transportation reimbursement accounts funded at highest levels:
regional and non-resident students funded at high levels
homeless transportation significant strains as it relates to families needing services; working with administration to identify what those additional costs will be
remains to be seen what those homeless transportation costs will be
universal free school meals started last year through supplemental budget; effectively state's wraparound payment (additional to USDA) "we think that's a good thing"
a lot of new things happening in the budget, too
continued investment in other programs, mostly through grantmaking
assist schools with green schools; "not an activity we're familiar with"
digging in in consultation with the MSBA; new initiative we'll be working on

ESSER: closing in at end of spending authorization for ESSER II
85% of funds claimed (about $115M not claimed) in ESSER II; "certainly doesn't mean it won't be claimed"
"late liquidation" process on a project basis; obligation has to occur, but 18 month reconciliation side
ESSER III (good through end of next September): 55% claim rate (roughly $1.1B still available)
actively engaged with school districts that still mathematically still have a lot of funding unclaimed on the spreadsheets
roughly $1B is out to be claimed

Of Brockton and $14M

 Let me open by noting that I know only what I have read in the press, and I wouldn't post beyond that.

The news broke yesterday that the Brockton Public Schools is faced with a $14M deficit for the FY23 fiscal year--that is, the year that ended June 30. Public school districts in Massachusetts are required to balance their books, and that fiscal year has ended. You can read Boston Globe coverage here and WBUR's here, The Brockton School Committee was in executive session for four hours yesterday for executive session reasons 1 and 2: 

Pursuant to M.G.L. c. 30A, §§ 21 (1) – To discuss the reputation, character, physical condition or mental health, rather than professional competence, of an individual, or to discuss the discipline or dismissal of, or complaints or charges brought against, a public officer, employee, staff member or individual.

Pursuant to M.G.L. c. 30A, s. 21(a)(2) – To conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with nonunion personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with nonunion personnel.

It appears that they did not specify who in either case; note that the person spoken of in the first has the right to attend the meeting.  

The same time that news broke about the deficit also came the news that their superintendent Mike Thomas is going on a medical leave, though WHDH interviewed him today, it appears. Among other things, he said: 

“I’m the leader of the school district so, obviously, you can’t overspend the budget,” Superintendent Mike Thomas told 7NEWS. “But I can tell you that every dime went toward supporting kids.”

“I’m guilty of keeping too many staff members, doing what I thought was right to help kids recover from COVID and provide them the support that they needed and support our staff,” Thomas said. 

This afternoon, the Brockton School Committee met in public session long enough to vote in their deputy superintendent of operations James Cobb as acting superintendent and for an independent investigation before going back into executive session. 

I'm sure we're going to see lots of numbers swirling around: note that districts report their actual spending to the state in required End of Year reports that are usually due in October. Those include both district and municipal spending on behalf of the district; it also includes grant spending, which would matter as it's an ESSER year. ESSER funding comes through the state, with which districts were required to file reports on their planned spending. 

when assistance is commentary

 I and others shared the following from the supplemental budget passed by the House earlier this week: 

House Democrats on Wednesday began moving a $693 million spending bill that includes a $75 million reserve account districts could tap to manage the increase in special education tuition costs after pandemic-era federal grants expired.

That's from the State House News report on the supplemental budget here.

Because this bill (it's H 3982) moved as quickly as it did (irony, as the FY24 budget is still outstanding), what wasn't clear even to those of us who pay attention to such things was the conditions under which that funding can be tapped: 

...no funds from this item shall be distributed to any school district that has unobligated Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds pursuant to: (i) section 18003(b) of the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, Public Law 116-136; (ii) 5 of 14 section 313 of the federal Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, Division M of Public Law 116-260; (iii) section 2001 of the federal American Rescue Plan Act of 2001, Public Law 117-2; or (iv) any other federal act providing for COVID-19 response funds

aka: have unobligated ESSER funds? You can't have this help.

Now Andrew O'Leary correctly notes that this depends on what one takes "unobligated" to mean, as every district in the Commonwealth has long since reported to the state what their intentions are for all of their ESSER funds, so one would think this would mean we're all okay.
Unfortunately, this seems to have once again involved the ongoing "sitting on money" perception that has been--let's be clear here--the fiction that has been bandied about since day one by those who aren't actually listening to districts. 

Exactly how many months is DESE CFO Bill Bell going to need to report again to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education that districts are on track to spend all funds on plans they submitted years ago before it permeates the hearing of those who are making these claims in Massachusetts? 

As for Worcester? While this isn't assistance we'd be eligible for, in any case, we have HVAC plans that are through engineering and the supply chain that are now being done. We have six million dollars in literacy curriculum. We have 65 buses still coming. 
In Massachusetts, it is illegal for a school district to pay a bill until they've received the good or service. Once those things come, Worcester will have a bill to pay. Until then, those dollars are going to appear "unspent" to the facile reviewer. 

Speaking, as always, for myself: this is insulting the thoughtful multi-year planning for one time funds (special education tuition, of course, is not) that districts have done.
We at the local level deserve better than this. 

While it is possible that this is a "pre-conference" bill (the leadership of both chambers agreed to it ahead of time, so there won't be changes in the Senate, and thus no conference committee), it's still worth contacting your Senator(s). I have. 

June Board of Ed: budget update

 Bell: "our meeting schedule is always not quite where the Legislature is in their version"
conference committee is working to produce a budget
Driscoll signed an interim budget, provides spending authority until the general appropriation is finalized
"I think we're going to have a pretty good handle on the things we're going to see"
Third year of SOA: $6.7B of chapter 70
increases in circuit breaker, transportation accounts between 90-100% of need
increases in early college, career and tech ed
in the middle of federal spending
80% of ESSER II claimed; have until September of this year to spend
a little over 30% of ESSER III; a little over billion on this to go before September of 2024
released funding for federal entitlement grants 
Moriarty: packet for Board had information on Reading Recovery, does legislature get that?
Bell: not that I know of
Tutwiler: "this is a big blip on our radar" and not letting it go

Live from the Board of Ed: budget update

 Bill Bell to close things out 

Bell: House Ways and Means Committee came out with their version of the budget
builds on many of themes in Governor's budget
House is in full session debating now
14% of state budget is education
"no question the Commonwealth values investment in public education"
similar to Governor: Ch. 70 third year of SOA
$60 minimum per pupil
circuit breaker with two slight earmark changes
HW&M increased transportation reimbursements for regional and homeless students by a few million in each: designed at 100%
continued to support universal free school meal
think it's somewhat underfunded, but will have a better idea once FY23 closes
House appropriation of $166M might be a little bit light
"matter of what the right budget number needs to be"
continued investments in career and technical education arena
adult education programming
asking Department to oversee $100M green school infrastructure grant program
"it's not our wheelhouse to oversee" infrastructure" but the House seems to want us to oversee"
House chose not to fund some things; we'll see the Senate maybe making some different choices
House will complete work this week
expect Senate in about two weeks; second Wed in May
would expect conference committee then 

not much new on ESSER:
ESSER I is completed
70% complete on ESSER II; about $200M left to claim through March
27% claim of ESSER III as of March

no questions

Board moves into executive session:

• Family Freedom Endeavor, Inc. et al. v. Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education, et al., Hampden Superior Court Civil Action No. 2179CV00494; MA App. Ct. No. 21-J-599
• Frigon et al. v. Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education, et al., Suffolk Superior Court Civil Action No. 2284CV00344-E
• Open Meeting Law complaint filed April 3, 2023; review per 940 CMR 29.05(5)

END PUBLIC SESSION