Worcester gets an article after all: building a bigger table

...but before we talk about that, let's note this nice piece from Sentate President (and former Ashland School Committee member and yes, I am always going to remind us of that) Karen Spilka:

This week, the Massachusetts Legislature passed the Student Opportunity Act unanimously. This historic vote demonstrates our commonwealth’s continuing commitment to ensure a quality public education for all our children.
It also represents a deeply personal achievement for me and MetroWest, as I first ran for the Legislature 18 years ago to address what I saw as inequities in school funding in my hometown. With my two young children in public school, I first ran for school committee, and then convened the Chapter 70 Roundtable.
A statewide coalition of parents, teachers, administrators, school officials, advocates and stakeholders, we sought to advocate for equity, adequacy and predictability in educational funding. the passage of the Student Opportunity Act, I am proud to say that we are finally seeing the culmination of that advocacy two decades later.

Very true, and we should note that the leadership of Senate President-emerita and former Worcester School Committee member Harriette Chandler, as well, and that list is considerably longer. 

Earlier this week, I was lamenting the losses among the local press and what that meant for coverage of this school funding bill's impact locally; I am more than pleased to have been proven wrong this morning:

Front page of the Sunday Telegram has a headline that reads "Filling the blanks" over an image of a teacher leaning over a little girl with headphones looking a laptop screen

And the article is online here. 

I would say there are three things happening in this article:

1. Is this really over?

This is the crux of the question over if the potential lawsuit involving Worcester will be dropped, for starters. We should note that Worcester, involved in the potential Mass Association of School Superintendents lawsuit, has not been among those represented in a currently filed lawsuit. The lawsuit that aleady exists through the Council for Fair School Finance (of which, yes, MASC is a member), is Mussotte v. Peyser, was filed in June, and involves children from Chelsea, Chicopee, Fall River, Haverhill, Lowell, Orange, and Springfield. That lawsuit has not been dropped, and I don't know anything of that decision, but the note coming from Worcester's administration that this becomes about implementation is, I think, the key.
I think we also need to remember that "they're trying" was more or less the state's (successful) defense in the Hancock case, so the hopes of a lawsuit being successful under those terms is much less certain.
Which brings us to Brian Allen's answer to "how much?":

As Worcester’s chief financial and operations officer Brian Allen pointed out, while the SOA establishes the goal-funding rates, left unsettled is at what number those rates will be phased in each year.
“It appears to fully cover the gap in the foundation budget we’ve been talking about,” he said, referring to district estimates that Worcester has been underfunded by around $100 million under the current formula. But a host of variables, including the performance of the economy, means that money isn’t technically guaranteed as of the passage of the bill, he added. “Our individual yearly budget will still be subject to what the rates are phased in at (in any given year) ... there’s still going to be a level of uncertainty.”

 This isn't a money bill.

My slide from my 70 on 70 presentation; this is what this becomes about.

There is no actual funding being passed by this bill. It lays out a plan SUBJECT TO APPROPRIATION of what will be done, and, as Mr. Allen notes, there isn't an actual schedule in the bill, either. There are also, as I noted back when the Governor leaked DESE spreadsheets, a lot of pieces that are still WAY up in the air: how are we changing the low income count? are we changing the municipal finance side? what are the inflation rateS (there are two now, remember)? and yes, does the economy slide or worse?
That is in ADDITION to the pieces that change year to year, anyway, with the biggest being enrollment, district by district (WHICH DESE DID NOT HAVE UNTIL OCTOBER), and what the municipal economies look like.
We don't know a lot of that. And even the part that we DO know for next year (as we'll be using the FY16 low income counts, for example) is something we know for one year.
AND we still don't know what state implementation will look like.
Thus Superintendent Jokela is right in not getting ahead of things. We need to plan, but we also need to wait.
I've now said this to school business officials, and to school committee members, and to superintendents: the most accurate numbers right now are going to be LOCALLY GENERATED.
And they're still only going to be for one year.
This is one of two areas our advocacy needs to shift to: we need year by year commitment by the Legislature and the Governor to implementation.

2. But are we going to get anything at all?
Let me note up front that this is not a Worcester question; the answer for Worcester is yes, but HEY WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT MUNICIPAL CONTRIBUTION YESTERDAY.

For many other districts, it's the question of if the state is going to be contributing more than the minimum per pupil increase, along with the fear that their local contributions are going to be increasing a great deal. On the first, there's a reason the Education Committee included charter reimbursement and the (massive) addition of out-of-district transportation to the circuit breaker (which is getting frozen at the FY20 level, plus inflation). ASK HOW MUCH THAT IS FOR YOUR DISTRICT.
On the second, let me direct you back here . This is one that you CAN with a little work mostly figure out; you just have to know how much your actual municipal contribution was for last year, versus how much was required. Rolling forward, what's the division on foundation of the target? Most of you are going to find that your local municipality(ies) are already well over minimum required.
...which brings me to what IS my main concern here: If you are a district that lives in the 5%/7% or so over, and it's a struggle every year to get there, my concern is those that would prefer to spend no more on schools are going to say "we've given you what is required; you should be fine," when perhaps you are not.
If this is your reality, the time to start having those discussions is now.

3. What do we do now? 

Even given Mr. Allen (et al)'s conservative (small c) caution on implementation, we're going to see the largest increase in school funding in Massachusetts since the 1993 Education Reform Act. What are we going to do with it?
If you read this blog with regularity, you can perhaps tell that Scott caught me mid-blog post in my comments in the article. Thinking back to Ben Forman's work on how representative school committees in cities in Massachusetts are (not), we have a responsibility to be very blunt in our assessment of who is at the table and who is not, and work strenuously to counter that.
Long term, this means electoral work; for this coming budget, it means we make this as big a table in as many contexts as possible. Jack Foley, to his credit, has been absolutely unrelenting in making this point over the past several months in Worcester; if you're reading this from elsewhere, is anyone making that point in your district? If not, make it you.
That is our other round of organizing work: when the Governor's budget drops in January and we start that countdown to July 1, we need to be gathering around tables across districts to get everyone's voices heard. That isn't always going to be about the district doing it--though I would argue that the school committees have an absolute responsibility to make this their job--but about any group of any kind that cares about kids and the future to get people together to have these discussions.
And for those who are in Worcester, please consider this my open invitation; I want to hear about these! 
As we have those discussions, I also think we have--and here I mean as people we have--a responsibility not to get distracted by the bright and shiny. We have bedrock needs that are not being met in our districts:

Many underfunded districts have become accustomed to going without the kinds of essential, often ordinary things, like up-to-date novels or working drinking fountains, that wealthier schools “basically take for granted,” Novick said.
“There’s almost an attitude shift that has to happen, to acknowledge the level of need, that this is how big the gap is,” she said.

I mean it when I say that I think that we don't even know what we don't have. We have gaps that are chasms in basic things like teaching and student supports, in building maintenance, in supplies. That's not about new programs, before meeting current needs; it's not about new buildings, before fixing the ones we have; it's not about shiny new curriculum or technology, before getting updates to what is crucial.

The work isn't over; the advocacy and organizing isn't over. Let's start NOW to shift gears towards implementation at the state and local levels.
And let's build a bigger table as we do so.

There's a third branch of state government and the Gateway Cities are prepared to go there if they need to

Yesterday, the mayors and superintendents of Brockton, New Bedford, and Worcester held a press briefing in Boston, outlining the possible lawsuit they feel they may need to file and responding to press questions about the decision to procede. It was my Boston day, so I walked up to listen in.

Walked up the hill to the briefing by Gateway Cities mayors on a possible lawsuit #FBRC #MAEdu pic.twitter.com/qOfqrWP1uP

— Tracy O'Connell Novick (@TracyNovick) May 8, 2019

(if you click through to that tweet, it is the first in the thread of my livetweeting)
There was A LOT of press there:

• State House News
• WBUR
• The Boston Globe
• Commonwealth Magazine
• MassLive
• Boston Herald
• The (Brockton) Enterprise

The presentation they handed out entitled "Gross Inequities" can be found here. The three mayors spoke, they ran quickly through the presentation, one of the lawyers spoke, and then they took questions.

Mayor Jon Mitchell of New Bedford said, “We need more money, more resources to do what we are expected to do by the state and by those who send us into office to educate our children...Our school districts, our cities, have not been able to do enough to establish fully functional school districts.” And he noted who is most impacted:“This is a statewide issue which is felt most acutely outside of the Boston orbit.” Mayor Bill Carpenter of Brockton noted his own city's role in school funding--they brought both the McDuffy and the Hancock cases--said that they viewed working with the Legislature as the "best possible outcome" but were prepared to go to the courts if necessary. Mayor Joe Petty of Worcester boiled it down: "This is about equity...Equity for our children in the public school system." He said that the success of the cities in the future depends on the success of the children in the school system.

The presentation opened with reviewing some of the demographic changes that have happened since 1993:

As was rightly pointed out to me yesterday: the demographic categories in which students can choose to identify have changed substantially since 1993, so the above comparison isn't entirely valid (it kind of can't be made). 

The statewide enrollment of students learning English or whose first language is something other than English also has substantially changed: 

Worcester's students' first languages is now up over 100:

Worcester’s count on languages spoken by students is over 100 (they just passed it out; it runs for four pages) pic.twitter.com/ebwVpzpENW

— Tracy O'Connell Novick (@TracyNovick) May 8, 2019

And that English learner population is VERY concentrated:

(something which wasn't done but should be? A dissaggregation of race and ethnicity and then poverty along similar lines. Those are also very concentrated enrollments.)

 And what else to know about the Gateways?

The presentation then ran through the reason for the funding issues, and the gaps districts currently are facing (hello, 770 teachers Worcester is short!). This, to me, is the story that isn't told enough or told vividly enough; too often, I hear a counter "but other districts have a hard time, too." Yes, but are they missing close to 20% of their teaching staff?

Attorney Patrick Moore of Hemenway and Barnes, among the attorneys who are working on this pro bono, ran through an outline of the argument: the Constitutional guarantee of education, the state's duty not only to provide it, but to provide it as changing with the times, and the state's lack of concerted action. He noted that a student entering high school when the Foundation Budget Review Commission came out would be graduating next month (parental note: in some cases, this month).He said, “We know more now and are learning ever more by the day of what it takes to meet the needs of those from disadvantaged backgrounds" but “the state plan has neither been maintained nor adequately funded, as the courts say is necessary...and the consequences are perhaps more than ever.”

When asked if there was a hard deadline, the general answer was "progress by the school year," which would, added to Mayor Mitchell's comment that his understanding was the Legislature intends to take this up after the budget, give them July and August to act. Asked what needed to be included, the mayors referenced the Foundation Budget Review Commission report, with Mayor Carpenter noting, "from Gateway Cities’ perspectives, we want to see what they’ll do for English language learners and low income students” (which many will remember was what was being left behind in last year's House proposal, with low income remaining the weakest portion of two of the bills proposed now). Asked about specific remedies, Attorney Moore said that the lawsuit will seek a declaration that the current state of affairs is not good enough; it then is to the Legislature to resolve the issue.
So: watch this.

The Council on Fair School Finance is back, they have the data, and they're ready for action

The Council for Fair School Finance, the coalition behind McDuffy and Hancock, has reformed (disclaimer: MASC is a member), and they've issued a white paper reviewing where we are and what happens next. I'd urge you to read it all (it's nine pages), but some highlights:

The court’s decision in Hancock was guided by the hope that the Commonwealth eventually would attain compliance with its constitutional mandate through the continued dedication of much-needed financial support,and through diligence in reviewing the funding scheme to keep up with the "demands of modern society."
That has not happened.

Since Hancock, however, the Commonwealth has faltered. Its "reforms" — charter schools, high-stakes testing, “empowerment zones,”and outright school and district takeovers — have not improved education, closed the achievement gap, or provided communities in need with the financial resources to meet their constitutional duty.

The five lowest performing districts in the Commonwealth are majority-minority districts, with over 60 percent student-of-color enrollment. By contrast, among the top quintile of highest performing districts in the state, only one mostly enrolls students of color...Across the state, less than 30 percent of the students at the highest performing quintile of districts are children of color, compared to 64.6 percent of students in the lowest performing quintile and the state average of 41 percent... the level of education that Black and Latino Massachusetts students receive is 'more similar to that of the average student in the lowest performing states' than that of  "their more privileged peers in the Commonwealth itself."

The Commonwealth’s funding formula has an unconscionable disproportionate negative impact on students of color, who are overwhelmingly more likely to live in communities that cannot contribute money over and above minimum required local contribution.
...This inadequate school funding formula has led to a wrenching reality: segregated schools where access to the educational opportunities is dictated by the color of one’s skin.

If the educational rights of our children are not met with sufficient financial investment, particularly for those cities and towns under the most severe underfunding, the Council is prepared to seek redress in the courts

In light of the talk of a renewal of McDuffy

It is worth seriously considering this op-ed in the Los Angeles Times which argues the following:

The majority of state courts have opted to retreat. For instance, the California Supreme Court — the first state high court to strike down a school funding system as unconstitutional in 1971 — recently declined to review two cases invoking its right to education, one challenging teacher tenure statutes, the other alleging that school funding is constitutionally inadequate.
A number of courts retreat by deferring to their state legislatures to devise the remedy. The legislature predictably resists or returns with a modest plan, which then provokes successive rounds of litigation, and in the end judges usually throw up their hands. As one court put it, all but admitting defeat, getting the legislature to make a good faith effort is "the best we can do." State legislatures thus win by attrition.
Still other courts have waved the white flag before the first shot, claiming their constitutions vest the legislature with absolute authority over education and therefore courts cannot get involved. The Oklahoma Supreme Court is one of seven state high courts to have surrendered in this manner. The constitutional right to education in these states is thus unenforceable in a court of law.
Amid this crisis of judicial confidence, striking teachers have appealed directly to the court of last resort: the court of public opinion.

Personally, I'd argue--though I'm looking forward to hearing from those more learned than I on this--that the Hancock case fell into the first case above: the court essentially declined to intervene further into the Legislative funding of education.
I wonder if current courts feel the same.

City of Champions in the Heart of the Commonwealth

Tomorrow night's presentation for Worcester School Committee, which also has Brockton's numbers, is now posted.

 The gaps are breathtaking.

 Maybe we should sent the state a bill?

And of course, because those are non-negotiable costs...

And so on through the budget...

Doe v Peyser (cap lift lawsuit) DISMISSED

You may or may not remember in all of the attention being paid to the ballot campaign, but there has also been a lawsuit pending around lifting the charter cap as well, Doe v. Peyser. Brought by some of Boston's more "prominent" (to quote the Globe) lawyers, it argued that the children suing were not able to get into charter schools they wished to due to the charter cap," an arbitrary impediment to their ability to obtain a quality education."
This afternoon, the case was dismissed in Superior Court. (That's the Scribd link; if Dropbox would work better, I've put it here.) It was dismissed on both the question of the education clause (that's our much-beloved Chapter 5 section 2 of the state constitution, backed up by McDuffy, Hancock, and so forth) and on the question of the equal protection clause (the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution). On the first question, Judge Heidi Brieger writes:

The education clause "obligates the Commonwealth to educate all its children." [McDuffV. 415 Mass. at 617]. This obligation does not mean that Plaintiffs have the constitutional right to choose a particular flavor of education, whether it be a trade school, a sports academy, an arts school, or a charter school. Even if the court were to deny the instant motion, thereby allowing substantial discovery to follow, Plaintiffs' action will always be addressed to the question of whether the Commonwealth is obliged to provide more of one flavor of education than another. This decision - how to allocate public education choices amongst the multitude of possible types - is best left to those elected to make those choices to be carried out by those educated and experienced to do so.

On the second question:

Both Commonwealth and Horace Mann charter schools are funded by the school districts from which they draw students or in which they are located. Consequently, public funding for charter schools necessarily affects the public funding of non-charter schools in the district. Defendants argue, and the court agrees, that the Legislature's charter school cap reflects an effort to allocate education funding between and among all the Commonwealth's students and therefore has a rational basis and cannot violate the equal protection clause.

In both cases, emphasis is mine.

This does raise the question: even if the ballot question were to pass, would be struck down by the courts?

McDuffy redux? (or Legal Action? What Legal Action?)

In response to this section of last night's joint meeting in Worcester--

King: potential legal action...any action as yet?
Foley: "districts across the state that are asking the same questions" #FBRC

— Tracy Novick (@TracyNovick) April 25, 2016

--I got some questions today on just what was meant by "legal action."

Note that I am going to elide a whole lot of history here to get to the basic outlines.

Historically, schools in Massachusetts have largely been funded (as schools across the US) by local property taxes. Thus the taxes on property within a town were the source of revenue for schools within that town. That has the result, of course, of towns that have more property wealth having more money available to them to spend on schools, and of schools in different (and sometimes adjoining) towns having schools that look very different.
As a result, there were a series of cases* filed by districts against the Commonwealth of Massachusetts over the 1970's and 80's. These gained some urgency once Proposition 2 1/2, which limited the growth of local taxation to no more than 2 1/2% per year without an override, passed in the state, as that limited the amount that towns could increase their funding of schools (among other services) every year.
Why sue the state?
John Adams!
Yes, (the perpetually quoted by me) Chapter V, Section II of the Massachusetts Constitution explicitly makes education the "duty of legislatures and magistrates" in the state. Magistrates are the town officials; the legislatures meet, as they always have, on Beacon Hill. And Beacon Hill wasn't doing as much as they could to ensure that kids across Massachusetts were getting a good education.
The cases were consolidated into McDuffy v. the Secretary of the Executive Office of Education, and the Supreme Judicial Court decision was handed down in June 1993. Essentially, the districts won: the state was told to make sure that kids across the state were getting an appropriate education:

...the provisions of Part II, c. 5, Section 2, of the Massachusetts Constitution impose an enforceable duty on the magistrates and Legislatures of this Commonwealth to provide education in the public schools for the children there enrolled, whether they be rich or poor and without regard to the fiscal capacity of the community or district in which such children live. It shall be declared also that the constitutional duty is not being currently fulfilled by the Commonwealth. 

The decision is dated June 15; on June 18, the 1993 Education Reform Act was signed into law. While most know it for it (ultimately) being the reason we have the MCAS exam, it also set parameters for the creation of statewide standards of education, and it created the foundation formula that funds K-12 education in Massachusetts.
The foundation formula is progressive in two ways: it allows higher amounts of funding for greater student need, and it requires the state to provide for greater amounts of the funding needed in less wealthy districts.
The state implemented the foundation formula on a seven year rollout, but a number of districts felt that progress wasn't being made quickly enough and that the results weren't bearing out what was required, so another round of lawsuits were filed, which resulted in Hancock v. the Commissioner of Education in 2005. The results of this case were much more mixed, as the SJC found:

The Governor, the Legislature, and the department are well aware that the process of education reform can and must be improved...The amply supported findings of the judge reflect much that remains to be corrected before all children in our Commonwealth are educated. The Legislature may well choose to rely on these findings as it continues to consider efforts to improve public education. Her findings are also a testament to the many educators, teachers, parents, business and community leaders who insist that, until that goal is reached, they will continue to demand improvement and will seek the help of our elected officials to ensure that meaningful reform is ongoing.

"The presumption exists that the Commonwealth will honor its obligations." Bromfield v. Treasurer & Receiver Gen., 390 Mass. 665 , 669 (1983). I am confident that the Commonwealth's commitment to educating its children remains strong, and that the Governor and the Legislature will continue to work expeditiously "to provide a high quality public education to every child." G. L. c. 69, s 1.

The Hancock decision did, however, leave the door open for the districts to come back if, as time went along, the state was not keeping up its end of the bargain.
And that brings us rather neatly to the Foundation Budget Review Commission, which found precisely that. That's why, as I've heard him say multiple times now, Mr. Allen told the joint committee last night:

"we're cutting from a benchmark that's already inadequate" #FBRC #MAEdu @worcesterpublic

— Tracy Novick (@TracyNovick) April 25, 2016

...and the FY16 benchmark is, for Worcester, over $90 million underfunded by the standards of the Foundation Budget Review Commission.
Thus, if the state doesn't come through on action, there is an argument for re-opening Hancock...a McDuffy redux.
And the state handed us the strongest evidence themselves last November, when they issued the Foundation Budget Review Commission's report.


*including Jordan Levy and others v. the Governor, filed by Worcester's mayor Jordan Levy

"It shall be declared also that the constitutional duty is not being currently fulfilled by the Commonwealth."

This is a wonkish one, but absolutely vital to our discussion of school finance in Massachusetts.

These cases are remanded to the county court for entry of a judgment declaring that the provisions of Part II, c. 5, Section 2, of the Massachusetts Constitution impose an enforceable duty on the magistrates and Legislatures of this Commonwealth to provide education in the public schools for the children there enrolled, whether they be rich or poor and without regard to the fiscal capacity of the community or district in which such children live. It shall be declared also that the constitutional duty is not being currently fulfilled by the Commonwealth. 

conclusion of McDuffy v. Secretary  

The House took up their budget yesterday, first hearing all amendments that had any financial impact (my list of education-related amendments is here). The most notable change the House made in the budget over the Governor's budget is the $55 per pupil minimum, as compared to the $20 per pupil minimum the Governor's budget had.

Now, let me start by allowing that not believing in a progressive funding system is a perfectly legitimate political position. One can think that school funding should not, at the state level, be allocated with regard to what districts and what students have the highest needs. I'd argue that it's wrong, and, in Massachusetts, it's certainly unconstitutional, but that is a political position.

It appears, unfortunately, to be one that some in the State House, on both sides of the political spectrum hold, whether they know it or not.

To see what I mean, you may want to take a look what what I've put into a spreadsheet, which starts with last year's budget, adds the Governor's proposal, and then adds the House's proposal. In every case, there's not only the dollar difference, but also the percent change (a more meaningful measure, I'd argue, given the massively different sizes of districts).

If we were running a truly progressive system--if we were running JUST the foundation budget, without minimum aid of any sort--you'd expect the gains in state aid to follow changes in enrollment (straight enrollment increases or increased need) for districts that have less municipal wealth (in other words, poorer districts).

As you'll see if you sort by percent change (column E for FY16 to Governor's budget; column H for Governor to House; column J for FY16 to House), that isn't what is true of this budget at all.

Here are the ten districts seeing the biggest percent change under the Governor's proposed budget (sorted by column E):

AVON 32%
ORLEANS 19.8%
SOMERSET 18.6%
WEST BRIDGEWATER 17%
WALES 15.7%
MONOMOY 14.2%
LINCOLN 12.9%
LEXINGTON 12%
EDGARTOWN 10.8%
CAMBRIDGE 10.7%

That's the $20 per pupil minimum increase at work.

The House, of course, jumped that per pupil minimum up to $55 per pupil. As best as I can tell from going through the numbers (so no, this isn't inside baseball), it looks as though that was deliberately selected to be just high enough to pull in Everett, Revere, Chelsea, Brockton, and similar, which are the districts that were struggling to get their economically disadvantaged counts anywhere near the real number of poor kids that they serve. Rather than fix the calculation for this year in some way, the House just stuck in a minimum increase. However, that doesn't best serve the kids that are actually poor, including, ironically, those districts. Here are the ten districts that see the biggest percent gain going from the Governor's $20 to the House's $55 (sorting by column H):

WESTON 2.47%
WAYLAND 2.45%
SHERBORN 2.38%
SWAMPSCOTT 2.3%
DOVER 2.3%
MARION 2.29%
CARLISLE 2.28%
ANDOVER 2.25%
NEEDHAM 2.23%
WELLESLEY 2.22%

Note, of course, that this is added onto the above, as it's a gain OVER the Governor's. Thus the top ten list going from FY16 to the House budget is the same as the Governor's.

Any list in Massachusetts that goes from Weston to Wellesley is eye catching, of course, but the Governor's budget, which give substantial increases to places like Cambridge and Edgartown, which fund their schools at 50% or 100% more than the minimum required, also warrant attention. This is state aid going to districts that not only can well afford to fund their schools from local resources; they're doing that and more, and they're doing so, wanted or not, with a substantial assist from the state.
This state aid ALLOWS wealthier districts to fund at more than minimum, thus avoiding the consequences of the undercalculation of the foundation budget, while at the same time continuing to fund poorer districts at the minimum allowed.

That's wrong.
And in Massachusetts, it's unconstitutional.

Doomed to repeat McDuffy?

You know what Santayana wrote: "Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it."
After today's Foundation Budget Review Commission meeting, I am very concerned that we may be heading that way with the Commission.

It's been clear since the last meeting (at least) that there's a bit of a split among some on the Commission between those who just want to get this done in some fashion and those who want to be sure that all of the foundation budget is fully investigated and covered. This led to the "it has to be done by June/we need to get everything in" compromise at the last meeting. And we certainly saw more of this today: from Francomano's motion to amend the minutes to be certain all would be included in the June report, to the attempted pre-positioning on where the special education number came from, to an outsized reaction on possible preschool funding, this back and forth happened several times. I think that both Madeloni and Jehlen expressed this well at different times, asking the question of what makes for an adequate education--something the Commission is charged with but so far has not considered--and how that is best addressed by the state.

The lone citation of McDuffy today came from Tom Moreau, who represents Secretary Peyser when he is not there. In response to Francomano's concern about the removal of local control on spending, he noted that McDuffy found (as the state constitution says) that responsibility for education lies with both "legislatures and magistrates," that is, both the state and the local government. His argument was that it was in keeping for various accountability ties to be imposed by the state.
That is not, however, what largely is being argued in McDuffy, nor the primary concern in the follow-up case, Hancock. It is the FUNDING mechanism that the court found was failing children in Massachusetts, not an accountability system. While the act that was intended to remedy the court's finding for the plantiffs did bring in various standards and measures (which, as I've pointed out before, we aren't really doing, either), it is the funding formula with which the Commission is charged, just as it was the primary concern of McDuffy.
The state hadn't and still hasn't fulfilled its FUNDING obligations. That remains to be done.

In finding for the plantiffs, McDuffy also found that the language of the Constitution is"not merely aspirational or hortatory, but obligatory." Thus I was very concerned today to hear several statements that the special education rate should be "aspirational." First, this is also not in the law, not in the charge to the Commission (no, not even in the "efficient and effective allocation" section), and not within the purview of the consideration. I assume the recommendation is made based on some assumption that districts are over inflating  special education costs. This is a serious charge and one that should be made straightforwardly if it is the basis of the recommendation. I would argue that districts are doing no such thing. Thus an "aspirational" special education rate leaves us in districts with the impossible choice of either under diagnosing special education needs in our student population--unethical as well as illegal--or not having those charges fully recognized. Neither is a direction I think the state really wishes us to go in. This is just another attempt at corner-cutting.

Finally, the proposal for accountability in funding, which would limit districts to spending their increases in funding to particular areas continues to miss why the Commission is needed in the first place. The state has not--twenty plus years on--fulfilled the responsibility with which it was charged in 1993. Bluntly, the state hasn't done its job. For the state then to turn around and cast a judging eye on districts, which have been left with a formula that not only has not been realistic, but has left with us fewer dollars (considering inflation) than we had in 2008 is hypocritical, to say the least. The state needs to do its job.
The list also misses entirely the point made (repeatedly) by MassBudget: that districts have pulled dollars from other areas--VARIOUS other areas--in order to fund the overwhelming costs of special education and health care. If you check out various districts at that second link, you'll find that different districts have responsed to the undercalculation of the foundation budget in various ways. Some who can have funded over foundation. Some have pulled money from teachers and professional development. Not all districts, however, have pulled funds from the areas the Commission was considering today. Worcester, for example, is funding facilities at 47% of the foundation rate. It is outrageous for the Commission to finally rectify its long-standing unfulfulled obligation, only to then require that we spend the funds in areas other than those that have been left underfunded.

As McDuffy closes:

As did these courts, we have declared today the nature of the Commonwealth's duty to educate its children. We have concluded the current state of affairs falls short of the constitutional mandate. We shall presume at this time that the Commonwealth will fulfil its responsibility with respect to defining the specifics and the appropriate means to provide the constitutionally-required education.

We have "presume[d]" for some time. Time to "provide the constitutionally-required education."

McDuffy, Hancock, and education funding

As it was raised more than once in yesterday's editorial page, I thought it wise to remind us all:

• the reason that education funding is going up in Worcester is because the city is legally required to do so (this managed to not make it into the City Manager's budget presentation last week, either).

Worcester was among the communities that brought suit against the Secretary of the Executive Office of Education (in McDuffy) and against the Commissioner of Education (in Hancock), charging that the state was failing to meet its constitutional obligations to provide education for the Commonwealth's children (per the passage cited at the bottom of the page). In the first case, the court found for the plaintiffs; in the second, the court recommended an adequacy study. In both case, the charge was that the state was not adequately funding education. (Good summary here)
However, an upshot of the McDuffy case was the 1993 Ed Reform law (signed just three days after the case was settled), which provided for foundation funding. This not only obligates the state around education funding; it also obligates local communities around levels of education funding.
Worcester is legally required to increase funding this year for education.