We have a new Board of Ed member!

Governor Patrick appointed a final new Board of Ed member before leaving office: Edward J. Doherty, who is appointed to the labor seat. Doherty is the former head of the Boston Teachers' Union and the former special assistant to the president of AFT-Massachusetts.
He replaces Harneen Chernow (meaning he has big shoes to fill!).

Sorry, this came out via email. The update will eventually be posted here. 

Three new Mass Board of Ed members

Sorry for posting a bit late on this: I've been on the road today.
Governor Patrick has appointed three new members to the Board of Ed, to fill the seats left by those whose terms expired in June.
Margaret McKenna, who currently serves as a member of the (appointed) Boston School Committee, is being appointed as chair of the Board of Ed. She was most recently president of the Walmart Foundation, 'though she served as president of Lesley College and as Deputy Undersecretary in the Department of Ed in the Carter Administration.
Katherine Craven, best known to us as former CEO of the Mass School Building Authority, is being appointed to the business seat. She currently is the Chief Administrative Officer at Babson.
Mary Ann Steward, former president of the Massachusetts PTA and member of the Lexington School Committee, is being appointed to the PTA seat.

Today at Claremont Academy

Governor Patrick announcing a $75,000 innovation planning grant for Claremont Academy this morning:

Governor files supplemental budget with FULL funding for charter reimbursement

(h/t Julie; thanks!)
Governor Patrick filed a supplemental spending bill on Thursday that includes full funding for charter reimbursement!
A few reminders (that I needed myself):

• this is for THIS (FY14) fiscal year; FY15 is still in the House.
• even if this passes, it would come through for Worcester as local aid. It would then have to be appropriated by the City Council to the Worcester Public Schools. Were it not, it would increase the local aid number...which would increase the amount by which the city is under the minimum local contribution.

Innovation grants

You may have seen that Governor Patrick was in Worcester yesterday to announce another round of innovation school grants. You can find Governor Patrick's press release here.
Awards for Worcester are as possible:

• Goddard Scholars Academy at the Sullivan Middle School, Worcester, $30,000
• Lincoln Street School, Worcester, $30,000
• Worcester Technical High School, Worcester, $30,000
• Chandler Magnet, Worcester, $30,000

Also, did you notice that Pentucket Regional got five planning grants? The superintendent of Pentucket Regional is former Worcester Chief Academic Officer Jeff Mulqueen, who was part of Worcester's first round of innovation grants.

Numbers to crunch for Thursday

While we don't yet have a full FY15 budget projection presentation (which I suspect may have something to do with this), there's plenty of numbers to crunch this weekend.
We've got the current (not October 1) classroom by classroom enrollment--seriously useful stuff, as these are the numbers that administration and principals are looking at as they're doing their first run-through of FY15 for building budgets. Now you have the same information that they do!
We have the full local aid numbers for Governor Patrick's proposed FY15 budget, with a comparison to the FY14 budget as passed.
We have the full calculation of the Net School Spending compliance, as we talked about earlier this week. Note the nearly 50/50 split on that $7.6 million administration line. WPS only controls half of it. Also, someone asked this week if charter school tuition counts towards Net School Spending; it does, and here you can see it: Line 12, City side, is the $26 million to charter schools.
And, to boot, we have the Governor's proposed budget as it pertains to WPS, including breakdowns in Chapter 70 aid and local contribution. If you're looking closely, you can see that we're all going to want to go back and check in with the "Determining Required Local Contribution" section of "Demystifying the Chapter 70 Formula" from Mass Budget. We haven't had that apply recently (possibly since the rewrite in 2007?) in Worcester, so go read it now. And if you're confused, I'm sure we're all going to go through it a bunch of times before June! Baseline, though, is that it represents good news on Worcester's local economy. 
As always with budget: much more to come!

Go figure!

I will freely admit: of all of the various reactions possible for City Manager Augustus to have to the publication of Governor Patrick's FY15 budget, this was not one I expected:

But Worcester City Manager Edward M. Augustus Jr. pointed out that is less than half a percent increase in local school aid, which combined with no increase in state funding for municipal operations will add millions more to the $11 million shortfall city officials had expected for the fiscal year beginning July 1. 

He started with the small increase in Chapter 70.
I do not recall ever hearing that be the first thing mentioned by a city manager.

Lies, Damn Lies...

Good post over at The Indignant Teacher on the "Dam of Lies" around the Common Core and Race to the Top here in Massachusetts:

Except one day suddenly there were people in decision-making roles in Massachusetts who weren’t the “smartest” in the group. They traded in our “smartest” state standards for RTTT and CCSS, knowing it was a weaker system. Over time, NAEP data evolved into something that would ultimately remove the “smartest” title from Massachusetts students. This year’s data shows Massachusetts having dropped to #2, after Vermont, in terms of “smartest” adults based on education attainment demographics.

Clearly there’s a pattern, and it’s not a positive one. We are losing status as “smartest”, and it wouldn’t take a Rhodes Scholar to determine why. So why do we, as a state, allow the pattern to continue? Why can’t we do what we know works – what’s proven to work? And really, why did we sign on to this in the first place?

Scrolling back through the history, it's worth noting this speech from Governor Patrick, expressing reluctance to adopt the standards "if it means compromising our values." That was after we'd lost in round one, but before we'd won in round two: just when the decision was being made to cave on the Common Core. I'd also note some of this interchange with both Chester and Ingram after Massachusetts had been announced as a winner.
Beyond the push about needing the money (which was questionable at best, particularly when you consider how strictly spending it was structured), there was definitely a lot of political pushing going on around Race to the Top. For our bluest state to refuse the much-touted educational policy initiative of a Democratic president would have looked bad. It would have been smart, but it would have looked bad.
And it sure does look as though political expediency was put over educational attainment.
And should you need a revamp on my take of why Race to the Top was a bad idea, here you are. 

Legislative budget

I'll do a full rundown on the state budget once the Governor signs it, but if you're interested in what the Legislature agreed on, take a look at the Mass Budget and Policy Center's look. 

Several K-12 grant programs receive increases over FY 2013 levels. Of note, the FY 2014 budget provides increases of (Children's Budget program links embedded):

• $10.6 million for the Special Education Circuit Breaker, which appears to fully fund the statutory reimbursement rate of 75 percent. Total funding for FY 2014 is $252.5 million.

• $6.0 million for Regional School Transportation, bringing total funding up to $51.5 million.

• $4.5 million for Charter School Reimbursements, bringing total funding up to $75.0 million. It is important to note that a supplemental budget for FY 2013 that has passed the Legislature and awaits action from the Governor includes an additional $8.0 million for these reimbursements for FY 2013.

• $1.6 million for English Language Acquisition, bringing total funding up to $2.8 million.

• $1.0 million for Innovation Schools, which would fund competitive grants for school districts planning, implementing, or seeking to enhance Innovation Schools in Massachusetts. This is a new program for FY 2014.

• $500,000 for METCO, bringing total funding up to $18.6 million.

A few other programs would be cut from FY 2013 levels. Of note, the FY 2014 budget provides decreases of:

• $4.0 million for Homeless Student Transportation, bringing total funding down to $7.4 million.

• $823,000 for Literacy Programs, bringing total funding down to $2.3 million.

• $480,000 for MCAS Low-Scoring Student Support, bringing total funding down to $9.1 million.

Questions on FY14

O'Brien: do we think the Senate will do more for education than the House?
Allen: did not appear that either side will support Governor's proposal; House will likely be final amount
O'Brien: do we know what the city number is? where does that leave us under $800,000?
city increase is about $4 million
city over $500,000 for this (not counting the carry forward) year
city will be about $500,000 above for this year; $800,000 under net
reduces the city gap to $430,000 below Net School Spending for FY14
O'Brien: suggestions from Council on meeting school need; sharing of new growth
historically city and schools split new growth 50/50; that stopped and city kept new growth
might have some discussion about setting aside a small portion of that new growth revenue, maybe 10% to reduce that fiscal deficit
rather than meeting our minimum spending, being a bit above
Economou: goal was to eliminate conversation year-in, year-out
not just meet the goal, go beyond it
set up a plan, a percentage
could even set a cap, "so as not to burden the city side"
maybe anything above the cap could go towards school maintenance
Colorio: something that is measurable
something that is visible to the taxpayers
O'Brien: good idea, meeting capital needs, physical needs
Foley: certainly be talking about some of those issues
how can we parcel those dollars out to have the greatest rigor?
work done in the schools has been tremendous
foundation budget: if we can put this behind us and move forward, that would be great
operating level, reduce previous years
move beyond foundation level
compete with surrounding towns
ELL and special ed going up
Allen: largest increase in budget is probably in special education (partly due to bringing services in-house)
$600,000 losing to charter school assessment in addition to
tuition for FY14 $26.8...entire increase is supposed to be cover in that year
should be at least a million more than what it is in the state budget
Novick: 10% of the new growth (it was 4.9% last year) works out to about $500,000 on $300 million; that's .5%
need to also look at capital spending; an entirely other budget; out of proportion with percentages spent on city/schools operation budgets, relative sizes of employees or those served
Rivera: at what point are we looking at schools that were closed? Can we have a new (reopened) school?
Allen: a process that needs to start now; longer term solution, short term problem
Foley comments that we may need to reopen schools that we closed
Economou: are there other schools that are overcrowded besides Chandler Elementary?
Allen: Union Hill, a lot are getting near capacity
Economou suggests looking at universities and Worcester Academy for space
Economou asks if our state legislators aware of this
Allen comments that the superintendent has been speaking state senators regarding
Allen: vision bringing back magnet schools, replicate successful magnets to balance out enrollments

Where are we at with the budget?

As you saw on Thursday, right now we're awaiting the House budget, due out on Wednesday. That is the budget off of which the Worcester Public Schools administration will base our budget for FY14.
A few things of note right now:

• we entered this budget season without a structural deficit. That means that our projected increases in funding (due to enrollment and inflation) could meet our projected certain increases in costs. That's the first time that's happened since I've been on the committee--and since longer ago than that--and it's worth mentioning, because it implies that we're coming out of the worst of things.
• that, however, was before sequestration. Sequestration is projected to cut up to $2 million in grant funding from the Worcester Public Schools. That's the equivalent of 23 teaching positions. There's not much sign that the federal government is going to come to any sort of agreement in time for us to save what we need to save, and our grants fund programs that aren't really optional. For more on what that looks like, see my post from February here. I would say that this is my largest concern going into this budget.
• while the Governor's budget proposed expanded funding for preschool and increased funding for special ed, there's been no indication so far that those will pass the Legislature. While both sides appear to remain faithful to funding of Chapter 70, they all seem a lot more concerned with funding for communities that don't, under the foundation calculation, need the support, than with following through on fully funding the circuit breaker (special ed) or charter school reimbursement. That means that the highest need communities are the ones that lose.
• needs in Worcester continue to increase. You'll notice on page 11 of the administration's presentation from Thursday at we're projecting a need for 30 additional special education positions and 11 more ELL positions for next year. Even setting aside for a moment what we ought to do: those are needs that we are legally required to meet. Those have to be funded somehow. 
• that's also all before we get into our losing tech support on our operating system this year, additional special education buses, new graduation requirements under MassCore...

What this means is we're going to need to do some internal reallocation: cut here to add there. I don't yet know what administration's recommendations are going to be on that (we'll know in a month or so), but that's what this budget is going to be about.

So: while we've been in worse spots, this isn't as great a budget season as it looked like a few months ago.

We'll know more later this week.

A few other notes from the MSBA board meeting

I stayed until the end, because it's good to know how these things work!

• The MSBA board was assured at the meeting that Governor Patrick's proposal to rework how much the sales tax is and how it is distributed would not change the penny dedicated to MSBA. Good news!
• Medford was charged by a board member with keeping in mind that their new and renovated science labs should mean a renewal of science professional development, so teachers could make the best use of the modern labs.
• The Springfield Central High School project was listed under science labs, but the project is 12 new labs, renovation of 6 labs and a greenhouse, new roof, and a new sprinkler system. Of that, the state is funding $23.9 million of a total $32 million.
• Brookline, which today was approved for feasibility for Edward Devotion (elementary) School, was lauded for having the wisdom to do a full enrollment study before presenting this school before the board. Brookline has grown by 30% over the past decade, and they have several times been before MSBA on varioius projects having to do with enrollment. They had been warned that they should really project full enrollment across the district before coming forward with more, which they did.
• For those curious on how timelines are going, of the two districts that entered the feasibility phase for new or majorly renovated schools, Brookline was invited into eligibility last March, Georgetown last October. There is some chance that Nelson Place will be on the agenda for April's meeting, should all continue to roll forward.

Legislative breakfast

Members of the Worcester School Committee met with members of our Legislative delegation this morning to talk about FY14, Governor Patrick's education proposals, preschool, and school building projects. The major message we received was one of waiting for more details and questions on how the state could pay for the Governor's proposals (and if the Legislature is willing to, as the plans are based on new or "anticipatory revenue.").
Senator Chandler recommended that we request a Joint Ways and Means hearing on the budget in Worcester this year and plan to testify at it.
We also heard from Mr. Allen that if the Governor's proposals of lifting the cap on counting our preschoolers and the additional $10,000 added to the cap on out-of-district educational placements both went through, it would mean $3.6 million to Worcester.
No, we won't be planning on that money.

Mass Budget on the Governor's Budget

The Mass Budget and Policy Center has posted their first look at the Governor's budget. Regarding education:

• Chapter 70 is increasing $226.2 million above FY 2013 levels, however most of this will just cover cost growth: "MassBudget projects that maintenance costs for FY 2014 would total $167 million, leaving about $59 million of the Governor's proposed increase to fund expanded services."
• The budget continues the so-called reforms of 2007, that increased the amount of money that quite a number of communities that may not be particularly high need get from the state.
• Along with a substantial section on preschool (some of which may well affect Worcester), there's also a bit of a  list of other things: support for Gateway Cities (still unspecified what this is going to do, may be Worcester); adult basic ed for English language learners (again, could be us); extended learning time grants specifically for middle schools with a large population of low income students (again, sounds like Worcester); "targeted intervention in underperforming schools" which sounds (from that description) a lot like the School Improvement Grants, which came from the federal government. However good these causes, my main concern here is all of this sounds a lot like short term funds that go away after a few years, leaving us with new programs to find funding for.
• Charter school reimbursement is going up by $9.8 million. The Board of Education, last February, approved four new schools, so that won't be enough to cover the difference. 

Last I heard, the Department of Revenue still hadn't posted the cherry sheet (Know why it's called a cherry sheet? The numbers were originally printed on cherry-colored paper...which would be pink? Maybe?) of the actual breakdown by municipality. Should they post that sooner rather than later, we should get an update specifically on Worcester. 

Chapter 70 calculations coming

As you heard last night:

The Chapter 70 state aid and required local contribution calculations for each municipality and district will be posted on ESE's school finance webpage at http://finance1.doe.mass.edu/ next Wednesday, Jan. 23, following the release of the Governor's House 1 budget proposal. As always, districts are advised to construct their local budgets with sufficient flexibility to accommodate the changes that typically occur in the state budget process. 

(This from the Commissioner today.)

Governor Patrick proposes increased funding (in targeted areas) for education

Yesterday, Governor Patrick proposed increased education funding in particular areas. The focus is on early (very early: birth to age 5) childhood ed, middle school learning time, and college costs.
As always, let me first laud the attention to funding in education. This is right and useful.
These also could be some useful areas to target: while I don't focus on college on this blog, the costs of college have gotten outrageous and have made it well beyond reach of families who could benefit. Middle school is a time that I continue to think that we still haven't quite figured out how best to serve; we should be very thoughtful and cautious about time increases, but the attention is useful. Early childhood ed is the time when we can do the most good with smaller resources, and I'm particularly pleased to see us extending that so young, as gaps among children open remarkably early.
This does feel, unfortunately, as though we are once again attempting to solve problems that lie well outside of education by putting more attention on education, however. Lots of children who come to us with what gets termed an "achievement gap" have families that need better access to food, to housing, to health care. Lots of children are never going to attend preschool, even if we have the space--and let me add, they shouldn't have to. Lots of parents could use assistance in how to talk to kids, how to let kids play, so as to have them well prepared for school, but also for life beyond school.
And this early childhood focus is not, I fear, going to do any of that.
The governor also announced yesterday that, while he intends to fully fund Chapter 70, he also:

...is also proposing a nearly $226 million increase in Chapter 70 local aid which will hold every district harmless for aid; keep every district at foundation levels of spending; finish the Chapter 70 equity reforms of 2007; guarantee an increase of $25 per pupil for every district; and increase the assumed cost of the average out-of-district special education placement for school districts.

emphasis mine
In other words, this will continue the inequity that kicked in with the so-called reform of 2007, which was a turning away from the fundamental principle behind the foundation formula: that districts are funded inequitably and that the state's role is to fix that. That doesn't mean that every district gets the same amount. That doesn't mean that every district gets a piece of the pie. That means the districts that need the most help get the most help.

No, Worcester will not see that $25 per pupil. As there is no mention here of charter funding reform, one assumes that we will again get hit by charter schools not being fully funded. And it will be districts that least need the aid that get the increases.

This is not progressive government, and it is not what the foundation formula set out to solve.

Reville leaving as Secretary of Education

According to reports leaked tonight ahead of tomorrow's official announcements, Secretary Reville will be among those stepping down for the last two years of Governor Patrick's term.
And rumors are rife...

No impact on WPS under Governor's proposed cuts

This evening, the Worcester School Committee received the following email from Mr. Allen:

Today, as you have probably heard, Governor Patrick announced a number of state budget cuts today needed to balance shortfalls in the state revenue for the fiscal year.  The purpose of this email is to provide information specifically relating to the impact of these cuts on education and specifically the Worcester Public Schools. 

I had the opportunity to be at a session today where DESE was presenting on the impacts of the federal sequestration cuts.  Within the session, we were provided specific information relative to the education cuts. 

·        First, there are no Chapter 70 cuts.  The Governor (and State Legislature) have consistently honored the Chapter 70 funding formula and the commitment is continued by holding this line item harmless in these current state reductions. 

·        Circuit Breaker is being reduced $11.5 million.  The DESE has published reimbursement this year at 70%.  Even with this reduction, DESE believes that this 70% reimbursement will still be met.  They have indicated that extraordinary relief (which we would not qualify for) would be the line item within circuit breaker that would be reduced.  Therefore, we are not expecting a reduction in our circuit breaker reimbursement this year. 

·        McKinney-Vento (homeless student) transportation is being reduced by $5.25 million.  McKinney-Vento was funded for the first time this year at $11.3 million and was based on a survey of costs of school districts last year.  As provided in the budget update memo yesterday, we submitted $509,000 in our DESE report for McKinney Vento reimbursement.  DESE is unable to estimate the impact on districts as they are still waiting for 40 school district to submit their financial reports that were due on October 1^st.  At this time, this will have no impact on our budget because these funds have not been allocated to the WPS budget for the current fiscal year.  I also understand that these funds have not been included in the budget for the city as adopted this evening by the City Council. 

·        Charter School reimbursement is reduced by $1 million (of a $72 million line item).  In December, DESE does an update to enrollments and reimbursements.  We know that the reimbursement line item is already underfunded but DESE does not believe that this reduction will further reduce the amount provided to municipalizes once the quarterly enrollment updates are completed.

·        Foundation Reserve is reduced by $2.5 million.  We do not receive these funds.

·        Regional Transportation is reduced $1 million.  We do not receive these funds.

Overall, education is being reduced by $21.6 million, but we are not expecting that there will be any impact on our budget.  There are sometimes some of our funding (or programs) from other state agencies (such as Early Education and Care and Health and Human Services) will impact us.  At this time, we are unaware if there is any impact on us but we will provide any updates as necessary.

Obviously, the status of the state budget revenues presents more of a challenge as we plan for the FY14 budget.  Each of these line items are areas that we will need to monitor closely as the state budget process begins next month.

Comments before the Council

...are here. And in full after the jump.

Hold that adjustment!

Governor Patrick has announced today that he is asking the Legislature for a cut of $9 million from unrestricted local aid to cities and towns due to tax revenue being lower than expected.

One suspects that 28% of the cuts statewide will not be taken from the City of Worcester.

Why then is the Worcester City Council receiving a recommendation that they prepare for a cut of $2.5 million as part of tonight's proposed adjustments?

It would be sensible, in light of this announcement, as well as the reiteration last night that the City is not meeting its legal obligations to fund education, that this item be held for new recommendations from administration.*

*Recall that under the charter, the City Council may only accept or reject the City Manager's budgetary recommendations. They may not propose new ones.