Some things to read this week

From tabs I have open today:

• I thought this look at the "anti-conviviality" of generative AI was very interesting and important for those who are in education: 
  

  The expertise you would have gained by growing your own fruit, by trying in fits and starts to make your own vision a reality—these opportunities for growth are completely lost. Unless you actively work against the natural way to use these tools, you become increasingly dependent on them. You can produce and produce without ever growing yourself. Even worse, it's not hard to see how the skills you do have will slowly atrophy from lack of use.

•  Intriguing question being raised by the courts in Canada on if social media companies might hold a "duty of care" to school boards: 
  

  Should the Court recognize a novel duty of care in this case, social media companies could be found liable to individual users and public institutions, such as school boards. 
  
  

• And speaking of Canada, a recent report from the Ontario Ministry of Education yielded this post on the importance of recess: 
  

  As researchers who have long studied the links between school environments and children’s well-being, we know that reducing or restructuring recess time can negatively impact learning and development.
   Indeed, research consistently shows that recess plays a vital role in academic success, mental health and overall well-being.

• You should always read what Zahava Standler at New America writes; today she writes on the crucial role a national Department of Education fulfills and what we stand to lose by not having that: 
  

  Across these policies runs a common thread: We are not in this together, we owe each other nothing, and the future is not our concern. It is a small, mean vision of America.

• Relatedly, the New York Times has a lengthy piece on the damage the Trump administration is doing to community colleges, and, by extension, our communities: 
  

  Community colleges already subsisted on budgets that most four-year schools would find laughable, lean operations that delivered hefty returns on investment for their areas. Get care at a local doctor’s office, or prepped for surgery at a hospital, or treated after an accident, or have someone come to your home to do repairs — “those are all community-college grads, all of them,” the community-college leader told me. “This collateral damage is going to end up being regional economic damage.”

  and the joy in this quote! 
  

  “Milton is the GOAT!” he cried out. “‘Paradise Lost’ is everything that I love!”

But what did Fair Share get us?

ahem...

I hope by now you've seen that the Fair Share amendment, which taxes at 4% on every dollar over a person's first $1M in income, has far exceeded expectations. As noted back in May: 

Massachusetts has collected about $1.8 billion from a voter-approved surtax on the state’s highest earners through the first nine months of the fiscal year, the Department of Revenue said Monday in a quarterly report.

That’s more than $800 million more than what the Legislature and Gov. Maura Healey planned to spend in surtax revenue for all of fiscal year 2024, raising the possibility of a sizable pot that will land in an Education and Transportation Reserve Fund and the Education and Transportation Innovation and Capital Fund, both surtax specific accounts, once the books close.

Remember, unless you've made a million plus at least a dollar in income? You are not paying this. And if you made a million plus a dollar, you're only taxed the extra 4% on that one additional dollar.

I've seen some confusion about this, so I thought I'd clear up a few things. 

First, the above money doesn't get spent until next year; this is a reserve fund, so the funding goes in and sits until the total is determined by the state comptroller in December. It's pretty clear, though, that the state's been conservative with projections, and this is one where we do really want to spend the money that's coming.

Second, this is funding--like most in the state--that's allocated by vote of the Legislature, signed by the Governor. There isn't some sort of formula where everyone gets some of this. I've heard districts ask how they can apply, or if it's being allocated evenly...that isn't how this works at all. The Legislature decides on what, within transportation and education, they want to spend the money on, and that's where it goes.

Funding was allocated in this year's budget from last year's Fair Share collection. Again, there is a very good chance that you are not personally paying for this--these efforts are not increasing your taxes!--but we as state residents are benefiting!

• universal free lunch - a program much in the news, due to Minnesota similarly funding meals for all students, the reimbursement to districts of the federal reimbursement rate for non-federally reimbursed meals (the wonkish explanation!), this $170M is from Fair Share funding. 
  Yes, we literally have our millionaires making sure all kids eat!
  Remember, the FY24 number is a compromise and is expected to still not be enough to fully reimburse the expense to districts
• $74/pupil increase in minimum aid in chapter 70. I've ongoingly argued that this is not a fair, equitable, way to get aid to districts, and yet...here we are. $37M here for K-12 districts.
• free community college is funded from the Fair Share amendment (there's several lines of public higher ed funding, in fact)
• $110M to regional transit authorities-- aka, local bus systems
• $60M for MBTA physical infrastructure
• $20M for a low income reduced fare program for the MBTA
• $7.5M for ferry services
• $36M for safety work at the MBTA
• $45M for municipal roadwork
• $10M for a skilled workforce pipeline for the MBTA (those bus and train drivers don't grow on trees!)
• $175M for child care grants (operations)
• $15M to reduce the waitlist at early childcare and education for teen parents and homeless families
• $5M for preschool expansion
• $65M for increased salaries and benefits for early education and care
• $18M for reducing the early childcare waitlist
• expanding early college, technical, and innovation pathways at $2.5M 
• the Literacy Launch, funding for both curriculum and professional development, which they compromised at $20M for
• Green Energy infrastructure grants to schools for $10M
• developing a framework for mental and behavioral health funded at $5M

This is all really good stuff! We should be proud that we fought for this money! 
I wish more people were more clear on where it is going. Please spread the word!

Some things to read this weekend

please enjoy this tree in Palmer

 I've shared much of this on either Twitter or Bluesky, but for those not on there, or who find this easier:

• I'm sneaking this in here due to her connection with the Worcester Public Schools: Senate President Karen Spilka recently asked for ideas on which woman deserves a statute in the state senate, and here is a suggestion it should be Frances Perkins (graduate of Classical High). 
  
  
• There's new research out on state takeovers of school districts, and, as EdWeek writes: 
  

  Politicians typically pitch state takeovers as efforts to help steer a sinking ship to calmer waters. But existing and emerging research offers a more mixed and less rosy view.

  And speaking of state takeovers, things are not great in Houston. 
  

• You may have heard a lot about Norwegian cell phone bans in school. Here's a blunt list of what was actually found.
  

• The bill that passed the House this week adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which classifies most anti-Zionism as antisemitic is what has been repeatedly called for in public testimony before the Mass Board of Ed; it happened at the January meeting, from the panel invited by Chair Katherine Craven, and then again in February and March. Lest you think it only happens elsewhere. 

• This opinion piece in the New York Times on college admissions spends too much time from the perspective of a wealthy student, but some of the points are useful. Sara Goldrick-Rab, meanwhile, reminds us of community colleges and decisions that need not be made in the spring.

• Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed into law this week new penalties for those passing a stopped school bus:
  

  Illegally passing a stopped school bus is now classified as a high and aggravated misdemeanor, resulting in a fine of no less than $1,000,12 months in jail, or both.

• A Marin County grand jury found that asking parents to provide school supplies was contrary the California education code:
  

  “Public schools in California are required to provide, at no cost to students or their families, all the supplies, materials and equipment necessary to fully participate at school,” the grand jury states in an introduction to the report. “As a result, it is improper for public schools to distribute lists of school supplies that are required or requested.”

• This piece on rules came in response to the college response to college protests this week, but I thought it applies well to how schools run, too:
  

  We spend our lives being socialized to believe that failure to follow rules is harmful to society. Less remarked upon is the equally important fact that overzealous, unthinking enforcement of the rules is just as harmful to society. Inflexible as rules are, they cannot function effectively without the ability of their enforcers to compare their text to the fluctuating exigencies of the real world. Small-minded determination to use rules as the final word on all human conduct is characteristic of goons, acting with the desperate meanness that comes from the need to have an easy club with which to beat back the imposing intricacy of life.

  And speaking of those, McSweeney's doesn't miss. 

Joint Committee on Ways and Means hearing on FY25: local and education aid

 

Greenfield Community College atrium

I was just asked why I sit where I do, and the answer is "next to the outlet when there is one!"

FY19 Joint Hearing on Ways and Means

Coming to you today from Peabody City Hall...the hearing begins at 10 am.
EDIT: My cleared up and probably more readable report for MASC is over here.
Opening this morning with the National Anthem and other music from the Peabody High School Chorale and welcome from Peabody Mayor Edward A. Bettencourt, who notes that the building was an opera house.

December Board of Ed: early college

Chester: Board meets with Higher Ed Board in January
Parthanon group did evaluation
memo is here, but there's a PowerPoint which wasn't handed out

Ways and Means hearing on Education

I'm at the lovely new Everett High School today ("five floors and a basement," as the student in the elevator told me) for the Ways and Means hearing on education. 
The hearing starts at ten; posting as we go (once we start)
The superintendents of Brockton, Fitchburg, and Chelsea are here (and that's just the ones I recognize); maybe a push on the needs of urban districts?
In his welcome, Everett high school principal calls out change from low income to economically disadvantaged and what that has done to their measurement
first panel is Secretary Peyser, Commissioner Weber, Commissioner Santiago, Commissioner Chester

Posting from the PARCC/MCAS forum

Posting today from the final PARCC/MCAS forum in Springfield. From the cards up front, it looks as though Secretary Peyser, Commissioner Chester, Chair Sagan, and Board members Mary Ann Stewart, James Morton, and Ed Doherty will be hearing testimony today. I've put my name in to offer testimony, and I'll post it once I've done so. Open question of course is if we're going to do another hour or more of the called experts all being pro-PARCC.
As always, no promises on names and such, but I'll get what I can. Updating as we go once we start!

Introduction by Chair Sagan, as they're all here now.
"have invited expert testimony the beginning section...have tried to group that on specfic themes if you could...after that, public testimony"
"restrict topic of Board hearings"
will begin with testimony from invited guests, speak up to five minutes
public must keep comments to three minutes
will call two to three speakers at a time