And then a discussion about school committee authority broke out

 Something happened at last Tuesday's Board of Ed which doesn't happen at 99.9% of Massachusetts Board of Education meetings¹: someone not only mentioned school committees, but there was even a smidge of a discussion about them.

This came in response to a (properly posted) update from the Commissioner on Fall River. You may have seen that the Fall River School Committee recently moved to fire their superintendent without cause; she resigned. At the request of the Mayor, the Department is completing a targeted review of district governance.

Fall River Public Schools had their last comprehensive district review in 2025, as required by MGL Ch. 15, sec. 55A, under state regulations 603 CMR 2.03. Those regulations, passed by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, require that the review include: Leadership and Governance, alongside Curriculum and Instruction; Assessment; Human Resources and Professional Development; Student Support; and Financial and Asset Management. Those are always the areas reviewed for every district.²

Within that last report for Fall River, released in November 2024, within the Governance analysis, DESE reported the following: 

According to focus groups, working relationships between district leaders and school committee members are still in early stages and are sometimes tense. As mentioned above, the superintendent is new to her role and began leading the district in July 2024 and, as such, a formal evaluation has not yet been completed. According to interviews, the superintendent is still working through her formal entry plan into the district and trying to “build a little bit more of a network and relationships with the school committee.” However, district leaders also reported that the current superintendent faced opposition from several members of the school committee upon her promotion to superintendent from her previous role as assistant superintendent and chief academic officer. Currently, there are still reported tensions between the school committee and the district superintendent, and both agreed that there was occasionally “strain” in the relationship regarding the best way to collaboratively fulfill their responsibilities and benefit the district. Despite this, in interviews and focus groups, both parties reiterated their commitment to Fall River and their desire to collaborate effectively to improve the district and outcomes for all students. Building rapport between both parties is an area for growth in Fall River.

As they were doing a report early on in a new superintendent administration, this is a measured, but early warning, view of what the Department saw then. Then the Fall River School Committee underwent an election last fall in which three of the six seats changed (the seventh member, the mayor, stayed the same), with the above being the outfall.

What I found most odd about the above bit of discussion in the meeting, beyond it happening at all, was the common concern of Chair Katherine Craven and Vice-chair Matt Hills: they were very concerned about the Department's relationship with the "democratically-elected school committee."

While I agree that the lines of authority are always³worth keeping an eye on, it's very odd to hear this from the Board leadership, which in its tenure, has not expressed all that much concern about the very removal of school committee authority that state receivership is. The school committees in receivership districts are also democratically-elected, and yet it has been from the successor of Commissioners after Jeff Riley that the impetus has come to return them to local authority. That could have come from this chair and vice chair at any time in their tenure. Instead, it took Russell Johnston as acting receiver to finally move. That, mercifully, has continued forward. 

The Commissioner is appointed by and evaluated by the Board. If "democratically-elected" school committees having authority was this much of a concern, Craven and Hills had ample opportunity and reason to speak earlier. They did not. 

Interesting time to speak up. 

¹I have been to almost every one for fifteen years. Take it from me.
²You can find the list of district review reports on the Department's website here. They are not always right (in my view) but they are always worth reviewing.
³not just in the 0.1% of the time they deign to remember that school committees exist, let's say.  

As ye sow, so shall ye reap

 Yes, I post this, as always, in my personal and exasperated capacity.

On 'shared values'

 In the aftermath of the murder of Charlie Kirk last week--and no, you won't be getting a hot take from me on that--I've seen frequently circulating an appeal to "shared values." This has particularly come in reference to what educators should or have posted online.

Sometimes these "shared values" have been listed, either in what is released or as part of larger mission or vision statements. 

We don't, in Massachusetts, actually get to pick and choose our foundational shared values, though, because the very creation of public education in Massachusetts in the state constitution also creates the values:

to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings; sincerity, good humor, and all social affections, and generous sentiments among the people

Does that sound like what you've been hearing?

The real kicker, though, is the opening of the passage, the reason it's in the state constitution at all:

We have public education at all for preservation of our rights and liberties. That is the whole reason right there.

It would behoove us to examine if the "shared values" being appealed to or referenced are in fact the values we are required to share in public education in Massachusetts.

I would call this blog post "in which the Globe gets it wrong again," but once you've used that as a title once, you've used it.

Anyway, the Boston Globe (specifically Mandy McLaren, who tends to decide what the answers are before writing articles, as evidenced by, for example, her coverage of literacy) wrote today about Governor Healey's graduation council, as announced in her State of the State address earlier this year. In the article, McLaren repeats a big misunderstanding of where November has left us: 

Why I'm voting no on question 2 regarding the competency determination

 DISCLAIMER: I WRITE THE FOLLOWING AS ME, SPEAKING ONLY FOR ME. I DO NOT HERE (EVER) SPEAK FOR MY EMPLOYER, FOR ANY ORGANIZATION FOR WHICH I SERVE IN ANY CAPACITY, OR FOR ANYONE OTHER THAN ME.

THUS NO, YOU MAY NOT QUOTE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING IN ANY OF THOSE CAPACITIES.

However, the speech rights of any individual are strongly protected by the federal Constitution, and even more strongly protected by the state Constitution. I've been asked several times offline how I'm voting on this question; I have shared my thinking as I outline it here.

Another reason to testify/call/email Worcester City Council this week

In addition to noting for the Council that they aren't traffic engineers and should listen to those who are on Mill Street (a bit outside the scope of this blog, so I will leave it there), you might also weigh in with the EAW President Melissa Verdier's petition to the Worcester City Council. While Council will probably have actually passed the WPS budget by the time they take public comment tomorrow at 6:30 ish, as apparently it's on their 4 pm agenda, not that those get posted, the budget isn't done until the whole budget is done.
You still could request that they not actually break the law again in how they fund schools this year.

Those also serve who drive the bus*

Among the cemeteries my family visits each Memorial Day is one which holds the following gravestone:

A granite rectangular gravestone with a curved top bears the name “Lowe” and the image of a school bus.
Visible on the side of the school bus is “R. F. LOWE”**

In the small K-8 district in which I grew up, Mr. Lowe ran the school buses. By “ran” here, I mean he owned, operated, and drove the small fleet of buses that were contracted to the town district. And when he drove as a substitute, however you may have behaved on the bus usually, you behaved yourself. 

Let's talk about this charter school application for Worcester

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education this year is considering a single application for a new charter school, and it's in Worcester. You can find the application online thanks to the MTA (not on DESE, as would, you know, actually make sense); the notification the Department gives is that the application is in, and they'll be holding a hearing, as required by MGL Ch. 71, sec. 89(h) here in Worcester:

4:00–6:00 p.m. on Friday, December 9 

the Hebert Auditorium, Surprenant Building, Quinsigamond Community College

You can also email your comments to charterschools@doe.mass.edu by January 4.

First, an overview of charter schools in Massachusetts, in case this is a new conversation for you:

Now, if you're brand new to charter schools entirely, let me recommend this piece from John Oliver from 2016, keeping in mind that a) it's from six years ago and b) it's a national look:

One thing that often is touted in Massachusetts is that all charter schools under MGL Ch. 71, sec. 89, are chartered by the state: applications go to the Commissioner for consideration, who then recommends (or doesn't) charters to the Board of Ed, who then awards (or doesn't) the charter. A parallel process is followed for renewals. While this means we have dodged some of what has happened in other states, let me note that Massachusetts isn't immune to some of the issues other states have seen; the ongoing issues, dating back at least a decade, of Mystic Valley Charter (up for renewal in February, incidentally) is probably the extreme, but please note that Worcester did have a charter that collapsed in October (!) of 2013 for exactly the financial reasons the Worcester Public Schools said in public testimony were going to happen when the state first considered it in 2010. (Search "Spirit of Knowledge" in the sidebar if you'd like the whole history of that.) 

The part that will always stay with me about that experience is attending a meeting in the Mayor's office with parents of students at Spirit of Knowledge who were begging the Worcester School Committee to do something, anything, to improve their children's experiences, and being entirely powerless, as charter schools answer only to the Board of Ed. My testimony before the Board of Ed on that experience is here; I also testified before the Joint Committee on Education in 2015 about that experience, calling for local authorization, if funding that impacts local districts is being used.

And that is how charter schools are funded in Massachusetts: the foundation budget amount of each student that attends the charter school PLUS $1088 for facilities (increased due to the Student Opportunity Act) PLUS any amount over foundation that the district spends (calculated as a percentage) comes straight the Chapter 70 state aid of the district in which the student lives. If you like playing with spreadsheets, you can download the projected FY23 district by district amounts here.

That spreadsheet also includes the calculation of what is most often misunderstood about charter school tuition: there is a transition amount. When a student, for example, leaves a district school for a charter school, for the first year, 100% of the amount of state aid being transferred comes also as reimbursement to the district; this tapers to 25% for the following three years. This was fully funded for the first time ever this past year (also thanks to the Student Opportunity Act). Note that it is the INCREASE, not the ongoing cost, that is reimbursed, and only for the transition.
The argument has been that this gives the district time to make the adjustments needed to their budget due to the loss of that individual student. Given a moment of thought, however, the inapplicability of this argument becomes clear: a district doesn't lose an entire third grade class, and so can cut a teacher to save that cost. A district loses a few students here and there across grade spans, and generally there is no "savings" at all.
And a charter school in a town or city is granted by the state district-funded transportation for all in-town or city students at the same status as the district's own. Thus the charter's existence itself increases a district cost, with no benefit to district students. You can see how much this costs on a per pupil basis on this spreadsheet; for Worcester last year, it was $2771 per student, or $5.7M.

Also, possibly a discussion for another time, I continue to wonder about the constitutionality of charter schools at all in Massachusetts, given the outlines of the dismissal in 2016 of Doe v. Peyser; in particular, as I quoted in that earlier blog post: 

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.

A bit about where we are with the state process:

As noted on the MTA's Policy Minute, initially there had been three applications for new charters in Massachusetts. That link also covers the proposed expansion of current charter schools. Two things that could maybe be relevant here:

• the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion group was not invited to apply for their proposed central Mass twin school (My personal opinion is that could be due to their continually turning up at Board of Ed meetings to try to get them to overrule the Commissioner on pretty basic stuff around their enrollment, but that's based on nothing other than attending Board of Ed meetings).
  
  
• Old Sturbridge Village Charter, which is the same administrative oversight proposing the new school in Worcester, was not moved forward for their proposed expansion into high school. 

Expansions and additions are governed by the state law on charter school spending: up to 9% of a district's required spending can be pulled out by charter schools, with up to 18% being pulled out of the lowest 10% of districts. This is the charter school "cap" which the state overwhelmingly voted to retain by rejecting question 2 in 2016. 

Because I will share this map any chance I have to: a look at exactly how unpopular lifting the charter cap was, courtesy of WBUR

Much like everything else, this list lowest 10% list, which is based on MCAS scores, was impacted by the pandemic, and so it has been frozen for 2021, 2022, and 2023 with the ratings of based on 2018 and 2019 MCAS scores.
And yes, Worcester is on that list, just. We had moved off the lowest performing list (download them and check!) for a number of years, but the 2020 list dropped us back into that group. This was never discussed at the district level; the previous administration never really did much sharing of the state accountability information, let actual reacting to it.
And that is the group that is now frozen.
We would have space under the charter cap, in any case, as 9% of Worcester net school spending does not go to charter schools, thankfully.

What's the deal with Old Sturbridge Village and charter schools?

The charter being proposed in Worcester essentially is a sibling to the Old Sturbridge Village Charter School in Sturbridge, which opened in 2017, after being rejected the previous year. It has 320 students in grades K-8. For FY22, it pulled $4.8M out of the districts of Brimfield, Brookfield, Holland, Monson, North Brookfield, Palmer, Southbridge, Spencer-East Brookfield, Sturbridge, Tantasqua, Wales, and Webster, though $1.8M of that came from Southbridge alone, where close to half the student body comes from. Southbridge is one of the three districts deemed chronically underperforming by the state. It has been under state receivership since 2016.
The dates being the same as when OSV first applied to open a charter school is in no way a coincidence. The state law is constructed such that this sapping of resources of the districts that are often only minimally funded and most need every dollar to do better is incentivized under the argument of giving families, essentially, an escape hatch, as the state has thrown up its hands (at least until recently) around actually doing its job in ensuring the constitutional requirement for a fully-funded education for each student is met.

As a side note, there is no evidence that state takeover of school districts in Massachusetts has been effective. 

It's also not a coincidence that it's Old Sturbridge Village that has been, I believe, the first and only museum to take advantage of the provision that allows for a charter to be filed jointly by (MGL Ch. 71, sec. 89(d)) "a college, university, museum or other similar non-profit entity," given who the President and CEO of OSV--who also serves as Executive Director of OSV Charter and who also is proposed to serve as Executive Director of the Worcester expansion--has been since 2007: Jim Donahue. 

Donahue, as this profile in Worcester Business Journal from 2011 notes, came on as OSV's President at at time when it wasn't entirely clear that OSV was going to make it. That changed under Donahue. Donahue's background, though, is not from the museum world: he's a charter school director.

Donahue was the director of Highlander Charter School in Providence, Rhode Island. Donahue also recently ran for City Council in Cranston, RI (there were three seats open and he came in fourth), as well as serving as co-chair of Allen Fung's campaign for the Second Congressional district in Congress (both men are Republicans; Fung lost to Magaziner).

In both the case of OSV Charter and the proposed Worcester school, Donahue serves as Executive Director under a management agreement with Old Sturbridge Village; he is appointed to that position by the OSV board. The proposed management agreement for the Worcester school, which is 28 pages long and is included starting on page 278 of the application, looks to these non-lawyer eyes like it is pretty difficult for the charter school to ever get out of; look at what "termination" spells out, starting on page 297.
The agreement states that OSV will be responsible for:

• Providing general business operations
• Providing leadership and management support to School Leaders as necessary to achieve goals as outlined in the Accountability Plan and mission and vision of the Charter;
• Preparing entitlement grant applications and reporting;
•  Recruiting School Leaders, teachers, and other administrators; using best practices for attracting a qualified, talented and diverse faculty and staff, and ensuring compliance with the provisions of MGL c. 71, §38G;
• Training and coaching of the School Leaders by the Executive Director;
• Preparing the evaluation of the Principal for the Board’s review and approval;
• Preparing a budget and monthly financial statements for the Board’s review and approval;
• Providing payroll and accounting services;
• Assisting with the selection of an independent auditor to be retained by the Board;
• Coordinating and implementing contracts with prior Board approval, consistent with the School’s policies and procedures;
• Preparing selection of benefits plans for Board approval for employees of the School governed by the Board;
• Assisting with the maintenance of human resource files for employees of the School to the extent permitted under State and federal law;
• Facilitating the purchase and procurement of all required School materials, equipment and services consistent with the School’s Fiscal Policies and Procedures and in accordance with all applicable Massachusetts statutes and regulations. An employee of OSV will be designated as procurement officer and such person will attain a Massachusetts Certified Public Purchasing Official (MCPPO) certification. OSV will ensure that at least one School employee will attain the MCPPO certification;
• Assisting School Leaders with the preparation of drafts of required government reports, including, but not limited to the annual report of the School for review and final approval by the Board;
• Administration of transportation services contract for students
• Facilitating student recruitment through community based outreach, parent information sessions, direct mail, social media, and person to person conversation. Facilitating fundraising through the identification and submission of grants proposals;
• Providing marketing and advocacy for the School under the direction of the Board;
• Administration and oversight of food services for students;
• Oversight of procurement of custodial, supplies and equipment for leased school facilities;
• Providing resources to support School goals related to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Access (DEIA); and
• Information technology support for staff and students including but not limited to; network and communications and set-up and support for all staff and student computer devices

All of that is spelled out in greater detail in the pages that follow in the management agreement. 
There are two things to note on this: the first is that the oversight of the school remains pretty firmly under OSV: the Executive Director is to provide "training and coaching" of the principal; the principal's evaluation is to be prepared by OSV. The second is that all of the finance and operations functions are done by OSV; from the minutes of the current school, one can infer that this will be led by Tina Krasnecky, Vice President of Finance and Human Resources. 

The opening discussion outlines the relationship as follows (p. 83):

Because the accountability of the Management Organization is essential to the foundation of this partnership, and because the responsibilities of the Principal are critical to the success of WCACPS, the Board of Trustees will delegate to the Management Organization the authority and responsibility, consistent with state law, to make recommendations for recruiting, hiring, evaluating and terminating the Principal. Actions regarding the Principal must be approved by the Board. The Management Organization will provide the leadership of the Executive Director who is responsible in assisting the Board in holding the Principal accountable for managing the school’s day-to-day operations and will hold them accountable for meeting established goals that ensure the success of WCACPS.

For all of this, the school will pay OSV $12,500 per month until June of next year, and then 7% of all tuition payments once the school is operational. As the budget projects tuition being $3.3M for the first year, rising to $6.7M in year five of operation, that's a fee of $233,955 rising to $470,531 over the term of the charter.

(The budget starts on page 236. Don't worry; we'll get there.)

Now this made me curious as to how this has been working for the current school at Old Sturbridge Village. As the school doesn't post their budget online, the state doesn't publish spending broken out by account code for charter schools (which would only do us so much good, anyway), and the school doesn't include an annual budget or financial statements in their minutes on their website, this is not clear. Old Sturbridge Village also doesn't make this clear in their 990 filing (page 9 is revenue).

However, if you look at the pretty vague financial statement on page 28 of the FY 22 Old Sturbridge Village annual report, you can find a line for contracted services: 

That isn't a line that appears in the OSV Annual Report prior to the opening of the charter school. Is that $464,816 all coming from the management agreement? We can't tell without filing public document requests (with the school; the museum isn't subject to public document laws), but 7% of the $4.8M the school gets in tuition would be $336,906, so if its agreement is similar to that of the proposed school, at least most of that is chapter 70 aid, funding the museum.
Additionally, the rental line is also at least in part from the school. The modular classrooms that OSV has along the edge of their parking lot are charged rent by the museum. In the April minutes of the charter Board, we find the cost has been $323,952 (page 4), but the total cost will increase in FY23 to $687,362 (page 7), because OSV plans to rent the Oliver Wright Tavern and the Village Conference Center to the school next year for the middle school. 

...which means that OSV has been getting $650K from the school, rising to nearly a million dollars next year. 

To that, then, they'd be adding another $233K next year, rising to $460K the year after, largely for providing the financial bookkeeping, along with Donahue's executive coaching, to the Worcester school. 

While that isn't the make or break for a $12M a year institution, I imagine it doesn't hurt.
For this, by the way, Donahue makes $242,626 as of the last filing (page 7 of the 990) from Old Sturbridge Village; as best as I can tell, this is the only payment to him, as the management agreement, at least of the proposed school, makes no additional allocation. 

How does the budget work for the proposed charter school?

The proposed budget for the charter school starts on page 236 of the application, but let's start not with spending, but with revenue.

Let's start with what they're spending now:

Old Sturbridge Village is currently leasing a building in Worcester that the founding team is using as a base for our outreach efforts in the Worcester community. This is funded by a private donor that we believe will also continue to generously give to WCACPS. If a charter is granted, the WCACPS Board will have the option to assume this lease from OSV.

This is the former You, Inc. building at Holy Family Parish on Hamilton Street. 

In this planning year, their budget is $750,000, of which $500,000 is half of a million dollar planning grant that they would expect to receive from DESE if the charter were awarded; the other $250,000 (p. 87) is "a private foundation grant of $250,000" which they haven't yet received:

The applicant group has applied to a private foundation for a $1,000,000 grant to fund the start-up of WCACPS. The funder expects to make a decision on this request at its Board meeting in November 2022. Based on conversations between Jim Donahue and the foundation we are confident of receiving at least $500,000 which would be disbursed during the pre-operational period ($250,000) and the remainder in Year 1 and 2 to help fund building improvements, the purchase of a bus and other start-up costs

In other words, they're already spending money that they don't have. As the lease of the building is being carried by Old Sturbridge Village at this time--and gosh, I'd sure have some questions there if I were an OSV Trustee!--this is clearly OSV making a gamble on the finances here with ultimately there being a reward to that risk.

And note that the early years of operation likewise are dependent on this funding source to make the books balance.

There's also, throughout the application (this is from p. 96): 

The foundation discussed above is also exploring the creation of a philanthropic ecosystem through which they will make grants to the Expedition Institutions of central MA to support their development of programs in partnership with the Worcester Cultural Academy.

The crux of the program for the proposed school is the museums, but they don't have funding for this part of the program. And where is the funding for that going to come from? The Worcester donation ecosystem is not that large, and the non-profits--museums included--depend on that pool of funds in order to keep things going. Unless this somehow expands the funding involved, one could easily hurt the very institutions cited.

The allocation is WILD. First up, remember much of what we might call administrative overhead is being done through the management contract with OSV. For the first year of operation, that's budgeted at $233,955.
To that, the plan adds an administration of a principal, a vice-principal, for a total of $261,581.
As the full budget for the first year of operation is $4,090,017, they've budgeted 12% of their budget for administration.
While some of that is due to the size of the school, because the management agreement is a percentage of the tuition, that drops but only to 10% of the total budget in year five. 

Looking through the rest of the education salaries, they appear to have 10 classroom teachers, 3 English learner teachers, the science enrichment teacher, the wellness teacher, and the learning expedition coordinator, and possibly the math time math coach (?) all coming out of the lines totaling $888,080; for student support, a full time adjustment counselor, plus full time nurse, plus half time psychologist, half time OT, half time PT, if that's all "student support services" (because I can't figure out where else it would go?) totals $156,000.
And there are four paraprofessionals in a line budgeted at $133,620.

The salary line for custodial is $70,000 for TWO custodians. 

There's just not enough money in here for salaries, in any case, but in this current state of affairs, I just don't see how this gets staffed.

What exactly is the program being proposed for Worcester?

My quip to my homeschooling friends when OSV charter opened was that this was homeschooler bait: send your children to school at the Village! They can wear bonnets and milk cows and feed chickens and learn to make shoes! And of course, there are plenty of photos of that, though that is not the bulk of the experience at that school.

In the Worcester case, there is a significant amount of attention to a two hour block once a week for students for what the application refers to as "Learning Expeditionary Field Study." (Schedules start on page 228 of the application.)There are several mentions of the "short drive" to OSV (from the proposed school location on Hamilton Street, it's a 40 minute drive), and ongoing references to proposed partnerships with Worcester museums.

This is another place where it gets interesting: one can, of course, bring students to museums all one likes. There is, though, no evidence, that any actual partnerships with Worcester institutions, which the applications refers to as "Expedition Institutions" in fact exist. The application says, for example:

We anticipate that this type of relationship can be replicated at other Central Massachusetts cultural institutions such as the EcoTarium, Worcester Art Museum (WAM), Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts, and more, in addition to the partnership with Old Sturbridge Village. The founding group is continuing to forge relationships and find potential opportunities within Central Massachusetts that fits our criteria for partnerships

As much as the names of Worcester institutions are featuring prominently in some of the advertising of the school, it is not Worcester museums proposing this charter, nor should one read into their names being used any support of it, as much as the application and surrounding documents lead in that direction. The only actual thing we know is that there have been initial meetings.

The proposed Worcester charter, like the one in Sturbridge, essentially would contract out their curriculum to EL Education, for which they would pay $75,000 a year for the first three years, then $40,000 a year thereafter. It seems clear from the application introduction that this is based off a visit Jim Donahue had with Ron Berger (who now is an executive at EL Education) when Berger was teaching in Shutesbury. Knowing that, the passive voice here is...a choice:

With that in mind, it was no surprise that EL Education was recommended to the museum as a school-design partner for OSACPS.

Surely someone did the actually recommending?

They plan to use iReady math, which is fairly common. 

Concerningly, their assessment grid also says that they also plan to use Fountas & Pinnell for grades 3-8, which WPS just managed to extricate itself from and has been widely noted to not follow what is known about what works in reading instruction.

What about the students?

This, of course, should really be the crux of the matter. Who is this school designed to serve? 
And that's actually a really good question. 

The school application is coming in as a "proven provider": the argument here is Jim Donahue (and those coming over from OSV Charter--about half the proposed Board is from there--have experience in running a charter school and so that gives the school a leg up.

But take a look at who OSV Charter has as students: 

OSV Charter: 4.1% African America; 0.3% Asian; 17.8% Hispanic; 0% Native American; 76.3% White;
0.3% Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander; 1.3% Multi-Race, Non-Hispanic

Here are the Worcester Public Schools' parallel demographics:

Worcester Public Schools: 16.9% African American; 6% Asian; 44.7% Hispanic; 0.2% Native American;
27.9% White; 0% Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander; 4.3% Multi-Race, Non-Hispanic

Very much not the same, and you'll see something similar in comparing selected populations:

Here's OSV Charter:

OSV Charter: First language not English, 5.3%; English language learner, 3.8%; Low income 43.8%;
Students with disabilities 19.7%; High needs, 55.6%

And the parallel numbers for the Worcester Public Schools:

Worcester Public Schools: First language not English, 58.9%; English language learner, 28.3%;
Low-income 74.3%; Students with disabilities, 21.1%; High needs, 84.1%

Thus in addition to being a much whiter and a much wealthier student population, the student body there has very few students who are learning English, and very few students whose first language isn't English. Not only is their percentage of both well below Worcester's; it's even below the state average (which is really saying something). 
In fact, they serve so few English learners, that their results for such students are not reported because there are so few students.

We literally cannot see how they do with their (less than 20) English learner students.

And as a side note: they're also nowhere near Southbridge Public Schools' demographics, either.

This, of course, speaks to lack of experience with students who are multilingual learners. While there is a section of the application (p. 60ff) designed to address English learners specifically, it opens in part:

This model is an ideal school environment for ELLs, which the leadership team has already established through OSACPS, that will enable them to overcome language barriers.

...which isn't something one can see from the student body actually being served in Sturbridge.  They don't have the experience to know that at all.
There is a heavy dependence on supplemental materials and differentiated instruction. There is not a great deal of evidence of understanding and experience of the actual needs of multilingual learners (who are not referred to as that, incidentally) in a school whose advocates envision it serving a student population that's between one- and two-thirds students who are learning English.

The application also speaks of the students in ways that strike me as worrying: the school has "a unique opportunity to serve children who fit a typically urban profile" (p. 27) in a section set aside to describe the student population served. That section instead pinballs from the proposed Board members to MCAS scores, to student demographics, to the housing authority, to rates of mental health issues, of which the section says: 

WCACPS would create a pathway for better outcomes when it comes to mental health and wellbeing for students by connecting them to cultural institutions, social services, and community organizations in the city and beyond at an early age.

And yes, the article cited does briefly review a few pieces relating mental health and museums, but this is a concerning focus when not presented in connection to further supports for students, which in this section, it is not.

There is of course much more one could say; the application is over 300 pages long, and the arguments on which it depends are larger than that. One could compare MCAS scores, but current MCAS scores are not even being used for accountability purposes, so there's not a great deal of use there. 

What we can say is this: we have a charter proposed that is not integrated to the Worcester community, that does not have the experience needed to serve our kids, that is predicated on a curricular model that is off-the-shelf, that uses a model to teach reading that is problematic, that legally binds the education to a non-profit oversight financially and administratively, and that will pull millions of dollars out of the local school district, just when the state has finally implemented the reform that would appropriately fund the district to the level constitutionally required.

We need to say no. 

Let me also note the following for Worcester residents: there are petitions going around in support of this expansion coming directly from the proposed Board. First, please don't sign or share them; second, please push back on the narrative accompanying them.
Oh, and a note on the opening of the application, which I found irritating.

"We pauperize education": a letter to my delegation

“The richest nation on Earth has never allocated enough resources to build sufficient schools, to compensate adequately its teachers, and to surround them with the prestige our work justifies. We squander funds on highways, on the frenetic pursuit of recreation, on the overabundance of overkill armament, but we pauperize education." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Speech to the United Federation of Teachers on receiving the John Dewey Award, March 1964

 To the members of the Worcester and Massachusetts delegations,

In the past week, thousands of students across the country, largely in urban districts including here in Worcester, walked out of their schools in protest of unsafe learning conditions. 
And those, of course, are just those who walked out, not all of those who feel this way. 

We have heard, over and over during this pandemic, that schools should be "the last things to close." That statement, however, continues to live in isolation, as there has not been a real policy in the United States or in Massachusetts that made other things the first to close. Thus schools have simply been ordered--and it is ordered, at this point--to open, without regard to what has been noted throughout the pandemic of the close tie with community spread and the intimate relationship schools have with all aspects of their community. There has been no community effort, let alone a state or national effort, to create the conditions and provide the resources in which schools can safety function in buildings during a pandemic. 

Likewise throughout the pandemic, there has been a significant lack of effort to close the gaping wound of racial health inequities which have continued through this time. Instead, the argument has been that children of color and in poverty most needed to be back in school buildings. This was well addressed this past week by Dr. Michelle Holmes, who in The Prospect wrote: 

It is curious to me that Leonhardt, Strain, Oster, and Bloomberg, none of whom are known as racial justice leaders, all now cite the disproportionate academic and social suffering of Black and Latino or low-income children as top reasons for in-person schooling, despite such disparities having been present historically. Nowhere in their arguments do they cite voices of color sharing their viewpoint. Also not evident are the voices of older people and those at high risk of exposure in their jobs.

As Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom noted in her New York Times column this week: 

How we got here is a story about parents engaging with schools as consumers who want to extract the most school resources for their children. Mothers are the ones societally tasked with doing that extraction. A good mom gets the best learning plan, best teacher, best school, best activities and all-around “best” school experience for her kid. And a mom with the privilege of race and class gets to define the terms of what counts as best. 

This week alone, I heard firsthand of: 

• a promising young elementary teacher who had to quit her job, as her young children kept having their childcare close due to COVID infections;
• a number of combined elementary school classrooms, due to teachers and students being out due either to illness or to quarantine; 
• students coming to school with known symptoms in order to be tested, as their families have no access to testing; 
• students who didn't have a first or second shot because parents have not had the opportunity to get their children to a site, due to work obligations;
• staff who are still deceived as to the nature of the vaccine; 

Students continue to be concerned that they will miss work if they miss school. Teachers are torn between attempting to continue to cover skills and material and leaving myriad children who are absent well behind. Administrators open every day scrambling to ensure that students are at least supervised during the course of their day. Parents are continuing to send students to school because the national message has been that the 'pandemic is over,' and thus there is no provision for them to stay home with sick or isolating or quarantining children. Everyone in district leadership knows we don't have enough bus drivers, or school nutrition staff, or nurses, on an average day, and that we are dangerously burning out those we have. 

I know of no one in my city, state, or country who has the sort of easy access to testing that guidance assumes: at home tests are hard to find and not cheap; PCR tests require taking time during the workday to stand in line. Neither of these is achievable for many. 

I know of far too many people who are not vaccinated, some of whom are are staff, many of whom are our students. I am exhausted by those who have cars and flexible time and access to health care and speak English as their first language who say that there is no excuse. When you are juggling three jobs in a country that pays little mind to your language or your health, when you don't have a car and have unstable housing and access to food, then perhaps we can discuss who has 'an excuse' at this time. 

Omicron has made it necessary to upgrade masks for those in spaces with limited circulation and other people (that would be schools), which has set off a mad scramble for parents who can afford to upgrading masks for kids, a handful of districts making their own arrangements, and yet another illustration of health and safety coming back to resources. 
And we simply cannot run schools without people. 

It is the responsibility of both the state and the federal government to provide for the health of its inhabitants. This is absolutely part of promoting the general welfare, as the U.S. Constitution provides, and the Massachusetts Constitution is even more explicit in the commitment: government is: 

to furnish the individuals who compose it with the power of enjoying in safety and tranquility their natural rights, and the blessings of life:

When we are continuing to so poorly fighting a pandemic that has taken the lives of 850,000 Americans, nearly 21,000 of them in Massachusetts, I would assert that we who take an oath to uphold and defend these documents are not doing our jobs.  

While I have perhaps grown accustomed to the lack of care for such issues by the state's executive branch, I confess that I have been puzzled to see what seems a similar attitude by the year-old federal administration. Justin Feldman's analysis of the Biden administration's response to the pandemic, posted last week, gave some much needed perspective. This, together with Daniel Boguslaw's piece in The Prospect looking at the leadership appointed at the federal level, well frames the lacks we have faced as a country. 

The argument has been "districts have plenty of money" due to the three rounds of ESSER funding. I would never wish to be seen as ungrateful, but it is the case that the rounds of federal funding don't provide anything close to the needs. As Jess Gartner of Allovue, among others, has been at pains to note, the total of ESSER funding represents about a 6% supplement to all K-12 spending over the life of the grants:

Let's say your salary is $100K.
People say, pshhhh you can afford it-- you make $1M!
(Over 10 years).

This is the current conversation about ESSER dollars.

— Jess Gartner (@jessgartner) January 6, 2022

And even with money, there are things that the over three hundred districts of Massachusetts should not be having to sort out individually.

• Everyone needs tests, and not just four from the federal government or two for teachers coming back from the state. If we are to base our actions on real knowledge, then anyone needs to be able to test as needed. We know this can be done, as its being done in other countries. The kinds of testing that require staffing--whether that's the public PCR testing or the schools pool testing--cannot be left to current staffing level. More support and access is badly needed.
• Everyone in buildings needs masks, and they need good masks to protect against omicron. We cannot simply push this cost off to families of staff and students as well. There is no excuse for the back and forth about testing of masks given teachers, and we apparently could have been making them locally, to boot.  
• The discussion around ventilation has demonstrated an enormous amount of ignorance of school buildings from those who should know better. I would suggest, however, that the state and federal government's substantial buying power could appropriately be applied to portable air filters for any school that doesn't have a system that runs MERV 13 filters already (which I am guessing, given what I know of local buildings, would be nearly anything not built or renovated in the past five years or so). Among other things, that would keep staff and students warmer in a Massachusetts January.
• The inflexibility around local conditions that leaves superintendents negotiating safety measures with the Commissioner is a massive state overreach, as I have noted in the past, and it should be called out as such. It is simply not safe to have a single arbiter of school safety who has incredibly limited district level experience making the call for every district in the state. 
• We cannot run schools without staff. We cannot run schools with sick staff. If the federal and state government mean to keep kids in school buildings, then they must live out what we have known from the early days of the pandemic and CLOSE THINGS THAT ARE NOT SCHOOLS. That means, please note, supporting those people who are impacted by closing other things. There is no reason and no virtue in pursuing a 'normalcy' that continues to kill people, do lasting harm to student health, and does not, in the end, actually keep schools open. 

As I said about this pandemic early on, if you had asked me to guess how Massachusetts would do at responding to a pandemic, I would not have dreamed that it would look like this. As a lifelong resident, as a parent, as an elected official, I believe it when I say that we are "a Commonwealth." We are not, now, acting like one. 
Both Massachusetts and the United States can and must be better than this.

Thank you, as always for your attention to this matter.

Tracy O'Connell Novick
Worcester School Committee

For the preservation of their rights and liberties

Governor Baker signing the Student Opportunity Act

I was there.
He really signed it.

We no longer have a 26 year old education funding formula in Massachusetts. We have one that has been updated, and updated progressively.
It actually gives more money to kids who have more needs.

Do read Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz's epic Twitter thread of thanks from yesterday:

So perfect that today's bill signing kicks off #Thanksgiving week, because my heart is brimming over with gratitude for folks who helped this generational reform come to pass. People I'm thankful for... #mapoli #StudentOpportunityAct pic.twitter.com/DZr7dFvVaS

— Sonia Chang-Díaz (@SoniaChangDiaz) November 26, 2019

While this was not the theme of those speaking, yesterday, to me, spoke to there being some things on which we cannot compromise. We have unjust systems, including an unjust educational system. We cannot, we must not, concede on that. Nationally, too often we hear calls for civility and compromise which come at the cost of some people's humanity. Locally, too often we hear calls for equity and justice characterized as personal attacks. We cannot indulge in that or concede to that.
It was the absolute unflinching refusal to allow a half measure that got us yesterday.
MASBO's sponsorship of MassBudget's Cutting Class back in 2011 illustrated the problem was widespread, but the injustice was particular where we have a lot of kids who are poor. The collaboration across district lines--the understanding that while it is a struggle for many, it is very much worse some places--is what built a coalition that succeeded.
We recognized an injustice and we worked to right it.
Our state constitution describes an educational system that prepares "the different orders of the people"in "the various parts of the country" with "wisdom, knowledge, as well as virtue" to continue and further our democratic (small d) governance.
Education is necessary to preserve our rights and liberties.
Yesterday, we made another step in that preservation.

Michigan case and "access to literacy"

I've seen a lot of displeased reactions to the dismissal in federal court of the case in Michigan, finding that students do not have a fundamental right to "access to literacy." I've seen a few things missed, however.
This was federal court, meaning the plantiffs were making a U.S. Constitutional argument. However, there's a clear, longstanding record on education largely not being covered under the U.S. Constitution; it is reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. The case generally cited on this is San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, which at heart was a school finance case, arguing that the Texas funding system, being heavily dependent on property taxes (sound familiar?) was a violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court found, 5-4, that the system did not violate the equal protection clause and there was not fundamental federal right to an education.
This is why most cases on school funding are made in state courts, citing state constitutions' language on education. In the case of Michigan, this had already been tried, citing the Michigan constitution:

That constitutional provision states that "the means of education shall forever be encouraged," and "the Legislature shall maintain and support a system of free elementary and secondary schools."

The earlier case was decided against the plantiffs:

But the Michigan Court of Appeals dismissed that lawsuit in 2014, saying:
"The cited provisions of the Michigan constitution require only that the Legislature provide for and finance a system of free public schools. The Michigan constitution leaves the actual intricacies of the delivery of specific educational services to the local school districts."

 And the Michigan Supreme Court declined to take up the case on appeal.
Note that in all of the above cases, the responsibility of the state to have schools was not under question. What the constitutional parameters (both state and federal) of that responsibility requires is what was being decided. The case decided this week doesn't appear to much change what we already knew of the federal responsibility.
as always, I'm not a lawyer...I just spend time following this stuff. 

Senate debates "An Act Modernizing the Foundation Budget for the 21st Century"

You can find the bill (and amendments) here.
This is totally not going to start for awhile. 

2pm: Senate is now in session. I'm going to need to leave at 3:30 at the latest, so this will not be wall to wall coverage, alas.

Senator Brady (of Brockton): "we couldn't have done this without our districts, without the advocacy of our districts, we couldn't do it without our local elected officials and our citizens"
introducing local elected officials and Brockton Superintendent Kathy Smith

Senator Chang-Diaz:
who is listing cuts from district after district 
"have become year after year effort"
citation from Supt. Boone when they held hearings 
"and then there's the work that wasn't cut because we weren't able to start it"
a single counselor spread across multiple schools "despite constant demand for trauma services and recovery from the last shooting"
"face every district across our Commonwealth and it has been so for decades"
some districts considering suing the Commonwealth
districts suing "inspired the 1993 Education Reform Act"
"we act on the legacy of these reforms"
from 2002 to now, real dollar spending has fallen 7%
students "are waiting on our courage"
"a bold righteous and radically American promise" when we passed the '93 act
"all means all"
"when we say 'liberty and justice for all,' all is supposed to mean all"
made a deal with districts "expectations matched with investment"
"since then we have acted like education is a static enterprise"
"our funding formula has not grown with us"
and districts are buckling under the pressure
"it has been a quarter century since the Legislature checked in with the math that undergirds our public school system"
"we've fallen into one of the deepest achievement gaps in the country"
now reviewing FBRC findings
"were endorsed unanimously by the Commission"
"the promise of quality education...runs to the very heart of who we are as a Commonwealth"
the education section is "the only place that 'cherish' appears in the Constitution"
"ask my colleagues to think of things that they cherish in their lives
"are we cherishing public education?"

Lewis: " have worked for many, many years for this day"
and intros students from Malden High
this issue motivated him to run for public service and go into the Legislature
letter came home that his daughter's school library would be closed
asked for parents to volunteer to keep the library open
"this was a real eyeopener for me"
thanks Chang-Diaz for her leadership, thanks Jehlen
education is the hallmark of Massachusetts
"Horace Mann recognized that Massachusetts" does not have natural resources...human capital is what we tapped into
"the oldest written Constitution still in use today...it's written in there...that's how deep it goes"
in the years since 2000, the foundation budget has not kept pace
the average school in the Commonwealth is now forced to spend 120% of their foundation budget (it's 129.7%)
"what that masks is our most disadvantaged districts" can't spend over the foundation budget, while the more well-resourced districts are spending well over that
"putting tremendous financial pressure on all of our schools"
"every year, they're struggling to balance their budgets...and every year, they're told by the City Council, the finance committee, 'Nope, you'll have to cut'"
"this is exactly the opposite of what we intended in the education reform act in 1993"
"that to me is a moral failing of the Commonwealth"
first state to set up a system so that every district gets what it needs: "the same high quality education" in every district
"hope that we will once again lead the nation"

Sen. Spilka: "hard for me to sit still when we're having a debate about changing the foundation funding formula"
why she first ran
organized others to lobby and advocate
changes that were made in '06 and '07 "adequacy was the issue that eluded us in those days"
"what does it really take, what does it need to include" for each district across the state
"and it has to get updated"
"look at circumstances across the state"

Sen. Jehlen:"state budget takes another step forward...it's not enough, but it's where we ought to go"
"make that obligation transparent every year"
public hearing where all will agree on way forward
minority leader has pointed out important obligations we have made
1. Funding 2. State control/oversight 3. Charter schools
"we have increased the demands...we have raised the number of charter schools...but we have not kept the grand bargain"
"most of the aid increases...have not been targeted to the most underresourced communities"
"in 2002, we stopped meeting our obligation to fund local education adequately"
"those underresourced districts are the ones we count as most underperforming"
districts under state control are getting less than the state average increase this year "Southbridge singled out as having to reduce their staff by 30 this year"
commitment before we write our budgets
"none of the Governor's budget have met" increase in revenue
"this step is our part of keeping our part of the grand bargain"

Sen. DiDomenico: great to stand before you today on this day for children
"most important title is 'Daddy'"
Everett has to choose between library, media, things they should do
"class sizes are exploding, and they need to do more with less"
"we have to do more, and this bill does just that"

Sen. Bruce Tarr
"this day of reckoning which is long overdue"
amendment after amendment offered by minority to this end
"and then, Mr. President, we forget about one of our commitments"
"and the gap began to grow, and grow, and grow"
"something which should have been done probably in 1996 but certainly by the year 2000"
"tasked this Commission with doing a lot of work because it had been so long" since anyone had considered the foundation budget
"I would argue that this should never happen again"
"and there is still a lot of work to be done on the foundation budget"
"those need to be addressed, too" listing circuit breaker, regional transportation, charter school reimbursement
"critical that we have a process and a schedule" to address the gap that has developed
"pass the bill, send it to the House, and urge them to pass it expeditiously as well"
"I suspect that this bill receive tremendous bipartisan support, and it should"
"creates a mechanism, it creates a process, it does not create resources"
"look at the divergance between what we should be doing and we have been doing"


I had to duck out at that point, but here are a few highlights from later coverage: 
Senator Tran chose to make his maiden speech on this bill, relating his own history as an immigrant from Vietnam who went to public schools in Clinton. He said that he has lived the American dream and now can assure that others will.

A number of amendments were withdrawn, most of which will, the Senators said, be put forward as budget amendments.

The one amendment that did pass unanimously was one from Senator Bruce Tarr, the Senate Minority leader, creating a reconsideration of the foundation budget via commission every five years.

The bill passed unanimously 38-0.

UPDATE: coverage from...
MassLive
The Sun Chronicle with the spot-on observation of its bipartisan nature
RadioBoston which you have to listen to
Commonwealth Magazine which does a nice job of linking it to the "Leading the Nation" celebration also happening this week

To petition the Government for a redress of grievances

I posted this earlier on Twitter in response to the video of Secretary DeVos being blocked from entering an elementary school this morning. 

The 😱 reactions to the DeVos video show an unfamiliarity with local politics; I've been at school board meetings more heated.

This is something I've been thinking about since Pence went to "Hamilton." A LOT of people in this admin haven't been public officials (starting, obviously, at the top) Not only haven't they (largely) been governors, senators, what have you; they haven't been on zoning board, or school board or selectboard, haven't been an assessor or a clerk.

It's a big wake up call: you work for the public. All of the public.

Not all of the public likes your ideas.

Not all of the public likes you.

We put directly in the First Amendment their right to tell you so.
"the right of the people...to petition the Government for a redress of grievances...shall not be abridged."

It can be pretty shocking to realize that you're now that Government being petitioned. Might be a little easier not on a national stage.

In any case, Ms. DeVos, President Trump, et all: You work for us now.

We're the people. We're petitioning for redress. It is our right.

Because boy, do we have grievances.

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?

Here's the reason I'm voting No on 2

It honestly wasn't until the poll tonight asked me for my "main reason" for my position on this question that I tried to push myself to a "main reason." There are many, many reasons: the financial irresponsibility in this proposal is horrifying; issues of equity and access to education are of overwhelming concern; lack of accountability and transparency and best practice are all part of why I oppose this cap lift.

My main reason, though, is that I think charter schools, as they're currently constituted in Massachusetts, are unconstitutional.

I'm not a lawyer. I don't pretend to be one. No one, to my knowledge, has ever tried to make this case in court, and perhaps it wouldn't succeed if it went there.

The state constitution, however, is very clear about who has responsibility for public education in Massachusetts: the legislature and magistrates.

The legislature is, yes, the Legislature, which in the case of charters has empowered the Board of Ed to act for them through legislation.

It is a shared responsibility, as confirmed by McDuffy (among others), however. And no one ever asked the local school committees--the 'magistrates'--to vote their power away to the Board of Ed.

Let me pause here to acknowledge the lack of agency that many have felt in elected school committees. Many--and it's particularly been an issue for communities of color--have been effectively disenfranchised by the system. And that doesn't even get into Boston, which hasn't had an elected committee in decades.

That's a reason to fix the system, however, not a reason to bulldoze over it.

Under Chapter 76, sec. 1, school committees still have general oversight of the education of children in their districts; it's why they are given the authority to approve new private schools. The one exception, made not in this section but elsewhere, is charter schools.

Yet the responsibility of school committees is not lessened for those children. The committees just aren't given any authority to do anything about the problems they see.

That isn't how the system of public education in the Commonwealth is designed. It's a shared partnership as designed by the Constitution to have the state and local authorities together ensuring that the next generation is prepared to continue democracy.

Charter schools have no local constitutional authority. They should not be expanded; they should be reformed, at the least.

Vote no on 2.