Things I am reading this week

•  Not specific to education, but this lengthy piece on "AI mania" in the workplace is a very "the Emperor has no clothes" description, where no one can say the Emperor has no clothes because no one else in business leadership will.
  

  The reality is thus: the people in charge either have no plan, or see no path forwards other than keeping their heads down. Not at banks, not at hospitals, not in our government institutions. The world’s organisations have been captured by people in the throes of frothing excitement, and saner people who now live in a state of constant commingled fear and frustration.

  I again reiterate: for education to put any eggs in this basket is badly thought-out.
  
  
• My main takeaway from Chad Aldeman's look at K-12 education spending hitting a trillion dollars is what a huge difference single payer health care would make: 
  

   In 2023-24, schools spent $197 billion on employee benefits. As another way to look at it, for every $1,000 that a school spent on salaries, it also paid $438 in benefit costs. These trends may help explain why districts with rising personnel costs are not boosting take-home pay for their workers. 

  Imagine if we had all that money to spend on any aspect of education, because employees all already had health care. 
  
  
• It's worth reading Matt Barnum's interview with Ary Amerikaner, who co-founded Brown's Promise (and I say that not only because it echoes some of what I question about the lawsuit). 
  
  
• Not sure if it's because the seniors involved have graduated or just coincidences of timing, but there are good pieces covering two separate episodes of attempted throttling of student reporting that came out this week. Wired covers Redwood High in California, where a student journalist turned up a connection to the Epstein files to his local community. In that case, the decision making was in the hands of the students, though this quote from their advisor deserves mention: 
  

  “With all due respect,” Schneider remembers Bishop replying, “under California’s student press law, being afraid of a lawsuit or backlash is not a valid reason to call for the takedown of content.”

  Colorado Newsline covers Grand Junction High, where the advisor was reassigned apparently due to a single complaint by another staff member over a student editorial on the Gaza conflict most recently; the student paper itself published a piece about student press freedom being under threat from their administration in June. 
  
  
• One would really like to think something like the national civics competition would be outside of meddling from this federal administration. It appears that is not the case.

It is July and so my daisies are in bloom.

Well, this is (probably) bad news for our low income count for next year

 On Tuesday, State House News Service reported that nearly 200,000 people have come off MassHealth in the past two months. And per SHNS, "Through the first 11 months of the eligibility redetermination campaign, the publicly funded health insurance system's caseload has dropped by nearly 358,000."

First, people need health insurance, and if any of this is people dropping off MassHealth because they can't be found or didn't return forms, then we don't know that they have health care: 

Most of the roughly 810,000 people who have left MassHealth since April 1, 2023 lost coverage for procedural reasons, according to state data. About 541,500 were disenrolled because they did not provide enough information for MassHealth to confirm whether they are eligible, and another 15,200 could not be reached by state officials. The remaining 259,400 Bay Staters were confirmed ineligible after a review.

Here's the additional education connection, though: If half a million people dropped off for lack of information, we don't know that they aren't eligible; they still may well be. 
If any of those are children, they now not only don't have health insurance: they no longer count as low income, unless they are on one of the other state programs that counts towards that.

This is exactly what MASC and MASS outlined before Ways and Means at the hearing earlier this year. And if I am following those numbers correctly, we have had more people drop off since October than we did prior to October, which means the hit on FY26 could be worse than that on FY25.

It isn't too early to worry about and advocate for fixes for FY26!  

DESE update on February MASBO

Rob O'Donnell
Powerpoint is here
walk through House 2
$303.5M increase in Ch. 70
changes in Health insurance, guidance, special education out of district, EL, low income students
all others getting increased by inflation
the law doesn't specific the rate of implementation
"needs to be an equitable manner"
low income headcount expansion "up to 185%" of poverty is in the law

DESE at MASBO: Student Opportunity Act

Student Opportunity Act : Rob O'Donnell
higher health care rates based on the GIC: 3 year average
separate inflation index for health insurance
fully funding those goal rate by 2027
starting point disparity: do we actually ever catch up with it?
you'll get to the GIC rate, you'll not just get there right away
are the rates in the bill going to move over the implementation
goal rates will change in each subsequent budget cycle
FY20 reflected an incremental increase towards the goal rates

4% in district, 5% vocational district
"this tracks pretty close to actual that we see"

English Learner: similar to what was proposed by the Governor
increases rate and redistributes to have higher rates to high school students
goal rates are expressed in FY20 dollars; they'll also be increased by inflation over the life of the bill

decile system in low income currently
moving away from deciles (about 33 districts in each group) to groups (there are twelve)
setting hard breaks between them
counted up to 133% for econ disad; couldn't reliably count up to 185%
"likely that the economically disadvantaged match will still be the core"
likely some additional counting that will have to take place
possibly further data collection
if you've moved to CEP, you're not collecting forms
DESE may need to come up with some other method of collecting data
until they come up with a new method, authorizes going back to FY16 low income counts as of October 1, 2014, some those numbers together as a percentage of your enrollment in for FY16
that would be your FY21 accounting method
"would use that as the basis to augment" the count
"there are some districts that we're counting more through the econ dis match than we did through the free and reduced lunch count"
"we wouldn't lower your count; this would only increase your count"
jumps about 6% between the lower groups, then goes up more like 10% in the higher groups
would we go back to a form collection or some other method?
"That's the big wild card to the bill"

charter school reimbursement fully funded over three years
don't talk about if it would be done on a six year schedule or a three year schedule
or if it will only be for high enrollment growth
increasing foundation increases charter tuition rates which increases charter reimbursement (if it isn't only tied to increased enrollment)

Data commission

requirement to report by expediture by foundation budget category (there used to be a section that did this in the End of Year report)
Some question on if this will further require a breakout of state versus local spending

Rural school study

Circuit breaker to include cost of out-of-district transportation
"we will be coming out with what we expect to see on a bill" to verify transportation to the individual student
"circuit breaker is student by student"
going to "blow up the program"
we're going to be a half a billion pretty soon

freezes at last year's circuit breaker number and ONLY GOES UP BY INFLATION after that

S. 2348: "An act relative to educational opportunity for students"

pushed out over Twitter Thursday

LINKS:

• The bill is on the state site here 
• I have the PDF posted in my Dropbox here. 
• The summary (from the Legislature) is here and the Q&A here. 
• If you're going to go through the bill itself, you might want to have the fact sheet open with you, as well.

it earns the sticker

In terms of process, please note that the bill has come out of the Joint Committee on Education and goes to the Senate Ways and Means Committee. Then it goes to the full Senate. Then it goes to the House Ways and Means Committee. Then it goes to full House.
Then to the Governor.
It is not, I will observe, accidental that the Senate President and the Speaker of the House jointly presented the bill with the Joint Committee chairs. That's a show of unity and support.

regarding Worcester and funding reform

I'm not testifying today--just typing!--but I've found that my original testimony before the Foundation Budget Review Commission from over four years ago has held up well.

There are times at which it is no longer “effective” or “efficient” spending.
Sometimes a cut is just a cut.
The education and programs we were able to provide in 2000 were much closer to that which we should be offering our children in class sizes, in course offerings, in after-school programs, in support services, in supplies, in technology...across the board.

Of course, now the gaps are larger.

This is noted quite well in yesterday's WGBH article:

The early aughts were a boom time in Worcester Public Schools. The district offered afterschool programs, free pre-kindergarten and career pathway training in high school. These are all programs the district thought worked for boosting opportunities and achievement for low-income students.
But in 2004, as the cost of teachers’ health benefits and special education started to balloon faster than revenue, the district started making drastic cuts.

They were a boom time, of course, because the foundation budget was fully implemented and health insurance costs hadn't yet started to balloon.

I appreciated Rebecca Cusick's point on this in her op-ed earlier this week:

While accountability has increased and undergone a series of reforms since 1993, the funding formula has not. It’s time for some reciprocal accountability. Students and schools are compared to each other with the assumption that they are equal, while clearly, they are not. Education funding reform is the single best strategy for improving education for all kids.

Governor Baker at MASBO

Today MASBO has their annual Solutions Fair, and Governor Baker is giving the keynote. One assumes that the Governor addressing school finance people will involve school funding, thus posting to come here. 
Secretary Peyser is also here with the Governor.
Part of his introduction references the day his budget is filed being one of the biggest days of the year for the people in this room

Governor Baker: I really appreciate the work that you do
"I always say that I served on the board of selectmen rather than the school committee because the school committee is too hard."

Governor Baker submits a school funding bill: H 70

note that for the most part, the Legislature doesn't as yet have bill numbers for what is filed; thus everything is "SD" and "HD" until they have numbers, which is for "Senate Docket" and "House Docket." Somehow the Governor jumped the queue and already has a bill number, which is (as some have pointed out, an appropriate) H.70.
(I always wonder about these things and there never seems anyone to ask, so I try to include them.)
This is "An Act to Ensure Equity and Excellence in Education," which demonstrates that the Senate has better acronym writers. It has been referred to the Joint Committee on Education.
It's also probably good to note that there is at least some indication that this isn't a popular bill. 


The thing that is most important to know about House bill 70 is that is the product of more than one author and more than one motivation. There is a Governor Baker-oriented school funding bill with some Foundation Budget Review Commission implementation with some additional funding pieces including a draconian (literally?) funding consequence for underperforming schools, on the one hand. There is also a bill that combs through the school funding law as it currently exists and updates it to the way that we actually operate; that part comes to us, I believe, from the school finance people at DESE.
That last part is fine. We could argue over if this is really how we want to run things or if we want to make other changes, but making the actual law reflect reality on the pieces behind the calculation (not the foundation budget itself) is a reasonable thing to do.
These two pieces are intermixed, though, so disentangling the parts is necessary.

The Governor sends along a filing letter presenting his argument and his perspective on what he is doing. I don't know who wrote it--it sounds like Secretary Peyser, but that could mean nothing--but certainly expresses what I have seen of Governor Baker's view on education.

The piece that I want to wave a giant red flag on is the piece expanding the Commissioner's power, which of course has nothing to do with the foundation budget at all:

• the first bit is that currently a turnaround plan created by a described stakeholder group (MGL Ch. 69, section 1J, subsection e) is issued by the superintendent: "the superintendent shall issue a final turnaround plan for the school and the plan shall be made publicly available." The union or the school committee may then appeal the plan to the Commissioner. This bill would have the superintendent submit the plan to the Commissioner and only after his approval would the plan be publicly available. This would, obviously, render moot after that any appeal to the Commissioner by school committee or union. This is a big deal. 
• not only the superintendent, but also the commissioner will conduct an annual review of any school deemed underperforming; this is a change from what is done right now. It's not clear how that would be possible. The kind of review done by DESE is a comprehensive, time consuming endeavor by all involved. 
• the actions of the commissioner if a school substantially fails to meet goals, the commissioiner can appoint an examiner, require changes, or appoint an external partner; all of these are provided in the law already, but this section puts it together.
• the big issue is the funding piece of this, as the bill allows the commissioner if he "determines that the district is taking insufficient steps to implement changes to the turnaround plan" to take away the district's Ch. 70 aid at the beginning of the school year (if you were looking for evidence that whomever behind this is missing how school budgets work, there you go!) up to an amount equal to per pupil allocation times the number of students in the school--this in essence means that school's foundation budget. That funding would be set aside in a "Public School Turnaround Fund" of the state "until such time as the district implements the changes as determined by the commissioner." In turn, the district could not lower the school's funding, but could only be taking out of non "direct access to students." If we did this, Massachusetts would join the ranks of states that have made the grave error of taking away funding from underperforming schools. This builds on the myth that districts are overspending or spending ill on administration--most are not--and that services that don't directly access students don't serve them. This is, to give but one example, the reverse of what the state itself found in Southbridge, where it found the district was under-administered. We absolutely should not do this.

About the foundation budget piece: 

• while it keeps being said that the bill fully implements the recommendations of the Foundation Budget Review Commission, it does not in a very specific way: while the bill does implement changing the assumed in-district special education enrollment from 3.75% to 4% for regular districts, it does not shift vocational schools/districts from 4% to 5%. Those from DESE whom I have heard speak to this have argued that the needs of special education students at vocational schools were not as high as the fully population of students in special education elsewhere, thus the shift was not warranted. That wasn't the argument put forward by the Commission. 
• the bill does, as of FY21, boost out-of-district special education to three times the state average per pupil foundation budget
• the bill does, as of FY21, tie health insurance inflation to the GIC rate annually. It resets the rate for FY20 at about a 30% increase over the actual proposed budget for FY20. Offhand, I don't think that gets us where we need to be in terms of the current gaps between spending and foundation budget allotment.
• it keeps English learner as an increment, as added by the Senate this past year, and makes the increment between 27 and 33% of the base rate, progressively weighted to the higher grades (the bill uses the same numbers actually proposed in the FY20 budget). As the Foundation Budget Review Commission gave an actual dollar amount in 2015, it isn't right to make that comparison, and the progressive funding (which is the way these bills seem to be going) is a positive step. 
• it includes additional funding for poor students, keeping the decile ranking system and current direct certification counts, and using the same dollar amounts in the first five deciles that are used in the FY20 budget, but weighing the latter increments more heavily, with decile 10 topping out at $500 per pupil more than the FY20 budget does. What this doesn't do is break more than 50% of the base rate per pupil, however, save in high decile younger grades. It takes the smallest step possible within implementation, which recommended between 50-100%. They do also (as in the FY20) add the "high needs" category for decile 9 and 10 and 20% EL.
• there is not any inclusion of a data commission. This, to me, more than anything, says that someone (DESE?) thinks that work is done; see below for more on that. It was, however, a Commission recommendation.
• Note that on all of the places where it includes a dollar amount effective FY20 that is different than the actual budget for FY20, the budget is what would happen, but the bill then would become the goal rate towards which implementation was moving. 

Pieces that are neither of the above:

• The bill creates two trust funds, one for further regionalization encouragement and another for to stash the above money that would be taken from districts with underperforming schools at the Commissioner's discretion. 
• The bill requires spending reporting by foundation budget category and can require it by enrollment and by program area, which is kind of a way of wrestling with the question of if we have enough data without requiring a data commission (this is a super DESE way of handling this, by the way; they know the data exists, so they're just requiring that it get reported).
• The bill creates a regionalization assistance program and creates at Regionalization Fund for grants for planning and implementation. It gives priority to rural areas (without defining them) and other districts with persistent enrollment declines. 
• It changes the charter funding in a couple of ways. First, it boosts the facilities component that all charters get to $938 and then indexes it to inflation (that number has been the same for quite a number of years). It shifts back to 100% for the first year, 60% for the second, 40% for the third year of what they are calling transitional assistance. Most importantly, the bill changes who gets tuition reimbursement: transitional assistance funds the difference between the current charter enrollment MINUS the highest enrollment of the previous five years, thus only districts where charter schools are actively growing will receive this funding. It also creates and codifies "supplemental charter assistance" for districts that have low Ch. 70 and high charter numbers; this year, that means $6M for Boston and two towns on Martha's Vineyard (please tell me how THAT is the highest and best use!) It also ties both these sections together to be funded at the same pace.
• The bill creates a commission on rural schools to come back with trends, projections, and recommendations for rural schools in the state, and their report would be due June 30, 2020. 

The wonky "we do this but it isn't written down" bits are as follows:

• it spells out the components (and only the components!) being currently used in the foundation budget (in section 11). Note that this is part of what caught those who wrote the House bill (which we'll get to eventually, as well), as they used old language on preschool and "bilingual" students. This includes definitions of combined effort yield, excess effort, effort reduction, municipal revenue growth factor (in fact, it spells out how to calculate it!), minimum aid, net school spending, and so on, which in many cases were not codified. Note that this would put into the law something which was done this year, which is requiring that districts with a combined effort yield equal to or greater than 175% of its foundation budget be responsible for the full 82.5% of its foundation budget.
• it eliminates a bimonthly recalculation of the ch. 70 formula so that it can work with the state budget cycle (section 12)
• it gets rid of the idea of "overburden aid" which we haven't been doing in years (section 13)
• it codifies net school spending as a requirement and requires the Commissioner let districts know of their minimum local contributions by March 1 (which happens now through the Governor's budget, 'though that isn't necessarily where it ends up). It also drops a 30 day waiting period on preliminary estimates, and drops an old method of calculating regional vocational funding (section 14) 
• it repeals an automatic reduction in local required appropriation if the final state appropriation is reduced (section 15)
• it codifies taking school choice and charter tuition from a district's Chapter 70 appropriation. (section 17) Did you know this wasn't in the MGL? I didn't!
• it repeals the original phase-in of the law from 1994 (section 18)
• it codifies that in any year in which there isn't enough funding to do everything, foundation aid gets funded first (section 19)

And the bill states that it will go into effect July 1.

Four Cities at MASBO

The Four Cities presentation comes to MASBO this morning, with a beginning on the MassBudget July report on Foundation Budget Review Commission implementation, followed by Brockton, Holyoke, Springfield, and Worcester speaking on the gaps. 
Brian Allen, Worcester: started with Brockton and Worcester, added Holyoke and Springfield
have talked to about twelve superintendents so far on how to calculate these slides
going to do essentially the same presentation, spending gaps on special ed and health insurance and the impact on those districts
not keeping pace with health insurance costs; $1B more than what was being provided
special ed likewise
"finally after years of advocacy, the state created the Foundation Budget Review Commission" in 2015
"the formula as we know it is 25 plus years old; it's dated and it's time for an update"
four main findings of the Foundation Budget : health insurance, special education, ELL, low income
you guys know this, right?

average per pupil exceeds foundation, even upon adoption of recommendations, by $700M
(thus when you see gaps versus implementation, those will be two different numbers, and implementation doesn't fully fill the gaps)

note that in every case, the districts are also reviewing how they've worked to control costs
Brockton: $7.3M gap in health insurance
$22.1M gap in special ed
Holyoke: $6.2M gap in health insurance
$12.4M in special ed
Springfield: $32.1M gap in health insurance (and they're in the GIC)
$35.4M in special ed
Worcester: "to continue the broken record, but that's intentional" $34.9M gap in health insurance
$34.6M in special ed

increasing increment of low income 50-100%
ELL increment (from fixed rate)

Allen: "so what does this mean for communities?"
"if you only spend at or near foundation, cummulatively we're spending $185M less on something else"

Brockton: short 414 regular ed teachers

Holyoke: short 161 regular ed teachers

Springfield: short 744 regular ed teachers

Worcester: short 773 regular ed teachers
"the money has to come from some place"

Colin Jones MassBudget: state budget is "just a bill that happens to have $45 billion dollars in it"
hearing that something is coming this year, "we'll have to see what this looks compared to full implementation"
"I think it's shifted...it's a shift in the conversation" noting Secretary Peyser's comment yesterday
Backbone of how this works: provide the support for the changes made
trajectory is going down
FY19 increase "it's 1% when you account for inflation" so that isn't "so much money"
none of the big ticket items (FBRC, preschool, higher ed) are really advancing
"districts that have the capacity are spending twice foundation"

"we're running out of patience to get this solved"

the Commission's report is the official state document on getting this done

"and every single year that we don't do, we don't follow our own constitution"

MassBudget's model for implementation
includes the four major pillars: updating health care, special education, support for ELL, low income
phase in means it takes time to get there
"nobody loses!"
"one of the big takeaways is that low income is two thirds of the whole thing...you're not dealing with equity if you don't deal with it"

And coming up:

Take notes

As I've been following the discussion around the House bill, I had this haunting sense that this discussion--do we move forward with just sped and health insurance? do we need to do all kids?--seemed familiar.
So I checked my notes.
As I think I've said before, I started this blog lo these many years ago as a record for those who couldn't make it to Worcester meetings around school finance, as recognition that the Telegram & Gazette was never going to cover everything. And then I started going to state meetings. And here we are.
Thus, to my knowledge, no one else has notes out there that follow the discussion that was happening three years ago May about what the Foundation Budget Review Commission was going to do. The FY15 budget (passed in June 2014) had given the Commission a June 20, 2015 deadline. They had begun meeting in the fall of 2014, had held hearings over the winter, but as of May, had come to consensus only on health insurance and special education.
In order to get an extension, they had to get legislation passed by both parts of the Legislature.

My notes from that May 5, 2015 meeting are here; if you scroll down to "Chang-Diaz and Peisch offering proposals to discuss about moving forward," you'll see what I mean: Representative Peisch wanted to push ahead and get the proposals they had for those two items out there for the deadline. She argues that there is a clear interest in those two proposals, that it sends a clear message to the Legislature to come back on deadline with those two items. (I'll note that Peisch was consistent in this, as she said the same in speaking to MASBO that same month.) She doesn't talk a lot about anything else needing to be in the report.
Senator Chang-Diaz notes the concern that leaving off other recommendations lessens the urgency for them, and others argue that the report doesn't fulfill the charge of the Commission in only doing special education and health insurance, particularly given what they had heard at public hearings.
Interestingly, Commissioner Chester argues for the need for greater deliberation, 'though he says he isn't sure they'll come to consensus.
Eventually, on a motion from former Secretary Paul Reville, the Commission votes unanimously to issue an interim report in June that not only reports out special ed and health insurance, but lists the issues to be resolved, to request an extension from the Legislature, and to issue a final report by November 2015.
Which is what happened.
This was enough of a heated disputed, however, that it came up at the following meeting on June 9, 2015, when then MASC President Pat Francomano asked that the minutes be clarified to include specifically that the report would include a list of items still to be dealt with, which was not included to his satisfaction. At that meeting, there was an extensive discussion on potentially tying any new funds to specific requirements, which disturbed me enough that I wrote about it the next day. I noted elsewhere this week that this argument has also come back:

Hey, all: read down and note that MBAE is pushing for “reforms” along with the money actually owed district.

I keep telling you: watch this. There are those who want to tie strings all over this. #FBRC #MAEdu https://t.co/XTEayEpUl5

— Tracy O'Connell Novick (@TracyNovick) July 12, 2018

Thus while the positions of who is arguing to move ahead and who is arguing to stop have changed, the "why" has not. The urgency of the needs BEYOND those of special education and health insurance haven't, it seems, gotten any more traction than they had three years ago, when they wouldn't have made the report had it been left to Rep. Peisch. There is, of course, irony that somehow we're going to magically have the comprehensive report some think we haven't gotten in four years of work in six months, but I suppose it's easier when that work has already been done.
Additionally, much of the conversation of this past week has been the same parties making the same unsuccessful arguments that they made three years ago. Those arguing just to move on special education and health insurance, leaving out ELL and low income, and on tying districts that are owed hundreds of millions of dollars already under the current system somehow needing to prove worthliness are old, tired, wrong, and privileged.
It's a shame the House bought it.

The House is leaving the most vulnerable kids out: UPDATED WITH WHAT'S IN

Sure enough, per State House News (paywalled):

The bill, which is being polled by the Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday afternoon, would specifically make adjustments to the formula in how it accounts for special education and health insurance costs.
The five-page bill also directs the Department of Education to conduct a study on how the formula meets the needs of low-income and English language learner students with the goal of making recommendations to the legislature on ways to serve those populations.

We did a study. Three years ago.

Time to call your reps and tell them leaving poor kids and kids learning English out is not fair, equitable, just, or okay in any way with you.

UPDATE:

I've put the bill in my Dropbox here for your perusal. I also just did a Twitter thread starting here on what's in it and what's not. Here's what it looks like:

• On in-district special education, the House bill bumps the assumed enrollment to 4% for most districts, 5% for vocationals. That's more than the Foundation Budget Review Commission's recommendation of 3.75% of regular districts, 4.75% for vocationals. Better than recommendation.
• On out-of-district special educaton, the House bill multiplies the statewide average per pupil foundation budget by THREE before subtracting the average plus the out-of-district cost rate. The Foundation Budget Review Commission multiplied by FOUR before the subtraction. Worse than recommendation.
• There is then a very, very long (longer than the funding section) section on data collection. This was part of the FBRC recommendations, but is also already being partly dealt with through MASBO working with DESE. The final section allows for a researcher "subject to appropriation" to do this. Meh.
• On ELL and low income, the House bill sends them to DESE for study, calling for an independent reseacher (which the bill does not fund), to report back in December of 2018. The House bill calls for precisely what the Foundation Budget Review Commission researched and responded to, plus work DESE has already been doing on capturing all low income students in the count. THIS STUDY HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE THREE YEARS AGO (check page 9 and following) and continues to kick the can on our most vulnerable student populations. Much worse than recommendation

What should you do now?

• Call your reps.
• Tell them you appreciate the House taking action.
• Note that this bill DOES NOT implement the recommendations of the Commission.
• Ask them to propose and support amendments to IMPLEMENT the already-studied-and-vetted-and approved recommendations on English learners and low income students. 

THE HOUSE VOTES THURSDAY. DON'T DELAY! 

HOUSE BILL THIS WEEK!

Per State House News, Speaker DeLeo today said that the House would take up a school funding bill this week; the bill is not yet released. What we know (via tweets from various reporters):

Also on the House's agenda this week: a foundation budget/school funding bill. #mapoli https://t.co/0yWiPe6LBe

— Katie Lannan (@katielannan) July 9, 2018

it is not the foundation budget bill from the Senate

— Gintautas Dumcius (@gintautasd) July 9, 2018

Now, there IS other language that could fully implement the Foundation Budget Review Commission's recommendations other than the Senate language.

We should, however, be careful, as I noted earlier in this Twitter thread; it's going to very tempting to some to JUST do special education and health insurance. Those are the "everyone has some." What does that leave out? The poor kids and the kids learning English. That would be incredibly unjust.

Let's you forget what those recommendations are, they involved months of study, not only by the Commission but by those consulting and working for them, and included the following:

Regarding ELL students:
1. Convert the ELL increase from a base rate to an increment on the base rate.
2. Apply the increment to vocational school ELL students as well.
3. Increase the increment for all grade levels, including high school, to the current effective middle school increment of $2,361. This would increase the range of ELL-only weightings and expand available funds for staff-intensive high school age interventions.
Note, of course, that the rate above is from 2015; we are now in FY19, so the rate would need to be increased accordingly. We should note, of course, that those who have the most to lose by ignoring ELL students is the vocational schools, which until now have received no funding for English learner students.

And regarding low income:
1. Increase the increment for districts with high concentrations of low income students. The Legislature will need to determine specific increments based on further review of data and debate, but based on its review of national literature, practices in other states, and model districts within our own state, the Commission offers the guidance that that weighting should fall within the range of 50%-100% and that multiple concurrent interventions are necessary to effectively close achievement gaps. The final decision should provide high poverty school districts with enough funding to pursue several turnaround strategies at once.
2. Ensure that any new definition of economically disadvantaged (necessitated by districts’ shift away from collection of free and reduced school lunch eligibility data) properly and accurately count all economically needful students.
3. Leave the exact calculation of each increment to legislative action.
Note that the Commission had done an extensive review and thus had recommendations about what was necessary in order to be successful. They drew on work not only across Masssachusetts, but study across decades of what worked. This was not a harum-scarum report that made stuff up; there was actual data to support the conclusions.
The plan further required that plans be posted online and that districts be allowed flexibility in implementation. 

Thus those two sections are not late additions or subsets or any of the other secondary status they've been afforded in some of the coverage. Yes, the health insurance and special education sections are MORE EXPENSIVE; that doesn't make them MORE IMPORTANT.
In fact, what will demonstrate if the Massachusetts House truly supports the Constitutional guarantee to our education will be if they support the ELL and low income sections. THESE ARE THE NEEDIEST KIDS. These kids, we know, need extra support. If the House ignores them, or further kicks the can, claiming "more study is needed," they don't really support the Constitutional guarantee. It will be the most vulnerable kids--poor kids and kids who don't speak English--who are hurt by such a bill.
And can we, Massachusetts, really afford, particularly in this time, to further disadvantage such children?
Really?

Worcester School Committee deliberates FY19

What the School Committee is reviewing is the line item budget, which is online here. Personally, I'm keeping the Table of Contents, which is hyperlinked, opened and jumping from there.
The order in which it is suggested that they review accounts is here (which this year is the order in which the budget book is arranged, non-salary, then salary accounts).
Posting as we go once we start, which clearly isn't yet, as no one is here:

Speaking of budgets...

I spent about a half hour with Hank Stoltz Friday morning, talking about the Worcester school budget, the state budget, and related school issues. The recording is up here.

Board of Ed meets Tuesday

Apologies for the late posting on this...we're back to the normal place and time: Tuesday at 8:30 am in Malden. The agenda is here. It will be livestreamed here.

After the usual round of comments from the Chair, the Commissioner, and the Secretary, then the public, the first item on the agenda is an update on the transition to appointed Commissioner Jeff Riley. Specifically, the Board is being asked to vote on his contract terms, though the contract itself is not appended. He is to start July 1, unless his term with Lawrence ends earlier (as that position just was posted last week, that seems unlikely). His salary is to be $241,000 per year, with a travel reimbursement. The only details on pension, vacation, health insurance and such is he is eligible for "standard benefits available to state employees, including four weeks (20 days) of paid vacation leave accrued on an annual basis." That salary is more than most, but not all, superintendents of districts in Massachusetts.

The update on Level 5 schools and districts has updates on the Dever School and UP Academy Holland in Boston, Morgan School in Holyoke, and Parker School in New Bedford. Each is reporting on successes and challenges. Additionally, the new receiver in Southbridge Jeffrey Villar will be at the meeting.

It is charter school consideration month, and several of the pieces have already made news. The only new charter being recommended is Phoenix Academy in Lawrence, which did not face marked local opposition. The Equity Lab application in Lynn did not receive a recommendation largely due to changes within the district:

DOE predicts Lynn Public Schools will no longer be in the bottom 10 percent this spring, further limiting the number of charter school seats. “We recently found out MCAS test scores are up, which is a good thing that Lynn Public School are no longer in the bottom 10 percent,” said Joel Abramson, a KIPP board member. 

There is an additional memo to the Board on this farther down the agenda.
That is not the only reason Equity is being denied:

in his memo to the board, Wulfson said another factor that contributed to denying KIPP’s request for more seats was the increased rates of student discipline at its Lynn and Boston schools, and the fact that the school has yet to complete the expansion approved in 2015.

Veritas Academy in Springfield is requesting an amendment to their charter to add 108 seats, which would bring it to its maximum enrollment of 432 seats.
Davis Leadership Academy in Boston is being recommended for renewal on probation (for some reason, that's a Word doc):

My recommendation to place the school on probation with conditions is based on my concerns about recurring poor governance practices and new evidence revealing a lack of financial oversight and mismanagement of the charter school by the board of trustees. Additionally, throughout the charter term, DLA’s academic performance has declined.

The Board is being asked to formally adopt the change in regulations that will set an interim graduation standard for MCAS for the classes of 2021 and 2022; they've already assented to this in concept.

State graduation and dropout results for 2016-17 are on the agenda, but there is, as yet, no backup. UPDATE: It was so they could do a Monday release of the eleventh consecutive year of improvement of graduation rate.

There's a report on the Governor's FY19 budget recommendations; note that there is a spreadsheet available to download. 

Not for formal discussion, but made available, is a report on rural schools.
There's also a renewal of charters for Abby Kelley Foster Charter Public School, Baystate Academy Charter Public School, Boston Day and Evening Academy Charter School, Mystic Valley Regional Charter School, Sturgis Charter Public School, and UP Academy Charter School of Dorchester; a removal of conditions from Pioneer Valley Charter and Barnstable Horace Mann; and a renewal of loans outside the terms of the charters for Argosy Collegiate Charter School, Atlantis Charter School, Benjamin Franklin Classical Charter Public School, Boston Collegiate Charter School, Boston Preparatory Charter School, Boston Renaissance Charter Public School, Brooke Charter School, Community Charter School of Cambridge, Christa McAuliffe Regional Charter Public School, Foxborough Regional Charter School, Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School Pioneer Charter School of Science, Veritas Preparatory Charter School.
Can we talk about the Board delegating its renewal authority to the Commissioner on this stuff, please?

So what did the Legislature pass?

Yesterday, the House and Senate both passed a budget agreed to by conference committee. It was filed that morning, meaning, as noted by State House News reporter Katie Lannan:

7 hours and 56 minutes from release to enactment. #mapoli https://t.co/5JOFwHQzcS

— Katie Lannan (@katielannan) July 7, 2017

Not, let's say, a triumph for public process. Among other issues, this got us a IIA report, which puts the numbers and account numbers in a spreadsheet, which included only the House numbers, not the conference committee numbers (causing some of  us not a small degree of angst!).

The budget now goes to the Governor, who has ten days to consider it and, if he wishes, to issue vetoes, which, in its turn, the Legislature can override. In other words: we're closer, but we're not done yet.

So what's in it for public education?

Chapter 70 came back at $4.746B, which is right between the House and the Senate numbers. As best as I can tell--I have yet to find the actual Chapter 70 language on this--they did this by keeping the $30/pupil minimum increase, keeping--and possibly adding to?--the insurance increase in the foundation budget, but not taking on the Senate's special education implementation of the Foundation Budget Review Committee's recommendation. Let me emphasize that on my part that is SPECULATION, again, because I haven't seen either an explanation or actual language (which should have been part of H3800). That means that most foundation budgets will be higher than both House 1 and the passed House budget, but not as high as they would have been with the Senate budget. As for state aid, the majority of districts were seeing their increase through the $30/pupil, so that doesn't change ('though do recall that the Governor's budget had set that at $20/pupil, so our foundation budget charts are not yet updated). And if anyone finds or has the actual language, please let me know; I'd be interested.

This means, of course, that two years on from the Foundation Budget Review Commission, with districts across the state repeating that we need finance reform, the only change we saw was the fragmentary one in health insurance. This isn't how one truly values public education.

Oh, and Senator Chang-Diaz was one of two votes against it.

The Department's budget is just over $14M, and continues to contain a boatload of earmarks, which I won't go into here, 'though at some point I have a whole rant on that.

METCO is $20.5M, splitting the difference between House and Senate.

Regional transportation reimbursement is $61.5M (which had been as high as $62M, so it also splits the difference).

The circuit breaker, something specified by Senator Karen Spilka as a "painful" cut, passed at $281,231,181, lower than BOTH House and Senate. Note, however, that it is $50,000 lower than what the Senate passed, which, in a budget of this size (and an account of this size) makes that more of a symbolic cut than anything.

Likewise, McKinney-Vento reimbursement was cut from both houses, being passed at just over $80M; this is an account which has never been fully funded.

Note that all of these previous three are reimbursements, meaning the district fronts the money and gets the money back from the state afterwards. There is here, then, less of a hit on the starting end, but we'll see budgets straining on by midyear.

Targeted intervention in underperforming schools passed at $7.2M, which is lower than either house had passed.

The MCAS line passed at $26.9M, also lower than either budget previously passed.

Extended learning time passed at $13.9M, lower than either.

Innovation schools split the different with a budget of $165,000; that's $150,000 with $15,000 earmarked for Pentucket Regional.

There had been no difference in the amount set aside for charter school reimbursement--an acknowledged-as-underfunded $80.5M--so that passed as previous.

Those are most of the major lines. As always, if you have questions, please let me know.

FY18 Worcester Schools budget at CPPAC

FY18 is being discussed at CPPAC tonight.
Posting as we go. 
Looks like the presentation is this one.

Brian Allen: first look at budget from Governor's budget; school budget (and city budget) come from House budget
school side "not anticipating many changes" from Governor's budget
enrollment changes--"up significantly from last year"--and low inflation factor
certain costs continue to exceed normal inflation (what's normal inflation?)
school resource needs are "significant and urgent but exceed available revenue"
"our challenge for the next six weeks is to essentially prioritize"

"we're a foundation aid community" one of only 92 districts
(growing demographics is rare in the state)
continued low inflation rate
Governor's budget acknowledges health insurance gap (per FBRC) by $66M ('though $16M is state funding)
$935,000 underfunding for Worcester alone in charter school reimbursement and special education circuit breaker projected for this coming year (subsequently: $635,000 of that is charter reimbursement)

have same number of students as we had in 2003, but eight fewer schools to put them in

To a Q about per pupil spending, "Newton is spending that much...because that's what it takes" pointing to the need for overhaul in the foundation budget

ELL students went down in 729 because the state's guidelines changed (and now have changed, somewhat, back)
economically disadvantaged students is up 543
employee benefits up by $1.7M; "but our gap is almost $30M"
inflation factor is only up 1.1%

city's contribution is only going up by $227,515
in total WPS budget revenue going up by $9M...which is almost identical to how much the WPS Ch.70 is increasing by
level service budget goes up by $10.6M or 3.3%

Q as to what the appetite is for increasing taxes at city "so we're funding locally the way that other communities are"
Rosen..."not much appetite for raising taxes" on City Council
Q on city at a dollar value has gone up over the past years
"for the last six years, we were below the foundation level...this is the first year we're above the required level"
most of that is carryover, "so next year, we'll be above for the first time in years

House budget comes out April 12
FY18 WPS budget comes out May 12

March Board of Ed: budget and Chapter 70

Chester updates on FY18 (plus a spreadsheet) and on chapter 70

Notes from Holyoke's panel on the foundation budget

As I was on last night's MASC panel in Holyoke, I wasn't able to liveblog or tweet. Here are a few notes on the discussion, however. Either on the panel or represented by staff were Rep. John Velis of Westfield, Rep. Aaron Vega of Holyoke, Rep. Solomon Goldstein-Rose of Amherst, and Senator Eric Lesser (who was represented by Joel McAuliffe). 

On possible changes before the Fair Share amendment: Solomon-Rose has proposed a bill that would close a dividend loophole and bring in $880M a year; the bill specifies half for FBRC and half for charter reimbursement. While it doesn't have good prospects for passage, there are ideas on the table.

On budget and specifically on charter reimbursement: Vega: "Nothing's going to change in the next six months"
"Taking the pros and cons off the table, we're not doing out commitment to charter reimbursement."
Velis: "If we say we're going to do something, we need to do it."

On what gets focused on: Velis: "What are our constituents saying? Hold us accountable."

On what wasn't included in FBRC: This from me. It increases the recognized percent of special education, but still doesn't recognize actual need in special education. Preschool is "recognized" but is not a recommendation. The low income recommendation isn't spelled out, so there's more work to be done on that. FBRC also intentionally did not touch the question of funding; the local/state split is going to have to come up sometime.

On how to handle the tension over need and funding increases: Vega comments that there is a discussion to have no one lose anything, but to have increases in funding to go highest need districts and communities first.

On if Fair Share will pass: Solomon-Rose says it's polling at 70%

On regional transportation: referencing earlier comments on charter reimbursement, Vega echoes that it is a commitment that was made, and they need to be held accountable.

On the increasing amount that health care is taking in the state budget and what options are: Solomon-Rose supports single payer. There is a bill in the Legislature sponsored by Senator Eldridge that would study that and report back. GIC could be opened to everyone, or could be expanded. The state could bulk-purchase drugs.

On the interconnectedness of everything: Lesser's focus on high-speed rail is about making the jobs in Boston connected to the affordable housing in Western Mass. Bringing back families would also support school enrollment.

On Lesser's empowerment zone bill: "We have heard from a lot of you." There will be changes to it; it's a bill. "We want your input on it." Get in touch with your own reps and senators, as "we're open to anything."

Closing words from a Mohawk Regional member: Referencing MassBudget's comparison of city to suburbs, "Why should a child in Newton get more funding that a child in Lynn?"
"We need to organize--and maybe sue--to adequately fund education."

MASBO February meeting: Governor's budget

Melissa King: going to be brief
about 2% increase over last year: about $37M inflation and enrollment growth
enrollment essentially flat statewide; substantial growth in municipals and ring
benefits rate in the formula: small inroad into FBRC recommendation: about 10% of what was modeled
inflation has not kept pace with health insurance
"no planned phase in" in the budget on FBRC
effort reduction: many districts close to or at target; strong step towards implementing aggregate wealth model
$20/pupil increase
"extremely important to catch errors (of enrollment) as soon as possible" before Governor's budget
92 districts are getting foundation aid; that's the state aid they need to make it to foundation aid
237 districts (that's everyone else) are getting $20/pupil aid; that's they keep their same aid as last year (hold harmless) plus they get at least $20/pupil increase
$400+ million given out over foundation aid
written into Section 3 economically disadvantaged rate is same as last year
(and they only found a small handful more kids)

"it's good that this [foundation budget review] is being advocated for, but it's going to make more of a difference for some than for others"
note that for districts above NSS, they may not see increased aid; "but it will make a real difference for the districts that struggle to meet minimum aid"
Q if there's any possibility that the minimum percentage of aid might move down (so districts get more aid)
the answer is that no one knows