We're losing kids on free lunch

 Hey, remember how we've noted that as we lose SNAP enrollment, we're going to lose free lunch enrollment?

That has now started to be seen happening, per EdWeek

In addition to Miami-Dade, some schools in nearby Palm Beach County, Fla., Houston, the San Antonio area, and Hardin County, Ky., have also announced the end of universal free meals in recent months because they no longer qualify for CEP.

Hysom anticipates more districts will follow suit.

Massachusetts has extra reason to be concerned about potential Medicaid and SNAP cuts

 One can only use the title "So, this is bad" so many times, but this qualifies

As K-12 Dive reports, proposed cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, as passed by the House, have an ancellary impact on school meals: 

For school districts, this means fewer children would be enrolled in SNAP and Medicaid — programs for which student and family participation are used as a metric for automatically opting students into free and reduced-price school meals. 

This process, known as direct certification, helps high-poverty schools become eligible for participation in the Community Eligibility Provision, a federal program allowing access to free school meals for all students at the school or district level. The more students are identified for free or reduced-price meals, the higher federal reimbursement rate CEP schools will receive to cover food costs. 

When students are no longer automatically certified to receive free school meals, Bylander said, there’s an additional burden put on families, because they will need to go through an application process instead. 

That, of course, is bad enough, but Massachusetts also uses direct certification to determine district low income count for the foundation budget. This thus also would hit how chapter 70 is calculated. 

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!  

House Ways and Means budget: this time with more

I am doing one of my periodic comfort re-reads of Terry Pratchett;
this is a good summary of the House budget. Alas, no answers here.

Wednesday's post was a quick one. Here's some more information and some thinking on the House Ways and Means budget on K-12 education; as always, this is me, out here having an opinion in my entirely unofficial capacity. 

The budget is here, though really that's where you download PDFs. Wouldn't it be amazing if instead there were updates to the posting of the Governor's budget, with nice little clickable links, and the ability to see at a glance what changes were being proposed over time?

If you'd like at least the change being proposed, I have now started a spreadsheet of the K-12 education accounts, which is here. (I did not start that with the Governor's budget this year, and, yikes, lesson learned!).

Also, the cherry sheets--municipal; regional--are now updated and seem to be up for good now (they went up and back down yesterday).

House Ways and Means FY25 budget

 I have barely cracked this open, but it's online here. No cherry sheet update as yet.

A few brief things I already know (as always on here, this is my personal perspective):

• Disappointingly, this keeps the same inflation rate as the Governor's budget. 
  
  
• Also disappointingly, this digs us further into a hole for the districts making their way out of hold harmless by making the minimum per pupil increase $104. This costs $37M, and it's coming out of the Fair Share surtax, which, as this is an allocation of funds that has nothing to do with student, district, or community need, is really disappointing.
  This is a genuinely terrible idea, and it's actively working against the reform passed unanimously in both chambers that is the Student Opportunity Act. 
  
  
• 'Though I have not yet found this written down anywhere, I have been told that this has an increase in the low income pupil count for some districts, which has resulted in some districts moving (back?) up a low income group. There certainly is a difference in the state aid for some districts that isn't coming from the per pupil increase noted above. 

That's what I have so far...I do plan to pull together a "tracking the budget" spreadsheet this spring (I haven't yet!), and I'll run through accounts later this week. 

Sounding the alarm on the low income count

 

If you'd prefer to review this with funny Muppets gifs, you can do that on my Twitter thread here. 

As I mentioned in my Q&A on the FY25 state budget (as well as elsewhere), the state funding formula for schools is enrollment-driven. In other words, it's at ground based on the kids that are enrolled in your school district. Setting aside the changes within the Student Opportunity Act, the two ways that a district's foundation budget can change is through changes in enrollment and changes in the inflation rate.

Reminder: you should be concerned about this year's inflation rate of 1.35%!

On enrollment, in addition to a student being in a grade (or, for high school, vocational or not program), students are also designated as English learners, which has an additional funding increment, and low income, which has an additional funding increment. And the low income increments going up are the biggest drivers of change in the Student Opportunity Act.

Those following budgets may remember that in the first years of SOA we not only had the dollar amounts going up from that; we also had the count of students who were considered low income going up. This was due to the state being tasked with coming up with another means of counting students. Since FY17, the state has counted as low income students who are participating in state public assistance programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children (TAFDC), MassHealth, and foster care, or who are homeless. Part of what has been going on since SOA, and what has been driving the count upward, is that the state's system of matching kids has improved. They literally take the two databases, one of students enrolled in the above, the other of students enrolled in schools, and they match them. And they've really been getting much better at it.

To that, the state has added a supplemental program, where the district can, through paperwork, say "hey, you missed one" to be sure that student is added.

Note that none of the above has anything to do with free and reduced lunch enrollment. If your district isn't funded for universal free lunch by the federal government, the state's supplemental program fills in for nutrition funding on top of the students whose forms you have, but those forms in no way impact your low income student count.

Still with me?

The above matching to count low income is called "direct certification," as students are directly certified by the state as being low income. The place where an issue arises is if anything impacts enrollment in those other programs. And something has, in a big way.

During the pandemic, the federal government froze enrollment in Medicaid programs for the period of the public health emergency. When that public health emergency was declared over, states had to go back to reviewing the enrollments. This "redetermination" started last March, and there have been ongoing concerns about how many people are going to lose coverage, many due to speaking a first language other than English, mobility, homelessness, and so forth. 

And some of them are kids.

Between the FY24 and the FY25 counts, there are 6715 fewer kids counted as low income across Massachusetts (in an overall enrollment that went up). We haven't seen that count drop in years.

Because this count runs on a four year basis, that is only going to get worse.

And again, it isn't that those kids necessarily are no longer poor. In fact, it's good guess that they still are. They just aren't being counted.

That's bad in a number of ways, but from a school budget perspective, it undermines the major driver of increased funding for schools that serve predominately low income kids, and it will do so in the final two years of Student Opportunity Act implementation.

We need to be sounding alarms on this. 

Not *that* low income

The state has now posted state and district enrollment numbers (the October 1 count) for the current school year, and if you pay the close attention Cleo does, you're going to notice something on terminology: 

So the DESE is back to using 'low income' instead of 'economically disadvantaged'? 🤔

— An Education (@AnEducationBlog) November 19, 2021

IT IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW: the former definition of low income is NOT something we're going back to; for what this includes, see the help section which has this:  

Low-income (prior to 2015): Indicates the percent of enrollment who meet ANY ONE of the following definitions of Low-income:

The student is eligible for free or reduced price lunch; or

The student receives Transitional Aid to Families benefits; or

The student is eligible for food stamps

source: SIMS

data as of: October 1

Economically Disadvantaged (2015 to 2021): Calculated based on a student's participation in one or more of the following state-administered programs: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); the Transitional Assistance for Families with Dependent Children (TAFDC); the Department of Children and Families' (DCF) foster care program; and MassHealth (Medicaid).

source: See Understanding the Economically Disadvantaged Indicator

Low-income (2022 to present): Calculated based on a student's participation in one or more of the following state-administered programs: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); the Transitional Assistance for Families with Dependent Children (TAFDC); the Department of Children and Families' (DCF) foster care program; expanded MassHealth (Medicaid) up to 185% of the federal poverty level, as well as students identified by districts as homeless and students the district confirmed had met the low-income criteria through the supplemental process and collected the required supporting documentation (SIMS DOE056)

source: See Redefining Low-income Under the Student Opportunity Act (SY 2021-22)

This last one is the one I want to be sure folks are clear on; what the state is now using effectively is economically disadvantaged PLUS.

Joint Committee on Ways and Means FY21 hearing on FY21

coming you today from the Malden Senior Center, just down the street from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in downtown Malden, where the Joint Committee on Ways and Means is having their FY21 hearing on local aid and education. These "on the road" hearings are frequently chaired by the nearest rep and senator, so today we have Rep. Christine Barber and Senator Jason Lewis, as Barber reps Melrose and Somerville, and Lewis reps Malden. This hearing, like several of the others, are a bit of a set piece; they aren't open to anyone to testify. That hearing is at the State House on March 24 at 11 am. 
And this decidedly will NOT start on time; I'll start updating once it does. 

Worcester School Committee meets Thursday

The agenda--which is pretty short?--is online here.
There are some recognitions coming in, which will mean the National Anthem is being sung by Worcester Arts Magnet students.
The Report of the Superintendent--as yet, no backup--is on Project Lead the Way.
There's also a petition coming in to allow teachers to donate sick time to a colleague.
There are a couple of other public petitions, as well.

The item on Burncoat shades has been forwarded to budget consideration.
The item on Black history month was sent to principals.

We're being asked to approve a prior fiscal year payment "to Learnwell dba EI US. LLC 2 in the amount of $540.00 for services rendered previously" which doesn't appear to have a backup.
We're also being asked to approve a prior year payments in the total amount of $425.88 for salary adjustments to two employees.

We're being asked to approve a $13,000 financial literacy grant which appears to be going to professional development.
We're also being asked to approve two STARS artist residency grants of $5000, one for Clark Street and one for Columbus Park.
While we're getting more backup and it's a little clearer what the funding is going for, we're still not getting the account numbers with allocations that have now been requested twice. This matters for grants, of course, because sometimes those grants go away and we have to decide if we're continuing to fund things, and if so, where that money is and is going. We can't do that if we don't know in the first place.

We're being asked to accept the following donations:
- $125 to Lake View Elementary School from fundraising efforts in collaboration with Thebe Enterprises, LLC
- $700 to Woodland Academy from Scholarship America
- $100 to Woodland Academy from the University of Wisconsin Madison
- $100 to the Library Fund at Quinsigamond Elementary School from Spear Management Group in memory of Peter Petrella, Jr., the recently passed father in law of an employee
- $5,000 to the Belmont Street Community School’s reading curriculum from The Journey Community Church


New items that are coming in (beyond recognitions) include:

• a request from Mr. Monfredo that the administration review the policy on long-term substitutes 
• a request from Miss Biancheria for review of the recommendations about Roosevelt from the school safety task force
• a request to the delegation coming in from me that would make it possible for supplemental budget funding for charter reimbursement to go to the district (right now, in municipal districts it does not and cannot after the tax rate has been set; it needs a separate bit of language at the state level to allow this to happen, rather than it getting stuck cityside and eventually ending up in free cash, which is of course not the Legislative intent)
• a proposal that we offer testimony regarding the low income rate implementation before the Joint Committee on Ways and Means; yes, that's this post
• and my request that we review the updated graduation and dropout rates; the chart below illustrates part of my concern to be discussed further in Standing Committee
  

There are also three worker's compensation cases coming into executive session, which starts at 6 pm. 

Opportunity delayed is...

MassBudget nails it in their analysis of the Governor's budget in a report entitled "Opportunity Delayed" (The common phrase is "opportunity delayed is opportunity denied) regarding the lesser implementation of the low income rate:

...not all of the SOA reforms are consistently or equitably phased in by the Governor’s proposal despite this goal being outlined in the law. One critical area that is not on track — increased support for students from low-income families through Low-Income Rates. In his FY 2021 budget proposal, the Governor only delivers on 4 percent of the progress towards the SOA target. This leaves 96 percent of the change left to be accomplished over the next six years.
According to a preliminary analysis of the funding proposal, slowing the low-income rate progress down to 4 percent from 14 percent, results in a reduction in aid of $73.6 million.4 This reduces the capacity of districts educating children who are economically disadvantaged, to enhance services, expand opportunities, and promote achievement. The Commonwealth would need to increase Chapter 70 aid by $377.1 million (24 percent more than Governor Baker proposed) to phase-in low-income rate increases at an equal pace as the other components (see chart below).
The Governor’s proposal to increase low-income rates 4 percent towards the target in the first year, while leaving an average of 16 percent each year to follow, does not meet the objective of consistent implementation. This is particularly true when the other areas are moving an even 14 percent towards the goals of the SOA.

The Boston Globe covers this report today. The Mass Taxpayers' quote is interesting as they, as I mentioned earlier, agreed with the MassBudget analysis when they presented for the Connecticut Valley superintendents.
And school committees? A good thing to pay attention to and weigh in on.
PS: Worcester? It's on next week's agenda.

So what's the deal with the low income measurement?

Why is there discussion/controversy/activism about the low income implementation in school funding in the House 2 budget?

As I mentioned when I ran through the Governor's proposed budget back in January, most of the sections of the Foundation Budget Review Commission's recommendations and the Student Opportunity Law that had to do with funding were implemented at 1/7th of the goal, under the general understanding that this will be phased in over seven years.
Not low income.
What did happen with low income was this: the law provided for a one year "best option" count on students: for each district, the state looked at the direct certification count--the one we've been using, through the matching of students via the databases--and also ran the FY16 percentage of students that were low income then (the last year that everyone was being credited on free/reduced lunch, 'though some districts had already switched), and each district got the higher of those two counts.
Note that if you download the FY16 spreadsheet, you can double-check your number by calculating your percentage of low income students that year. I assume that there were business offices that did this ahead of time. And each of the FY21 preliminary foundation budget sheets has, in the bottom right corner, a comparison of the FY16 percentage applied to this year's enrollment and this year's direct certification:

Here's Worcester's. See the blue box? 

That "best of," as has been widely noted, added about 46,000 students statewide to the count of low income. Those students, of course, were not all in one district, and, as with any such count, there were districts that benefited more than others. Worcester picked by 2000 more students for this year; as Mike noted, Northbridge actually lost kids even with the FY16 count being used (it would have gone lower if it were only direct cert) and so on.
However, as a result of the the increased count of students, the state of course had to increase the amount of funding going to that line. In order to keep to the overall $300M or so planned--the overall 1/7th--the rate change was only implemented by 4/100ths, not the 1/7th of the other sections.

This was part of the Mass Taxpayers' Foundation presentation yesterday
to the Connecticut Valley Superintendents' Roundtable.
We were told it is a slide that DESE doesn't like.

This isn't a thing that I or anyone else cooked up; you can find it right on DESE's page on FY21 under "Foundation Budget Rates."
As noted in the above slide that you probably can't read, this means the rates for low income will then have to pick up the difference over the next six years in order to meet the seven year generally understood goal.
It also, as a side note, means that some of the money gets postponed having inflation applied by a year.
The slide also notes, however, that the final section of the law says that the changes are to be implemented in "an equitable and consistent manner."
Thus the question is: is this equitable? is this consistent? does it line up with the intent of the law? is in line with what was fought so hard for?

A number of us are arguing that it doesn't.

Two additional notes after the jump:

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

January Board of Education: Student Opportunity Act and the budget

Riley: funding is progressive, "so some of our most needy school districts" are getting greater resources
how to we now ensure those funds are spent in a way that closes persistent achievement gaps
85% of additional dollars in 35 or so districts
bifurcated plan: long form or short form
short form does not take away need for focus on these issues
plans themselves "are fairly bounded by the statute"
evidence based or evidence informed practices
"that doesn't mean a district can't approve another evidence based practice" but Commissioner has to approve it
either next week or next week, template going out
parent and community feedback
"we're also asking all school committees to approve these in March"
"we want to make this an inclusive process, where everyone gets to weigh in"
outcome metrics whether state or your own
"this is not meant to be a bureaucratic exercise"
"even if this were a longer process, we wouldn't want this to be a compliance-driven exercise"
law does provide select examples to chose from
possible re-arrangement of DESE grants: early literacy, early college, diversifying workforce for multiplier effect
have set up a hotline; doing webinars with superintendents
what if the new money is being used for contract requirements?
"operating under the assumption that we're going to carve out an inflation factor"
plans need to be accepted by Commissioner
Concern that cities and towns that already fund over do NOT pass along additional Ch. 70 to their districts
"may need to be regulations that need to be proferred" by Board
will be working closely with districts that may not be on the best fit of this bill
Peyser: this can't be a one and done process
Eisenhower said plans are worthless; planning's indespensible
work over time on implementation is what is important

budget: about a 5% increase in resources to education
overall increase of 2.3% to state budget
this is a run through the account by account; I think I missed an update on staffing; I'll have to go back and listen again And it answered my question! The increase in 7061-9200 is for an increase (overdue, I'm told) for the data work, in part that required by SOA for targets, but also to staff the data requirements elsewhere in the Act...which means the Governor DID provide for that section of the Board's request. 

$1.8B over seven years; $1.16B will be in low income students
both increase in 40K count
even implementation over seven years is 14%
impact on individual district varies very much according to local district capacity

On Governor Baker's FY21 budget proposal

I am sorry it has taken this long for me to get this into a blog post. I did tweet this out when the budget went up online on Wednesday.
The Governor's budget--House 2 in this second year of the Legislative term--is online here. You may also find useful the FY21 Chapter 70 school finance page from DESE (much more descriptive that previous years) and the cherry sheets (the net state aid calculations) for municipal and regional.
As last year, I have started an Excel spreadsheet with the accounts, the FY20 projected, and the FY21 proposed, along with any notes. Please feel free to use and share it, and let me know if there are ways it could be more useful.

It is the first year of the implementation of the Student Opportunity Act, so the first question is, was it implemented?
I think my answer on that is "mostly, but," as I said to Commonwealth Magazine when they called me this week.

• The estimation was the 1/7th of implementation of the Student Opportunity Act would take an additional $300M in Chapter 70 aid statewide; that was hit. 
• The new law guarantees $30/pupil minimum increases with hold harmless; that was done. 
• House 2 does increase health insurance by the GIC three year average increase of 2.34%, rather than the inflation rate for the rest of the foundation budget, which is 1.99% (which is not great at all). 
• The special education rate does take the 1/7th step towards the goal rate, plus 1/7th of the new enrollment counts
• Likewise English learners category takes 1/7th step towards the goal. 
• Low income...does not. Remember that this year, the state was directed to use the FY16 free/reduced count as a percentage to apply to this year (unless the direct certification count was higher). That added 46K kids to the count statewide, which increased the amount of dollars devoted to this category. As a result, the Governor's budget implements only 4/100ths of the goal rate. The state was directed to implement the changes in "an equitable and consistent manner" and I would argue: this isn't it.
  To give some idea of what this looks like, here are the rate charts for FY20 and FY21: 

• 

  This is FY20, the current year. Note the length of the bottom lines, particularly the very bottom one, relative to the three through six, which are the grade level foundation rates.

  
  

  

  This is FY21, the budgeted year. Note again the length of the bottom lines, the low income increments, relative to three through six. We are to be getting the bottom one equal to that in seven years. Unless not.

The danger in both state and local budgets has always been that the "new money" was going to leave those doing the allocations with the impression that they didn't need to fund other accounts (or to the same level), because schools should just pick up those activities with the new aid. This is certainly the Governor's framing of the budget. Not only are a number of accounts zeroed out--civics education, financial literacy, computer science--but several are severely cut:

•  extended learning time (7061-9412) is cut by $10M (it's a $13.9M account cut to $3.9M).
• likewise, the after and out of school grant is cut from $8.5M to $2.5M. 

Given the resources being made available in a single year of a seven year phase in, this is abrupt and not borne out by the resources put forward.

For those looking at other accounts, some of which also had SOA requirements: 

• regional transportation (which we last saw getting a boost in the supplemental budget) is budgeted at $75.8M, which is where it came out of conference committee last year. That was about an 83% reimbursement level; no doubt costs of grown, and I have yet to hear projections for this year.
• McKinney-Vento homeless transportation reimbursement is $11M, which is level funded from last year's conference committee budget. The supplemental did add another $2M to that, but unless that is re-appropriated to the schools, that goes to the general fund in municipal districts. $9M was 37%, implying that $11M was about 45%, but I would think that costs have also gone up. 
• MassBudget projected that the circuit breaker account would have to increase by $22.5M in order to incorporate transportation, as required by the Student Opportunity Act; the account goes up by $23M. However, this means there is not space in the account for the usual growth of costs. It isn't clear that this is appropriately funded.
• Similarly, charter reimbursement was projected by MassBudget to need to rise $29.4M in order to be at least 75% as required by the new law; the line increases by $19.4M in the Governor's budget. I am told that it is expected that once actual enrollments at charters are known this will be closer to what is needed. 
• educational data services (7061-9200) is going from $579,786 to $1,078,231, and I have no idea why, and I cannot find any explanation of it. I can't find any explanation of anything; are they not posting any narrative this year?
• recovery high schools were sent to study in the Student Opportunity Act, as their costs aren't being covered: last year, they were funded at $3.1M, while the Gov's budget has them at $2.6M.
• rural schools have been added the past several years, generally on a budget amendment from Senator Adam Hinds. Thus it is a bit of a victory for it to be in the Governor's budget this year, even if it is at $1.5M, rather than the $3M that is projected for FY20.
• (upon consideration, adding this): it does not appear the Governor is requesting additional appropriation for the Department, despite the SOA reporting requirements. Someone has to do the target calculations and review and respond to the reports; it appears that it's going to be the same stretched staff already there. 

It's always important to remember--and particularly important this year--that the Governor's budget is where the conversation starts. Get some idea of where your district is (if you haven't gotten your hands on circuit breaker projections, ask!), and go talk to your reps and senators. 

The questions we don't ask

Among the items coming back on this week's Worcester School Committee agenda (on which more to come) is a response to a multi-part (and all over the map) item on technology. This ranges from the entirely non-scientific fear about wifi to a query on the district's plans on expanding access.
One bit referenced is a survey that was sent home to families during the first few weeks of school about technology access, a partner, it seems to a survey that was given to students during school.
We should note that after five years, it would seem time to update the report on technology from 2015, 'though that here and elsewhere is not mentioned. The focus there was updating building access to allow for one to one access, something which curiously still is not planned at the high school level, which would seem to need it most urgently. Also, at that time the district cell phone policy was revised in line with bring your own device, something on which the district still depends, though students now often are disciplined for having their cell phones at hand, even for classwork.
Both the report and the district's digital learning Twitter show the heavy push that has gone on towards teachers using and requiring digital work. That has been so widespread that much of secondary school homework is now online.
But the district has never asked if that was actually possible for families.
We know from elsewhere that it widely is not (also here and here and here and there are many more).
In other words, the requirement came before the provision that meets it, which means the district is not following the state requirement that what is required must be provided (covered in terms of technology here).
The news that 26% of students surveyed do not have access at home--without asking how those that  have it acquire it, note--and that more than half use a cell phone for homework should concern us. It is convenient to assume, as was done in the article covering this report this weekend, that this is a "choice" students make. It is of course the "choice" one makes if one has no other device and no internet access at home.
Having students use cell phones ON DATA to do their homework is charging their families for their homework.
And it is easy for those of us who sit at home with our (self-purchased) laptops and Chromebooks using (self-purchased) home internet access to assume that students can simply go to the library or elsewhere for access. We have 27,000 students in the Worcester Public Schools. If even a tenth of those students need access at a library, we do not have enough. And that's without the opportunity cost of a family needing to figure that sort of access into a family lives that we know, in a district that is predominately low income, frequently mainly speaks languages other than English, and has too little time and money already, and has far too many stressors already.
For a middle class family, adding enough bandwidth to cover the devices and picking up another Chromebook may be manageable; it's what my family did as soon as we had more than one child in secondary school, as it because clear that this was the expectation from the school. Further, we even upgraded one child to a smartphone when it became clear that "get out your phones" was how some teachers are handling the push to go online without a district provision of devices. I have been asked exactly once if we had access at home. And the suggestion that teachers should, by a show of hands, ask who has access at home, puts onus on the students that should not be necessary (who's going to admit that their family cannot afford it?).

Such was my frustration with the survey which came home: it likewise missed the main issue of the Worcester Public Schools right now, that access is expected but not provided.
Families were asked:

• if they barred access--how can I if access is required to complete schoolwork?
• if we limited access--not if we want our children to complete their work
• if we'd like access outside of school at home--when secondary school students regularly complete work late into the night in order to get it done?
• if we wanted the district to provide devices--yes, but ALSO ACCESS
• if we wanted the district to teach us about technology--this is not the greatest need!

We have students who stay up until a parent gets home in the evening late shift to use their parents cell phone ON DATA to do homework which is required BY THE DISTRICT. There is no provision in the family survey for answering questions that give that information.

We have students who have their cell phones taken when an adminstrator walks into a classroom in which the teacher has asked students to use their phones--because the high schools continue to not have one to one access--and confiscates phones that are out. There are no questions that get that information out in the family or student surveys.

We have families that are paying for internet access because it is required by the district that their children have it. There are no questions that allow for that, and the cost, to be provided.

Writing a survey that genuinely elicts the information that is most important requires having room for responses that reject the premise and the framing of the survey; it is always possible that the surveyor got the framing wrong. A short comment section at the end does not do this.

The massive inequity that the district has itself created thus goes undiscovered.

Note that while the issue is not uncommon, this is also one that many districts are themselves solving; there are lots more links for that, too. 

Worcester School Committee meets for mid-August

I'd honestly missed that this was happening entirely, and there isn't a whole lot on the agenda beyond allocating the funds over the FY20 budget as passed in June.
Note that as it is summertime, the meeting is at 4 pm.

There are some honors and recognitions.
The administration has sent along the admission policy of Worcester Tech. Note that these are subject to state approval, and DESE is reworking their guidance on them, with an eye towards equity. This probably should be up for reconsideration over the next few months, then. Note for homeschoolers: an "approved" homeschool program?

There are prior fiscal year payments

• of $2,392.50 to EI US, LLC dba (doing business as) LearnWell, due to a name change.
• of $896.00 to Providence Nursing Agency for CNAs
• of $538.84 to Stevens Children’s Home Inc. dba (doing business as) Stevens Treatment Programs

Mr. O'Connell suggests commenting on " the proposed 'Revision of Categorical Eligibility in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)' issued by the US Department of Agriculture." The comment period closes September 23.

This item:

Request that the Administration provide a proposed budget for a multi-faceted staff diversity recruitment initiative, and to allocate funds to implement it from the additional state aid furnished by the FY20 State Budget as enacted during July.

...and this item:

Request that the Administration provide its plans for the allocation of the new funding from the State.

immediately surround what the School Committee had to know was coming: the administration's proposed FY20 adjustments.

The adopted FY20 budget has an additional $4.6M (net) coming to the Worcester Public Schools from the budget the School Committee adopted in June, which was based on the proposed House Ways and Means budget.
That looks like this:

Note that of the $24.4M increase over last year, $13.2M of that is coming in from inflation. It is only the next highest amount, $8.9M, that is coming in from Foundation Budget changes; this should answer Mr. Monfredo's later item requesting an update on the impact of the foundation budget. Let's remember that when we hear claims about what FY20 did. And also:

We continue to look forward to final passage of a new Foundation Budget formula that adopts funding for economically disadvantaged students at the highest possible level.

What is administration recommending the funding go to?

• 6 instructional coaches "to provide instructional support and turnaround efforts" (there's that unannounced 'turnaround' again) at Burncoat High and Middle, Forest Grove, Sullivan, WEMS, and Challenge and Reach [$524,772]
• 4 elementary teachers and 1 elementary assistant principal; no word on where, though one assumes the teachers are for lower class size [$447,310]
• 5 ESL teachers, including the kindergarten dual language teacher for Woodland, which...had that not been budgeted for? [$437,310]
• 2 special ed teachers plus the conversion of an early childhood teacher into dept head, plus a Deaf and hard of hearing team chair [$183,062]
• 1 "health/drug" educator, which was advocated for during budget...I still have no idea what this person is to do, 'though there is an item requesting one following this on the agenda [$87,462]
• 2 guidance counselors (half a postion each for Burncoat Middle and High, 1 at North) [$174,924]
• 1 teacher at WEMS (no word for what) and converting Gerald Creamer Center evening adminstrator to a full time position (costing $2800) [$89,662]
• 10 sped IAs [$366,055]
• "an increase in middle school and freshman sports opportunities" with funding to support coaching, uniforms, supplies and transportation [$130,000]
• 1 clerical for special ed "to support compliance and administrative support for the department" [$75,000]
• 1 school-year clerical for the Fanning building, which doesn't have any [$39,672]
• 1 grant information specialist [$70,000]
• 1 school nurse (doesn't say where for) [$68,675]
• additional time for English language proficiency testing in the Parent Information Center [$20,000]
• 10 literacy tutors [$211,960]
• PD for "focused instructional coaches, social emotional staff, technology training, CPI and restraint training, and CPR training" [$37,650]
• dual language curriculum [$77,000]
• an increase "in costs" for STAR assessment [$37,812]
• "additional Chromebooks at the elementary and middle level" (no word on where or how many) plus computers for the additional staff here added [$396,000]
• "to begin the process of developing an RFP for a new student information system and implementation process" which was already in the budget--I'll have to look up for how much--and now somehow we need MORE funding for? [$225,000]
• nurse supplies which is overdue and underfunded [$19,862]
• Sullivan security system upgrade which seems rather random [$160,000]
• building maintenance: 
• Sullivan Middle carpet [$140,000]
• North High phones [$75,000]
• Claremont additional lockers [$50,000]
• sped office painting and carpet replacement [$8400]
• shift of funds from Title I, which is coming through less than budgeted, plus positions have increased in cost (this is odd) [$455,269]

PLUS: the charter assessment came through AS BUDGETED, so the "in case" line isn't needed. That means that there is $350,000 available. Administration is recommending adding 10 IA positions for some of the kindergarten classes that don't have them. There are 89 K rooms, 63 positions, currently; this would get to 73, and the remaining 16 would be part of the plan for FY21.

Note that the final page attempts to tie this back to the strategic plan.

The Committee is asked to accept the following donations:

• -$6,498.50 from various fundraising efforts at Woodland Academy
• -$500.00 from EOS Foundation to Francis McGrath Elementary School for the 2019 Healthy Start Award
• -$365.25 from Lifetouch to Chandler Magnet School
• -$155.00 from various donors to the Patricia Falcone Memorial Scholarship

Mr. O'Connell wants to hang banners on lightpoles about the schools.

And there is an executive session "to discuss litigation with respect to CAS petition Bus Drivers" after the meeting. 

Another August

The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.

Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt

Here we are at the opening of another August, a month that will close with kids back in school, and no school funding bill. As I noted last August, this "ongoing failure" was even foreseen and warned about in the Foundation Budget Review Commission report itself.
We should be clear: having or not having a bill makes no difference for the upcoming school year. The funding for that was in the FY20 budget, which, with the Governor's signature this week, is now set. And, to be fair, there was progress on school funding in the actual budget.
But it's a single year budget. It didn't change the underlying formula. 
The lack of urgency is troubling. Governor Baker, in the article linked above, swiped at those of us noting this with this:

“I think sometimes people don’t give the Legislature enough credit for how difficult it is to change that formula,” Baker said. “There’s a tremendous amount of will in the building to do that, but this is a very hard exercise.”

Many of those of us concerned know better than most what "a very hard exercise" it is, but we also note the amount of time and lack of urgency that has been present for much of the last four years.

Those four years, as Senator Chang-Díaz noted, are half of an elementary school career. I'll add that they are the whole of a high school career, and for the class of 2019, that's just what they were.
I'm not being cute to say: kids don't get that time back. It's already too late. You've already lost it, and we will never get it back.
It's thus helpful for the Springfield Republican (online as MassLive) to be editorializing about the urgency, but the stridency they criticize Senator Chang-Díaz for (and let me know when the last time is that someone used that word of a male politican) is something that instead ought to be widely shared.

I do think this point from the editorial is one we should consider:

“I think everyone is working very hard to come to a place where everyone feels comfortable,” DeLeo said.
Therein lies the problem: everyone will not feel comfortable, no matter what result is finally reached. No sensible person questions the complexity and difficult of addressing (and paying for) the varied needs of 21st Century public education.
Compromise will be required. When that happens, people on all sides must accept they didn’t get everything they thought they should, but could live with the outcome.

Yes, but who lives with the outcome? The impact of a shift in the funding formula and who pays for it impacts some districts--and thus some students--more than others. Who is being asked to give up or live with what? The kids most underfunded--those in the Gateway Cities, and particularly those students who are poor, who are students of color, who are learning English--are those least often at the table when decisions are made. They've been accepting, like it or not, an underfunded school system for years at this point. The impact of this funding bill hits those kids and their futures more than anyone else.
I don't think we should be shrugging and saying that they're going to have to live it it, strident though that may make me.

This brings us to Max Larkin's piece for WBUR yesterday about one thing that may be holding up the bills: the low income count. MassBudget, of course, has been on top of the low income count for some time. A number of cities, particularly those with high numbers of immigrants, have been concerned about the impact in particular this administration has on families' willingness to sign up for services and thus make the count.
And we should be worried about that. The national administration has had a chilling effect on lots of things, and it is part of our job at the local level to mitigate and fight what we can.
And I said yesterday:

I know nothing of how the decision of who is and isn't speaking on the record is made, but it's disappointing that DESE didn't have the people who do this talk. There's a decent conversation to be had. https://t.co/qqvFVU5iX7 #MAEdu

— Tracy O'Connell Novick (@TracyNovick) August 1, 2019

Here's why I say this: there have been ongoing discussions dating back before we switched from low income to economically disadvantaged. There have been meetings and task forces and (see above) reports on how to improve the count. There has been a TON of work done on this. I don't want yesterday's article to leave the impression that anyone--and I include here DESE--has shrugged and said whatever.
I do think that "yes, but you got more money per student" is a pretty lame response, because we all know there should be more money per student, already. We also need to know how many kids we have.
Many of the proposals in MassBudget's report have been incorporated already; I'd also argue that if kids are eligible for state services, we should be figuring out how to get them on those state services, even aside from our district counts, as kids need health insurance and food outside of school! That remains an ongoing and looming issue with the national administration.
I think, though--and I hope that those who are actually making decisions on this are asking for solid data on this--that this is not really the big hold-up. Or it shouldn't be.

If I had some sort of inspiring summing up here, I'd offer it to you. Other than noting that those who are most voiceless and most at risk are those most harmed by postponing, I've got nothing. Waylay your reps and senators when they're around over the August break, please.

Bruce Baker in Connecticut

Professor Bruce Baker, on Twitter as SchlFinance101, speaking today at Trinity College in Hartford with a focus on Connecticut school finance

...who notes that he has a masters in ed psychology from UConn
"money translates primarily to human resources"
"running a good school takes good people and enough of them...and you've got to pay well...helping kids meet goals"
"it's a human resource-intensive process, for which we have not found" a substitution
even in charter schools, it's about smaller classes, longer days
private schools: the Harkness table, 12 around an oak table; spend double per pupil compared to public schools in their same area
during bad times, school spending stagnates or even declines, but it does not rebound (at least in recent cycles) during good cycles

Core principles (agreed to by most national reports, save EdWeek, where their "Quality Counts" report relates to nothing else):

• proper funding is a necessary condition for educational success: competitive educational outcomes require adequate resources, and improving educational outcomes requires additional resources. Serving higher needs populations requires greater amounts of resources. 
• Cost of a given level of quality varies by context: equal opportunity requires progressive distribution of resources, targeted at students and schools that need them most. "It costs more to achieve more."
• adequacy and fairness are "largely the result of legislative choices." Good school finance policy can improve student outcomes. "It's very much if the states choose to spend on education or not." Bad policy can hinder outcomes. Twist when there is municipal fiscal dependance; some cities not putting forth the fiscal effort that they could. States like Colorado and Arizona "have dropped their schools under the bus."

equal dollar efforts

BUT adjust for "real resources" over geographic area (rural sparsity, higher cost of salaries)

equal opportunity to achieve a given outcome level (whatever it is); consider that children under certain circumstances require more resources than do others to achieve common outcomes

equal opportunity to acheive adequate outcomes: setting a bar

"minimum adequacy of real resources"

providing special education services, ELL support providing the resources to provide equal opportunity

"ought to be setting up a system that disrupts the relationship, at least probablistically, between where you come from" and your educational outcomes

"we ought to be able to provide the additional services to let your kid achieve as well as any other kid down the line"

transiency, the language issues

Money matters myths (read the book!) 

turns out there were detrimental effects on longer term outcomes during the recession

"have more data available" and can really tease out changes over time

schoolfinancedata.org

nominal and adjusted per pupil spending; the "adjusted" is for LABOR costs, which is the largest cost for school districts (and the most meaningful adjustment)

Most meaningful adjustment is for labor costs, and on that, we are where we were, just about, in 1993. But how much more are we expecting schools to do? pic.twitter.com/Wle1Y1MpKU

— Tracy O'Connell Novick (@TracyNovick) July 10, 2019

We aren't really any different than where we were in 1993

wages as compared to college-educated nonteacher wages; may make up some ground during recessions, but don't retain that

That’s this chart pic.twitter.com/WggU45PfFC

— Tracy O'Connell Novick (@TracyNovick) July 10, 2019

high average spending states (like CT) but compared...the average may be doing fine, "but this case is about the rest of them" as a judge in Kansas once said

tracking funding against census poverty; the gaps are huge (and don't ever say we're "shoveling money" into these communities)

statisically it has been borne out: majority Black has slightly greater, while Latinx second cities is the strongest predictor of being one of the "screwed" cities
children per housing units compared to per pupil funding

in CT, went from progressive spending on schools to regressive spending
CT has a regressive overall tax system; "there's room to tax" on the higher end of these rolls
"Massachusetts and Connecticut are much more regressive" than states like New Jersey

Here are some longer term "effort" trends for NJ and CT: pic.twitter.com/NGA56RxCt3

— Bruce Baker (@SchlFinance101) July 9, 2019

Colorado and Arizona "race to the bottom"

need a funding formula that is tied about adequacy goals with "more aggressive need based targeting"
"we changed the outcome goals"
"higher outcomes cost more to achieve"

averages always conceal the disparities, and we have a concern ourselves with the disparities
ideally, looking at those disparities at the level of the student
"you shouldn't be only getting to the lower level because of where you came from"

salaries, infrastructure, public two year and four year colleges
how to better understand the full cost of providing community and four year colleges
"can we get it to 14?"
cites Sara Goldrick-Rab's "Paying the Price"

Milliken problem (in that the boundaries of school districts are something SCOTUS has found the federal government not able to push beyond for equity or desegregation
increased number of seccessions to reenforce segregation; edbuild.org tracking the resegregation efforts across the country

slides and video going up on Center for Hartford Engagement and Research at Trinity College

"30% of the difference is 70% of the money"

The above is a (possibly imperfectly remembered) quote from Rep. Aaron Vega regarding the Promise Act and House 70 proposed by Governor Baker: when it comes to implementation, the difference is in the funding of low income kids.
And now we have the numbers.
Yesterday, MassBudget released a model of implementation of Governor Baker's bill, the Promise Act, and the status quo, projected through 2026.
Note, by the way, that the other House bill was not modeled, as, just as several of us have pointed out despite the unpopularity of the message, the bill doesn't have enough in it to model implementation. It isn't complete.

The differences among status quo, Baker's bill, and Promise are stark:

Status quo: $0.99B above FY19; Baker: $1.45B above FY19; Promise: $2.36B above FY19

MassBudget has included a spreadsheet which you can download to see what they project would be the difference for districts. I would also highly recommend reviewing the technical appendix (scroll down on the report page) to understand what assumptions the projections are based on (different assumptions = different numbers).

The big differences are the Gateways and the big differences are for the kids who have least. 

Squirrel!

Reference:


Just in time for the rally at the State House tomorrow, we've now reached the "SQUIRREL" part of the foundation budget bill discussion, where everything gets thrown against the wall.

In the past week, I've seen arguments invoking the regional salary percentages and their comparisons to the municipal wealth formula; I've seen arguments that we somehow must preserve circuit breaker funding as is (ignoring why we have it); I've seen arguments that we must have "more accountability" ignoring that we have enormous amounts of accountability under a system that the state has never fully funded.

And now we have the "but Boston" invocation.

If you really think that those arguing that Boston shouldn't get more money care a whit about equity, please go ask them what they think about the 17.5% of the foundation budget that districts significantly more wealthy than Boston, serving significantly less diverse and more wealthy students than Boston get.
And unless and until they're arguing that the 17.5% aid going to those communities should also be taken away, and unless and until those same people are arguing for a low income implementation that fully meets the Foundation Budget Review Committee's recommendation, spare me your sudden concern for what you're depriving we Gateways of.