April 2026 Board of Ed: House Ways and Means budget update

 Look, there is a document on this! There is also a PowerPoint, which NEVER happens
This is also being taken out of order on the agenda

Martinez notes the literacy grant wasn't in the House Ways & Means budget, nor were the literacy institutes, nor reimagining high school grant (pay for AP exams) and support early college and MyCap

FY27 Governor's budget proposal

As I noted on Wednesday, Governor Healey has filed her proposed FY27 budget; as this is the second year of the legislative term, this is "House 2," as she files the bill with the House. 

As per usual, I'm keeping a running "account-by-account" for K-12 over here. This year, I honestly started by downloading this page from the state website and then playing with it; you might also find that useful. 

As always, dear readers, I post here for me and for you and in an entirely unofficial capacity. 

On revenue

I think the big story here is one Sam Drysdale at State House News Service caught and covered and then...no one picked up their coverage, as best as I can tell, so it is (sigh) only behind their paywall¹. 

Massachusetts isn't fully funding charter school tuition reimbursement

 For reasons that are unclear to me, this doesn't seem to be getting any attention, but Massachusetts isn't fully funding charter school tuition reimbursement. 

As of the May 6 projections, charter school tuition reimbursement statewide should have been (per DESE's numbers) $215,792,970. The conference committee instead agreed to $199M. It wasn't fully funded.

And that was before the Governor vetoed another $19.9M over the weekend: 

The Governor isn't wrong that the account fluctuates over the year; charter enrollment does, so the amount needed does. 
What this misses is that midyear money isn't the same as July money. It also misses--again, something the state seems rather stuck on--that midyear funding doesn't, save in cases where the funding is allocated "without further appropriation" to the school district itself, get to municipal school districts. It goes into the municipal general fund. 

The Legislature could override the veto, though State House News reports:

House Speaker Ronald Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka both provided thankful quotes for Healey's budget action press release, each of them referencing a shared commitment to "responsible" budget management.

Fully funding charter school reimbursement is part of the Student Opportunity Act. It thus is not the case that the commitment of the SOA is being met.  

On the Senate's Ways and Means budget

In the Senate Ways and Means budget released Tuesday, most of the education lines are parallel to the House budget, with these exceptions: 

The circuit breaker is still down from the Governor, so the open question here is what they're doing with the supplemental, which does have supplemental circuit breaker funding in it.
Related to this line, incidentally, is that there is word out there that the Legislature doesn't plan to take action on the supplemental budget until taking action on the FY26 budget, despite some of the funding in the supplemental budget for circuit breaker being for FY25. That's WAY too late. If the intent is for it to be for FY25, it needs to get to districts this fiscal year, which it will not if they wait until conference committee.

The Senate puts rural schools back to $16M.


The charter school reimbursement is down $14M from the House Ways and Means budget, with no clear reason as to why*. I've taken a look at some of the bigger districts on the updated preliminary cherry sheets and district by district loss in charter school reimbursement compared to the House Ways and Means budget:

•  $2M Worcester
• $3.5M Springfield
• $1.75M Lowell
• $500K New Bedford
• $1.5M Lawrence
• $1M Fall River
• $1.5M Brockton
• $389K Barnstable
• $478K Chelsea
• $657K Everett
  
  

UPDATE: Having taken a look at the updated DESE numbers, the Senate just doesn't fully fund charter reimbursement. The account should be $215,792,970; it's $183,828,858. It's funded at 85.2% of what it should be.

I hear a lot of people talk about "deals" and "commitment" this time of year. This is not either.

___________________
*Boston's charter reimbursement is up by about $4M, but tuition is also up by $10M, which I assume is the approvals from the Board of Ed meeting earlier this spring coming through.

Massachusetts may be "under attack" but so is everywhere else

The end of the federal ESSER extension announced by Trump Secretary of Education McMahon Friday hit the Massachusetts news wires today, largely because the executive branch issued a frankly not very helpful press release, which goes for impact without starting with what the funding actually is. 

And now we have news articles and headlines that are only making that worse, so in lieu of banging my head against the train window here, let's try to parse more of this out.

On the House FY24 budget

First, mea culpa for essentially sitting out all of the House budget. I was scrambling when it came out, and I just never caught up. 

With the Senate budget due out the week after next (why does it feel like no one ever knows this for sure?), let me walk through what the House did, however.

Do please note that my K-12 education account by account spreadsheet is up to date through the House passage of the budget, meaning it also incorporates the amendments. Because the House passes amendments in a way that is designed to be opaque, I waited for the Legislature to sort them out before I tried to post. That is now up to date. 

On the big stuff particularly in what differs from the Governor's budget:

• Yes, the House fully funds year three implementation of the Student Opportunity Act.
  HOWEVER, the House also (in a separate line) adds an additional $30/pupil minimum increase, bringing it to $60/pupil, which I know was asked for, and I'm sure many are going to see as the House doing a favor to districts. It's a problem, though. It is in no way tied to need (plenty of those dollars will go to districts that have funding capacity and relatively low needs student populations). It will also create a larger hole of hold harmless funding next year (this additional funding does get added to that), pushing some districts that were on the cusp of getting out of hold harmless funding and minimum increases back into it, rather than getting them out into foundation aid. 
  (I'm sure I've lost some of you, and I should write more on this.)
  (For some reason, the House version is $280K less than the Governor's version, and I don't know why.)
  
  
• BIG DIFFERENCE #1 from the Governor's budget: The House budget includes $161M in the budget for free school lunch reimbursement for districts. The Governor, you might remember, put this into a supplemental budget. DESE CFO Bill Bell last week said there's some question as to if the amount is sufficient, but the intent is there for free lunch for all in all districts. Some districts (like Worcester) are of course still funding by the community eligibility provision of USDA. 
  There are also two studies on school lunch in the outside sections, one to study school food waste, and one to study nutritional standards for school lunch. 
  
  
• BIG DIFFERENCE #2 from the Governor's budget: The House budget lifts the cap on the Mass School Building Authority to $1.1B (this is in an outside section, so I initially missed it). THIS IS A BIG DEAL (and, as you might remember, something some of us asked for in public testimony). It also then ties increases annually to increases in sales tax revenue, capping at 4.5%
  (Nothing on accelerated repair; nothing on inflation)
  
  
• Circuit breaker, which this coming year is going to be reimbursing for that 14% increase in out of district tuition, is funded at $506M, up from the Governor's budget of $503M. Is this enough? It is intended to be, but we'll see. And of course districts still have to fund it this and and THEN get reimbursed. 
  
  
• House Ways and Means submitted charter school reimbursement at $13M less than the Governor's budget did at $230M. The House budget passed brings it up about $1.5M. In all cases, this was said to be fully funded; as there haven't been many charter school enrollment increases, this would largely be funding simply the growth in charter tuition caused by the Student Opportunity Act being implemented. 
  
  
• Regional transportation reimbursement, which the Governor's budget funded at $97M, the House funded at $107M, which is seen as 100% reimbursement. There is no reimbursement for municipal districts. 
  
  
• The House budget establishes a clean energy infrastructure fund of $100M for schools, which would be administered by the Department. 
  
  
• MCAS continues to be funded at $32M.
  
  
• METCO overall is up a bit over $2M from the Governor's budget, to $31M.
  
  
• Early college, funded at $13M by the Governor, passed at $15M. 
  
  
• Rural aid, which the Governor funded at $7.5M, the House passed at $10M. 
  
  
• The Governor had zeroed out the extended learning line, but the House puts it back at $4.8M.

• The civics education line kicks $100K for an anti-racism initiative and $500K for the USS Constitution museum into the line, which already includes funding for the JFK Museum and the Edward M. Kennedy Institute, which now totals $2.1M.

• The Governor submitted the safe and supportive schools line at $1.6M; the House budget passed has $640K. 
  
  
• The Governor's budget funded the alternative assessment consortium (MCIEA) at $550K; the House did not fund it. 
  
  
• For those who wonder every year about the mystery of the JYK Networks (account 7061-9406, billed as "college and career readiness"), their line is back to funded (it was not in the Governor's budget) at $875K. 
  
  
• The 21st century ($5M) and civics project ($1.5M) trust fund lines are funded as in the Governor's budget, but the genocide education trust fund, funded by the Governor at $1.5M, was funded at $500K during the amendment process (the House Ways and Means budget had not funded it at all). The House budget does not fund the STEM Pipeline fund, which the Governor's budget funded at $1.7M. 

A note on transportation reimbursements

This piece about Fall River Mayor Paul Coogan discussing a home rule petition on transportation led me to tweet out this thread this morning, as it appears that two things are being confused. 

First, student transportation doesn't count towards net school spending in any district. Net school spending is specifically defined in 603 CMR 10.06, and it's standard: there isn't a difference between a regional and a municipal school district. There's a handful of things it doesn't include--crossing guards and building rentals are two others--and that's the case for every district.

What is different between municipal and regional district transportation is state reimbursement. Regional districts, under MGL Ch. 71, sec. 16C, have a requirement as to whom they furnish transportation and it is state reimbursed:

...the commonwealth shall reimburse such district to the full extent of the amounts expended for such transportation, subject to appropriation; provided, however, that no reimbursement for transportation between school and home shall be made on account of any pupil who resides less than one and one-half miles from the school of attendance, measured by a commonly traveled route.

The required transportation is reimbursed by the state, generally at about 75%, though this year it is projected to be 90%. 

Municipal districts--indeed, all districts--likewise have a transportation requirement, and, under MGL Ch. 71, sec. 7A, the state is also to reimburse them:

The state treasurer shall annually, on or before November twentieth, pay to the several towns subject to appropriation, the sums required as reimbursement for expenses approved by the commissioner of education,

The section does provide limitations on what is eligible for reimbursement--more than one and a half miles, for one--in the rest of the section.
That, however, is not ever, within my memory funded.

That led to one of the more startling charts from former Auditor Suzanne Bump's final report on state and local partnerships, in the section on school transportation: 

Just for perspective. 

 Frequently, the "deal" that regional transportation would be reimbursed in exchange for transportation reimbursement is cited; I think this may solely source to whose advantage regionalization is. Sometimes size is cited, and yes, there are geographically large regionals. There are also geographically small regionals, and geographically large municipals. It doesn't make for a neat argument in really any direction.

A few quick notes for Friday

 I'll still do a full rundown on Wednesday's Finance and Operations subcommittee meeting in its own post, but a few quick things to share:

I highly recommend anyone interested in school finance read Auditor Bump's report on unfunded mandates, released yesterday. As Commonwealth Magazine notes: 
The report looked at several major categories of state aid and identified $711.4 million in unfunded mandates related to school aid; $448.3 million related to school transportation; and $103.3 million in government aid, mainly related to the Community Preservation Act. 

I found this overall comparison useful:


The transportation piece is particularly interesting. In education, we're accustomed to hearing about regional transportation being not fully reimbursed. Less well known, and significantly less funded, as it is not funded at all, is municipal school transportation. 

Note this chart, which reviews, essentially, what the law says and then what is actually done.

There is lots more there, so give it a read.

If you've been covering the book ban fights across the country, note that this terrible trend has washed up in Massachusetts at Old Rochester Regional. From this piece, it seems the district is handling it well--policy matters! be sure yours is solid and then follow it!--and also that the community is prepared to defend their kids access to materials. Good.

A long piece to read this weekend if you haven't gotten to it is this one from NBC News on the actual impacts of mandatory reporting. 

Professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes essays in The New Yorker and this week's piece is on what's been left out of the learning loss debate. A sample: 
The sudden onset of the pandemic has been the most catastrophic event in recent American history, making the expectation that there would not be something called “learning loss” bizarre. The idea that life would simply churn on in the same way it always has only underscores the extent to which there have been two distinct experiences of the pandemic. One for people who experienced the upheaval but were able to sequester themselves away from its harshest realities, buying groceries online, contemplating buying new houses that could better accommodate working from home, and finding new ways to weather the inconveniences of the isolation imposed by potential sickness. There was another gruesome reality, reaped by poor and working-class families in the surreal numbers of people who have died.
Give it a read. 
And while you're at it, you might read this Chalkbeat piece reviewing how such decisions were made.

More blogging to come this weekend! 

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. 

What do we already know will be in the budget?

Tomorrow, the Governor releases the House 2 (it's the second year of the legislative term) budget at 11 am (or so). The big education funding question is the degree to which the changes to the foundation budget outlined in the Student Opportunity Act will be implemented: will it be one-seventh of the full foundation change? Or something else?

There are, however, pieces of the Act that outline year by year changes, and so there are some things we already know:

• the Act contains $30/pupil increase above the FY20 level (thus a hold harmless provision, as well)
• the Act includes out-of-district transportation for special education being included in the circuit breaker at 25% (this is a four year phase in); and remember that the circuit breaker is now frozen at the FY20 level, increasing only by inflation
• the Act includes not less than 75% reimbursement for charter reimbursement (this is a three year phase in)

Thus some of the things that are annual battles don't need to be this year, as the battle has already been waged. 

And again, if you're looking for overall phase in numbers, MassBudget is as always a good resource. 

Worcester gets an article after all: building a bigger table

...but before we talk about that, let's note this nice piece from Sentate President (and former Ashland School Committee member and yes, I am always going to remind us of that) Karen Spilka:

This week, the Massachusetts Legislature passed the Student Opportunity Act unanimously. This historic vote demonstrates our commonwealth’s continuing commitment to ensure a quality public education for all our children.
It also represents a deeply personal achievement for me and MetroWest, as I first ran for the Legislature 18 years ago to address what I saw as inequities in school funding in my hometown. With my two young children in public school, I first ran for school committee, and then convened the Chapter 70 Roundtable.
A statewide coalition of parents, teachers, administrators, school officials, advocates and stakeholders, we sought to advocate for equity, adequacy and predictability in educational funding. the passage of the Student Opportunity Act, I am proud to say that we are finally seeing the culmination of that advocacy two decades later.

Very true, and we should note that the leadership of Senate President-emerita and former Worcester School Committee member Harriette Chandler, as well, and that list is considerably longer. 

Earlier this week, I was lamenting the losses among the local press and what that meant for coverage of this school funding bill's impact locally; I am more than pleased to have been proven wrong this morning:

Front page of the Sunday Telegram has a headline that reads "Filling the blanks" over an image of a teacher leaning over a little girl with headphones looking a laptop screen

And the article is online here. 

I would say there are three things happening in this article:

1. Is this really over?

This is the crux of the question over if the potential lawsuit involving Worcester will be dropped, for starters. We should note that Worcester, involved in the potential Mass Association of School Superintendents lawsuit, has not been among those represented in a currently filed lawsuit. The lawsuit that aleady exists through the Council for Fair School Finance (of which, yes, MASC is a member), is Mussotte v. Peyser, was filed in June, and involves children from Chelsea, Chicopee, Fall River, Haverhill, Lowell, Orange, and Springfield. That lawsuit has not been dropped, and I don't know anything of that decision, but the note coming from Worcester's administration that this becomes about implementation is, I think, the key.
I think we also need to remember that "they're trying" was more or less the state's (successful) defense in the Hancock case, so the hopes of a lawsuit being successful under those terms is much less certain.
Which brings us to Brian Allen's answer to "how much?":

As Worcester’s chief financial and operations officer Brian Allen pointed out, while the SOA establishes the goal-funding rates, left unsettled is at what number those rates will be phased in each year.
“It appears to fully cover the gap in the foundation budget we’ve been talking about,” he said, referring to district estimates that Worcester has been underfunded by around $100 million under the current formula. But a host of variables, including the performance of the economy, means that money isn’t technically guaranteed as of the passage of the bill, he added. “Our individual yearly budget will still be subject to what the rates are phased in at (in any given year) ... there’s still going to be a level of uncertainty.”

 This isn't a money bill.

My slide from my 70 on 70 presentation; this is what this becomes about.

There is no actual funding being passed by this bill. It lays out a plan SUBJECT TO APPROPRIATION of what will be done, and, as Mr. Allen notes, there isn't an actual schedule in the bill, either. There are also, as I noted back when the Governor leaked DESE spreadsheets, a lot of pieces that are still WAY up in the air: how are we changing the low income count? are we changing the municipal finance side? what are the inflation rateS (there are two now, remember)? and yes, does the economy slide or worse?
That is in ADDITION to the pieces that change year to year, anyway, with the biggest being enrollment, district by district (WHICH DESE DID NOT HAVE UNTIL OCTOBER), and what the municipal economies look like.
We don't know a lot of that. And even the part that we DO know for next year (as we'll be using the FY16 low income counts, for example) is something we know for one year.
AND we still don't know what state implementation will look like.
Thus Superintendent Jokela is right in not getting ahead of things. We need to plan, but we also need to wait.
I've now said this to school business officials, and to school committee members, and to superintendents: the most accurate numbers right now are going to be LOCALLY GENERATED.
And they're still only going to be for one year.
This is one of two areas our advocacy needs to shift to: we need year by year commitment by the Legislature and the Governor to implementation.

2. But are we going to get anything at all?
Let me note up front that this is not a Worcester question; the answer for Worcester is yes, but HEY WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT MUNICIPAL CONTRIBUTION YESTERDAY.

For many other districts, it's the question of if the state is going to be contributing more than the minimum per pupil increase, along with the fear that their local contributions are going to be increasing a great deal. On the first, there's a reason the Education Committee included charter reimbursement and the (massive) addition of out-of-district transportation to the circuit breaker (which is getting frozen at the FY20 level, plus inflation). ASK HOW MUCH THAT IS FOR YOUR DISTRICT.
On the second, let me direct you back here . This is one that you CAN with a little work mostly figure out; you just have to know how much your actual municipal contribution was for last year, versus how much was required. Rolling forward, what's the division on foundation of the target? Most of you are going to find that your local municipality(ies) are already well over minimum required.
...which brings me to what IS my main concern here: If you are a district that lives in the 5%/7% or so over, and it's a struggle every year to get there, my concern is those that would prefer to spend no more on schools are going to say "we've given you what is required; you should be fine," when perhaps you are not.
If this is your reality, the time to start having those discussions is now.

3. What do we do now? 

Even given Mr. Allen (et al)'s conservative (small c) caution on implementation, we're going to see the largest increase in school funding in Massachusetts since the 1993 Education Reform Act. What are we going to do with it?
If you read this blog with regularity, you can perhaps tell that Scott caught me mid-blog post in my comments in the article. Thinking back to Ben Forman's work on how representative school committees in cities in Massachusetts are (not), we have a responsibility to be very blunt in our assessment of who is at the table and who is not, and work strenuously to counter that.
Long term, this means electoral work; for this coming budget, it means we make this as big a table in as many contexts as possible. Jack Foley, to his credit, has been absolutely unrelenting in making this point over the past several months in Worcester; if you're reading this from elsewhere, is anyone making that point in your district? If not, make it you.
That is our other round of organizing work: when the Governor's budget drops in January and we start that countdown to July 1, we need to be gathering around tables across districts to get everyone's voices heard. That isn't always going to be about the district doing it--though I would argue that the school committees have an absolute responsibility to make this their job--but about any group of any kind that cares about kids and the future to get people together to have these discussions.
And for those who are in Worcester, please consider this my open invitation; I want to hear about these! 
As we have those discussions, I also think we have--and here I mean as people we have--a responsibility not to get distracted by the bright and shiny. We have bedrock needs that are not being met in our districts:

Many underfunded districts have become accustomed to going without the kinds of essential, often ordinary things, like up-to-date novels or working drinking fountains, that wealthier schools “basically take for granted,” Novick said.
“There’s almost an attitude shift that has to happen, to acknowledge the level of need, that this is how big the gap is,” she said.

I mean it when I say that I think that we don't even know what we don't have. We have gaps that are chasms in basic things like teaching and student supports, in building maintenance, in supplies. That's not about new programs, before meeting current needs; it's not about new buildings, before fixing the ones we have; it's not about shiny new curriculum or technology, before getting updates to what is crucial.

The work isn't over; the advocacy and organizing isn't over. Let's start NOW to shift gears towards implementation at the state and local levels.
And let's build a bigger table as we do so.

Worcester School Committee meets Thursday

Sorry for being late posting this; if there is one thing to pay attention to, it is the job description of the Chief Diversity Officer being on the agenda for approval, which I already wrote something about.

The agenda is here.
The report of the Superintendent is on the South High student design club, as covered in the T&G earlier this week.
There are resignations, recognitions, and such.
Of passing interest is a prior year payment of over $18,000 to Leicester for what looks like a division of services to a student on an IEP. Is someone at some point going to ask why we have so many prior year payments now? This didn't used to be nearly as much of a thing.
There is motion to send a letter opposing the change in charter reimbursement proposed by the Governor and passed by the House that would only reimburse charter tuition increases that are due to enrollment being high that any of the prior five years.
As covered by the T&G, there is a proposed change in due process for students.
There is a request for approval for a donation of $685.00 to the Worcester Public Schools’ Transition Program.
There are requests from Miss Biancheria for reports on summer facilities work, on the BRACE program, and this--

Request that the Administration provide a summary of the funding proposed in the City’s Budget for the Worcester Public Schools and indicate the way in which this funding, if approved, can enhance programs in the Worcester Public Schools.

--which...isn't that the budget?

There is a plan to recognize students who will graduate with the Seal of Biliteracy.
And there is an item to set the budget hearings.

Senate FY20 budget amendments

Check out Roger Hatch's analysis on the Senate budget for MASS.

Heaven bless them, the Senate sorts by topic!
As always, these are only the K-12 amendments with statewide impacts; if you're looking for an earmark, you're on your own.

• Amendment 145 is $7.5M for infrastructure grants for safety and security
• Amendment 146 is for a Foundation Budget Review Commission to reoccur every five years.
• Amendment 147 would add $40 per pupil minimum aid
• Amendment 148 would add $50 per pupil minimum aid
• Amendment 149 would add $100 per pupil minimum aid
• Amendment 150 is 85% regional transportation reimbursement.
• Amendment 151 would designate $300K for Best Buddies.
• Amendment 152 is 90% regional transportation reimbursement.
• Amendment 153 would create a regional schools foundation budget commission: 

to review the way that regional school districts are funded and to recommend a framework that better accounts for differences between the towns that make up these districts and how the funding is distributed

• Amendment 154 would authorize the use of Water Pollution Abatement funds for lead abatement in public schools.
• Amendment 155 would create "Finish Line grants" for any year after the first of public university or college. 
• Amendment 156 would create an unfunded mandate task force. 
• Amendment 157 would bump the allocation specifically for Gateway Cities in the English learner grant line to $1M (from $250K).
• Amendment 158 would allocate (a new) $200,000 for the Partnership to Advance Collaboration and Efficiency among the state universities and community colleges.
• Amendment 159 would add $300,000 for Bottom Line, which works with juniors and seniors to get them into and through college.
• Amendment 161 would bump the early college allocation from $1.6M to $4M. 
• Amendment 167 would add $500K through the JFK Library for civics (as was done in the House budget).
• Amendment 169 would boost the cap on Mass School Building Authority spending to $750M (something for which MSBA has been asking). 
• Amendment 177 would add the Safe and Supportive Schools grant for $700K.
• Amendment 178 would create a LIFT fund to "to finance the development and implementation of the recommendations of the foundation budget review" which...I don't know what that means.
• Amendment 179 would add (back) in military mitigation.
• Amendment 180 bumps regional transporation reimbursement to to $92M. 
• Amendment 184 would boost the Mass Mentoring line to $1M.
• Amendment 193 is (again?) an unfunded mandate task force.
• Amendment 194 would have DESE do a special education services delivery study.
• Amendment 195 would add replacing lead pipes to the definition of a capital funding project. 
• Amendment 202 would add $1.5M to the civics projects trust fund.
• Amendment 205 would bring METCO up to the $23.6M that the House settled on.
• Amendment 206 would create a $250K financial literacy grant program.
• Amendment 217 would add $600K to the Reading Recovery line.
• Amendment 219 would bump the after and out of school line by about $500K.
• Amendment 225 would increase the recovery high school line to $3.1M (as it was last year).
• Amendment 227 would increase the Bay State Reading Institute line by about $400K.
• Amendment 228 would create a $20.3M Lead in Drinking Water trust fund
• Amendment 239 would bump the non-resident vocation transportation line (currently $250K) and bump it to $3.4M (which I would guess is full funding).
• Amendment 245 would increase the amount of the sales tax going to the Mass School Building Authority from 1% to 2%.
• Amendment 246 would allocate $100K for National History Day.
• Amendment 247 would allocate $100K for a STEM service learning grant.
• Amendments 248 and 250 together would add back in the early college line in the foundation budget that the Governor had in his budget (the House did not, nor does the Senate).
• Amendment 249 would fund MCIEA, the alternative assessment consortium, at $550K (it was funded at $400K in FY19).
• Amendment 258 would reconsolidate the grants as the Governor did, and includes the use of this funding for innovation zones.
• Amendment 259 would expand the definition of "rural" for the use of the rural school line of $1.5M, increasing it to 35 students per square mile from 21. This does not include an increase in the funding of the line.
• Amendment 266 is the $700K for the Accuplacer.
• Amendment 267 adds a line for $1M for Reach Out and Read.
• Amendment 268 adds back in the earmark of $250K for Project Bread's Chefs in Schools project.
• Amendment 277 would increase the rural aid line from $1.5M to $3M.
• Amendment 278 would add $100K for the Berkshire County Education Task Force.
• Amendment 280 changes "proposed new text" (Where?) from 2015 to 2014 around the Mass School Building Authority.
• Amendment 281 increases the allocation for charter reimbursement to $113M (the House number), implements the 100/60/40 reimbursement change, creates that Ch. 70 "floor" that is in the Governor's funding bill and the House budget, increases the facilities allocation, but it does NOT appear to change which districts get funding; it covers all increases, not just the highest enrollment in five years. (For those of you who had been seeking a way to handle the House having language and the Senate not, perhaps this would work?)
• Amendment 282 would increase the amount in the carter reimbursement line to $125M.
• Amendment 284 would create a $10M pothole account for districts that would see a net loss of all aid between FY19 and FY20.
• Amendment 294 adds language (not funding) in the adult education line (allocates towards English learning).
• Amendment 301 would amend the law to require that the fiscal impact on the sending district be considered in the creation of any new charter school and further bar the creation of any new charter schools in any year in which reimbursement is not fully funded.
• Amendment 303 appears to fully fund all of the current transporation reimbursements through the creation of a minimum corporate tax (sorry, municipals, you're not in this one)
• Amendment 306 boosts school to career connecting activities to $5.4M; the Governor proposed at $5M; the House has it at $4.5M and Senate Ways and Means proposed $4.5M.
• Amendment 308 would allow any district currently in receivership to have up to 80% reimbursment of buildings through MSBA (coming in from Holyoke).
• Amendment 319 funds the charter reimbursement at 100/60/40 without new allocation, increases the facilities allocation, but does not otherwise change the language (also clearly an attempt to ensure there is language to counter the House)
• Amendment 320 would provide at $10.5M pothole for those impacted by the low income count shift.
• Amendment 321 would require Breakfast after the Bell in any school with an eligbility count of 60% of students or more.
• Amendment 322 boosts the charter reimbursement line to $188M, increases the facility amount, but KEEPS the 100/25s for reimbursement years. It's also doing something to the tax code...let me find that part out. 

That's what I have! Call your Senators! 

March Board of Education: charter funding

I was running low on battery today, so I only tweeted out my notes on this charter school funding presentation by Deputy Commissioner Jeff Wulfson, which you can watch here. As I said on Twitter tonight, it's rare that you can watch the Department actively grappling with policy quite like this, with the exception recently of accountability.
Tweets are as follows: 

Joint Committee on Education hears the funding bills:

This is bound to be a long one! I'll be updating this all day as we go.
The hearing begins at 10 am, but the auditorum is filling fast: the MTA is here with red "Fund our Future" shirts, I've seen a few superintendents come in, Mass Parents United is here with black tee shirts, and staffers from the Senators and Reps are in and out. My view is from the top back: 

So how ARE we funding charters in Massachusetts?

Massachusetts public schools, both charter and district, are funded through a combination of state and local funds, with the split of how much of each based on the local capacity to pay for an adequate education.

This is the principle underlying the state's calculation of Chapter 70 aid to districts.
The state gives at least 17.5% of the foundation budget to every district, regardless of that district's ability to fund its school system, and regardless of the level at which it does fund its school system.

To that, the state generally adds--though there is no Constitutional requirement to do so--that no district receives less aid than in a prior year, and every district receives a per pupil increase of prior years.

Charter schools--whose students are counted in their sending district's foundation budget--are funded on a per pupil basis at the same level (at or above foundation) as their district's students. These funds are entirely taken from Chapter 70 aid, regardless of the proportion at which their district is funded by the state.

The sending district is reimbursed for the amount of the per pupil funding for the first year a student attends a charter school; theoretically, there is also supposed to be funding in subsequent years, but that never happens. Any positive increase in charter funding triggers a state reimbursement. The principle here is that there is a transition as the district readjusts to not having that student's funding.

The model is presented as "the funding follows the student," that is, if the student attends the charter, the funding of that individual student goes with that student.

We now, however, see several other rules being presented:

• The Governor's funding bill argues that only districts that see positive real change in students over five years, not any single year, should get reimbursements. Thus this is no longer, it appears, about transitions, which do happen every year, but about sustained charter growth being recognized as a funding issue. Changes every year are, in fact, a funding issue, still. Sustained charter growth is also a funding issue, but transitional funding doesn't deal with the issue at scale.
• The Governor's budget and the PROMISE bill both add concern for the amount of funding a district gets from the state. That this funding is not a matter of constitutional need has been set aside to a principle of every district has to get their bit and further that the bit must reach the district schools. Thus the question of the money following the child, and the principle of funding at least in large part being based on district need, has been moved over due to the demand of every single district getting and retaining Chapter 70 aid. 

I, perhaps obviously, have opinions on this. Setting that aside for the moment, however, I want us to recognize that we are changing our conversation around charter school funding here. I don't want us to be fooling ourselves around what it is that we are doing. 

How should charter schools be funded, anyway?

We seem to have a solid pushback happening on this charter funding issue. The first place that happened was Vice Chair James Morton's argument on the expansion of Excel Academy, which Katie Lannan of State House News captured well:

Morton, the president and CEO of the YMCA of Greater Boston, said he was "deeply troubled by the dilemma that I think we get placed in every time there's a charter proposal in front of us."
"We find ourselves in a position of diverting resources from one opportunity to another without ever really addressing the underlying issue, which is finding some other source of funding for charter schools so that we can have both our public school children getting what they need and our charter school children having an opportunity to attend charter schools that might be a Montessori school that addresses the way they particularly might learn," he said. "It's going to get pretty close to the moment where I vote against anything until we deal with that underlying issue, and I think that moment is today."

Morton was among the four opposed.

On the same day, the Local Government Advisory Commission had their regular meeting with the Lieutenant Governor, and their reaction to the state's funding of education ended up in a similar place:

Massachusetts Municipal Association Executive Director Geoff Beckwith said he hoped that the dialogue could continue with the administration and the Legislature, and that both would consider "integrating in a more aggressive way a solution to the charter school problem as a way to bridge the severe fiscal challenges of the largest school districts in the state and the smallest school districts."

And note the quotes from Sandwich and from Northampton. The Governor's budget's "smoothing" of charter reimbursement plus the "supplemental" funding on charter reimbursement going to high wealth communities hits many communities hard.
Don't forget: the House and Senate budgets are still to come. If this doesn't work SPEAK UP.

October Board of Ed: FY20 budget

Craven: annual letter that the Board sends to the Secretary for consideration
process by which Ch.70 is being evaluated
"how the Department should talk with that"
"I think there were ten working groups on aspects of the foundation budget"
"we do know that in a district as small as Holyoke...having no answer over time isn't an answer"
the letter says "be directed to districts with identified achievement gaps in student learning to support reforms that have evidence of narrowing achievement gaps"

Four years into his term, Governor Baker notices we need to fix education funding

I can't even with this from New Bedford:

In a meeting with The Standard-Times Editorial Board, Baker said he wants to do more to help communities where educational achievement as not as high as most of the state. He gave three examples:
— Improve the charter school reimbursement formula, which for lower-achievement communities presents “a whole different set of challenges” than for others, in part because most charters operate there;
— Enhance the Chapter 70 funding formula to help low-income students and English language learners; and
— Invest state money in those communities that embrace methods proven to boost achievement, such as “acceleration academies,” after-school programming, and professional development for teachers... 

Baker said he wants to come up with ways to handle charter funding so that when a high-performing charter tries to do more in a community, the conversation does not focus only on the money.
“Which is where these conversations always end up, and I think it’s really defeating,” he said.

The Foundation Budget Review Commission report came out in October of Baker's first year in office. Aside from tiny increases in health insurance, Baker has ignored the report. Baker's single largest education initiative was the push to lift the charter cap through Question 2, during which Baker and his administration entirely dismissed the idea that there would be a funding impact that needed to be discussed. He has had nothing to do with low income students.
So, seriously: Spare us this twenty days before the election.