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. 

Was there AI coverage this week?

 There is ALWAYS AI coverage!

• For those considering AI in education, please be sure you've read this NPR piece speaking with Chanea Bond about her making her high school English classroom analog. I'm familiar with Mrs. Bond from social media (here she is on Bluesky), and I've always appreciated how she approaches her teaching, as well as the relationship she clearly has with her students. 
  And in this case, it's one of her students I'm going to quote: 
  

  "Take a second and think about it. Would you rather really grow from an experience of actually doing some work and critically thinking about the things you're writing or talking about, or just taking nothing away from it and just use a robot?"

• Those quoted in the above piece as being pro-AI (and really in just about every article I have read in which educators are arguing that it must be included in schools!) sound exactly like this video from Mike Daniels "It's the future" where the answer to "what does it do?" is...kind of the point.
  
  
  
• This week, Dartmouth discovered that the pro-AI op-ed submitted by a student for their college paper was something the student had been paid by their administration to write, and the administration reviewed the piece prior to its submission. 
  You're not convincing us here, people. 
  
  
• I am currently working my way through the essay "How AI Destroys Institutions" by Woodrow Hartzog  and Jessica Silbey at BU School of Law. The abstract reads as follows: 
  

  Civic institutions—the rule of law, universities, and a free press—are the backbone of democratic life. They are the mechanisms through which complex societies encourage cooperation and stability, while also adapting to changing circumstances. The real superpower of institutions is their ability to evolve and adapt within a hierarchy of authority and a framework for roles and rules while maintaining legitimacy in the knowledge produced and the actions taken. Purpose-driven institutions built around transparency, cooperation, and accountability empower individuals to take intellectual risks and challenge the status quo. This happens through the machinations of interpersonal relationships within those institutions, which broaden perspectives and strengthen shared commitment to civic goals. 

  Unfortunately, the affordances of AI systems extinguish these institutional features at every turn. In this essay, we make one simple point: AI systems are built to function in ways that degrade and are likely to destroy our crucial civic institutions. The affordances of AI systems have the effect of eroding expertise, short-circuiting decision-making, and isolating people from each other. These systems are anathema to the kind of evolution, transparency, cooperation, and accountability that give vital institutions their purpose and sustainability. In short, current AI systems are a death sentence for civic institutions, and we should treat them as such.

  As education is foundational to these civic systems everywhere, but particularly in a democracy, we should take this quite seriously before inviting AI in.
  
  
• And the good people at McSweeney's this week brought us this gem: 
  
  
  
  You can find that here. 

To read on snow days

 Once we got through this year's/week's round of "how do superintendents decide on snow days, anyway" followed by "here are people who disagree with whatever this week's decision was," we got--thanks, I think, to how BIG last weekend's storm was!--a round of "what do snow days do for learning?" And in two cases, they found Professor Joshua Goodman's 2014 paper "Flaking Out: Student Absences and Snow Days as Disruptions of Instructional Time" (good title!). He was interviewed by NPR here and is included in Chalkbeat's newsletter here, from which I quote: 

Goodman compared test scores in years where there was more or less snow. A year with lots of heavy snow (days with more than 10 inches) had no effect. Yet math scores were lower in years with more days of moderate (4-10 inches) snow.

These counterintuitive results can be explained by how schools responded to different levels of snow. Heavy snow meant more snow days. Moderate snow meant more days when schools stayed open but attendance was sharply down, particularly among low-income students.

In other words, snow days did not seem to set students back much; missing regular school days due to snowy conditions did.

The takeaway is not that schools can close indefinitely without consequence, and Goodman did find some small negative effects of closures for high-poverty schools. But the study suggests that a few snow days won’t be terribly harmful because teachers figure out ways to adapt.

Yet when schools are open and a big chunk of students are missing, teachers are in a tough spot. Some may continue teaching new material, and then try to help students who missed the original lesson catch up. This creates a dual challenge, though: The makeup work isn’t quite as effective, and teachers’ time and energy is diverted from moving everyone else forward.

I will be interested in seeing if anyone cites this in future decisions!

PS: Don't miss this cartoon from The New Yorker.

Ed tech: mostly useless?

Just want to recommend that among the things you choose to spend time reading this weekend, you read this piece in The Economist: 

Although ed-tech companies tout huge learning gains, independent research has made clear that technology rarely boosts learning in schools—and often impairs it. A 2024 meta-analysis of 119 studies of early-literacy tech interventions, led by Rebecca Silverman of Stanford University, found the studies described programmes that delivered at best only marginal gains on standardised tests. The majority had little effect, no effect or harmful ones. Jared Horvath, a neuroscientist and author of a book called “The Digital Delusion”, has reviewed meta-analyses covering tens of thousands of studies. His verdict: “In nearly every context, ed tech doesn’t come close to the minimum threshold for meaningful learning impact.”

(You are going to tell me that it is paywalled, but all you have to do is input your email address and you can get the column. I promise.)

 The prevalence of tech in schools owes less to rigorous evidence than aggressive marketing. Teachers are now flooded with daily offers for free tech. In 2024 American schools spent $30bn on education technology. Globally, it is a $165bn industry. Technology does save money on textbooks and streamline lesson planning. But licensing and training costs add up, and many teachers feel burdened rather than liberated by all the admin and dashboards.

Not to mention what it might be doing with all that data.  

Hey, the Governor's FY27 budget is out!

 MORE ON THIS COMING BUT, some links for you:

• The Governor's proposed FY27 budget is here. If you're here, you're probably looking for local aid distribution.
  
  
• Local aid is best covered in the cherry sheets. You can find the preliminary municipal cherry sheets here; the regional cherry sheets here. 
  
  
• The preliminary chapter 70 and net school spending requirements information is posted over here. If you want to dig in, download the complete formula spreadsheet. I notice they also helpfully included preliminary charter school tuition and enrollment projections this year here, as well.

And cheers, by the way, to the Division of Local Resources at the Department of Revenue and the school finance folks at DESE for having it all up at 1 PM today! No hitting refresh this afternoon! Thank you!

I will have more on this, but a few big numbers: the foundation budget is set on a 2.76% rate with insurance (benefits) increasing 8.29%. Thus for context, ask yourself if your local school budget is and/or can go up by only 2.76 percent (setting aside insurance increases). If the answer is 'no' (and I bet it is), you know if we're covering the costs of educating kids here.

Thus while I am certain attention will once again focus on the (legally mandated) $75/pupil minimum increase, I will again BEG people to PLEASE look at the inflation rate. 

More on this as I have a chance to pull things apart more. 

On young people and social media

 TechDirt entitles this "Two Major Studies, 125,000 Kids: The Social Media Panic Doesn’t Hold Up from the yet-more-evidence-that-haidt-is-wrong dept"

 We’ve covered study after study showing that the relationship between social media and teen mental health is complicated, context-dependent, and nowhere near as clear-cut as Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation” would have you believe. As we’ve noted before, correlation is not causation, and the timing of teen mental health declines doesn’t actually line up neatly with smartphone adoption the way the narrative claims.

I look forward to the day that we stop making policy based on Haidt's fearmongering.  

Now there's a headline you won't see most places

 I had to darkly laugh when I saw this headline in the T&G last week:

headline reads
"City Council passes 90-day parking ban near Worcester elementary school"

...I mean, do you like being an elected official?