Investing in Education-Pays Dividends in Worcester’s Future

Saturday, March 30, 2013

John Monfredo, GoLocal Worcester, Education Contributor

As we approach April, state and local officials become very serious on how to budget the needed resources. As a member of the School Committee this is always a heart wrenching event for during the past ten years educational funding has had its problems.

Since 2002 we have disrupted the lives of our children and their families by closing eight schools, cuts in our school liaison team-a strong link to involving parents, tutorial cuts, over 600 positions have been reduced, cuts in special education services and array of other resources lost. Yet, accountability on the state and federal level has continued to increase despite a reduction in state and federal grants and resources.

As a city we need to realize that nothing is more important to the development of a city and the economy of that city than the quality of the public education system. One of the first things that new families look at when they want to settle in a city is to find out information about the school system. We need and want young families to stay in Worcester and to know that their school system is outstanding. In addition, we need to keep our middle class families in Worcester for we need to expand our tax base in order to be a thriving city. Everyone needs to understand that education is an investment in our community and the failure to educate is the real expense.

Every time there is a proposed increase in the school budget, the talk shows go wild fermenting discord and misinformation. To combat the rhetoric and partisanship so prevalent in today’s political climate it is important to look at the facts. Let’s start by looking at how the funding for the schools takes place. Here’s a little history …Growing public concerns about the quality of the Commonwealth's K-12 education system in the late 1980's and early 1990's motivated the Legislature to convene four Education Reform Working Groups in the fall of 1991. Legislative efforts to design a comprehensive education reform package continued actively for a couple of years and culminated in the landmark Education Reform Act of 1993. This law attempted to meet the needs for increased state funding for local school districts and at the same time increase academic accountability, most notably through implementation of the statewide MCAS exam. The Education Reform law's school finance reforms were based on three main principles:

- Every school district should have an adequate level of school funding, based on the specific size and needs of its student population.

- Local communities should each contribute to their schools according to their ability to raise tax revenue, based upon local property values and income levels.

- The state should provide enough funding to fill the gap between an adequate baseline funding level—what became known as a "foundation budget"—and the ability of the local community to contribute towards it. The state's Chapter 70 formula factors in each district's foundation budget and this is the mechanism for determining how much state education aid goes to each community.

Thus, began the funding of the “Foundation Budget.” Using a uniform set of parameters, foundation budgets are calculated individually for each of the Commonwealth's 328 school districts, and they are fully recalculated prior to every new school year in order account for changing demographics, enrollment levels, cost increases, and regional wage levels. The foundation budget is per pupil funding formula with differentiated rates for grade or program adjusted annually for inflation. It is based on student enrollment as of October 1st . The formula acknowledges higher costs associated with educating English Language Learner (ELL) students through a separate base enrollment category and recognizes that low-income students and special education students have higher associated educational costs. These costs are calculated in the amount that a school system receives. In addition, each district's foundation budget is updated each year to reflect inflation and changes in enrollment

Based on the information about its students and the city’s ability to pay as well as factoring in property wealth and income wealth, the state informs the cities as to what their cost would be to support education. The state pays around 70% of the cost for education and the city is required to pay the rest.

There are some callers to “talk shows” who do not understand how the school budget is configured. Those individuals need to understand the money in our school budget from the city is the minimum requirement established by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts… it’s the law! Any money above the minimum has to be voted on by the City Council and taken out of our City Budget.

Of the 328 School Districts in Massachusetts our City ranks in the bottom 2 % of giving above the minimum. On an average, according to the Department of Education Website, many districts in Massachusetts spend 14% more than their foundation budget to support the educational needs of their district. The city council last year voted to give the school less than the state required minimum- 0.4% below as was required by law.

Being in the bottom 2% across the state is not prioritizing education in our community. The children in the Worcester Schools deserve an adequate budget that will meet the needs of our community. Keep in mind that the “Foundation Budget” formula has not kept pace with educational cost. Just last year the Mass Budget and Policy Center released a report “Cutting Class” and the report showed how the foundation budget has not kept pace with special education and benefit costs. It identifies the underfunding of the foundation budget by $2.1 billion just for those two items… special education and benefits.

Perhaps Tom Brokaw, new correspondent, said it best, "There is a place in America to take a stand: it is public education. It is the underpinning of our cultural and political system. It is the great common ground. Public education after all is the engine that moves us as a society toward a common destiny... It is in public education that the American dream begins to take shape."