It Isn't Just the Cuts

Budget season is going full tilt in Lowell and the outlook is definitely not very palatable.

The School Department is running on fumes: no K-8 libraries this past academic year, proposed cuts to fine arts positions, proposals to cut services for students in guidance, behavioral supports, Special Education. Who knows where it will end?

Well, here's where I get off:

I think a question should not be just about what services and positions will need to be cut. I think the big questions is this: Why isn't the Commonwealth of Massachusetts adequately funding schools so our children receive all of the services they need to succeed? 

By all, I mean: why are schools going without libraries, or technology, or nurses, or social workers, or paraprofessionals, or class sizes that enable an educator to address the needs of the students in front of them in a consistent, thoughtful, reflective way? Why are these and other services that enable our English Language Learners, our Special Education students and our students living in trauma and poverty to be better supported on the chopping block?

Today, across Massachusetts, educators, parents, students, community members are gathering in both Boston and Springfield to SHOW our Legislators that we are not willing to accept the flimsy excuses that have left public school funding scratching for scraps for the last 25-plus years. We are showing up to let you all know IN PERSON that it is beyond time to fix the Foundation Formulas and that our Commonwealth needs to fund our schools so that all of our youngest citizens get an equitable and adequately funded public education.

So even though I could be doing about a million other things today, I will show up, not only for the Rally at 5, but also to engage any Legislator who will agree to speak with me about the importance of funding our future through supporting the Promise Act and the Cherish Act. This is for all the students I've taught, the ELLs, the SpED students, the children living in poverty - and for my baby granddaughter, who just might be able to attend a fully and adequately funded school when she enters Kindergarten five years from now if the Promise Act is passed this year.

And that is why I'll be attending today's Rally to Fund Our Future on the Common. Will you?

Funding Our Future: Lowell Legislative Forum

As almost everyone with a stake in public education knows, Massachusetts funding of Public School education is in dire need of updating. Since 1993 when Education Reform and the Foundation Budget calculations were developed, there has been little done by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to update the funding formulae and account for changes in costs over the past 26 years.

Last July, after the Massachusetts Senate unanimously passed legislation to update the Foundation Budget formulae, the attention turned to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Sadly, the Foundation Budget Reform legislation was unsuccessful in the House and the entire effort fell short.

A broad coalition of advocates for not only K-12 public education funding reforms, but also Massachusetts public higher education reform worked together throughout the Fall of 2018. In early January 2019 when the new Legislature was seated, the coalition presented two critical Acts designed to provide funds for all students across Massachusetts public education systems. The two acts, the Promise Act and the Cherish Act, endeavor to bring critical funding support to K-12 public education and public higher education respectively.

As part of the state-wide and local coalitions working together, Lowell Education Justice Alliance or LEJA, has been hard at work in the Merrimack Valley to bring attention to the critical effort to update funding of our public schools. Along with LEJA, there is broad support from Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance (MEJA), Massachusetts American Federation of Teachers or AFT-MA, Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA), SEIU, and teachers’ union locals in the Lowell area, including UTL495. By establishing this broad coalition and working with students, parents, and the community at large, we intend to bring attention to the needs that our schools are experiencing and work to fund our public schools adequately for the next school year.

On Monday, March 11, 2019, the groups sponsored a well-attended Legislative Forum which included Senator Ed Kennedy and a representative from Senator Barry Finegold’s office, and Representatives Rady Mom, Tami Gouveia, Tom Golden, Marc Lombardo, and a representatives from David Nangle’s office. Parents, students, educators, school administrators, and community members spoke about how underfunding schools has made a personal impact. We were fortunate to speak to several of the participants before and after their testimony, and we have compiled some of their ideas in our podcast, Episode 35.

It is clear that while many in the Massachusetts Legislature do understand the impact of under-funding schools and why that must change, not everyone does. We hope you, our listeners will consider joining this effort to convince local Legislators that our students cannot wait. We need to fix the Foundation Budget Formula now and Fund Our Future.

You can listen to Lowell Legislative Forum participants talk about why the Promise and Cherish Acts are important on this podcast from Episode 35, UTL StraightTalk.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Lowell is, according the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, underfunded by $42 Million each year. You can read more about Lowell’s underfunding by downloading this flyer.

BUT, Lowell is not alone in underfunded Foundation Budget funding. Get the Facts about Funding Our Future by linking to AFT-MA Fund Our Future website OR use this interactive map from MTA to select a city or town in MA and discover how much that municipality is underfunded.

Confused about how the Foundation Budget works. We were too - take a look at this short video featuring Colin Jones from Massachusetts Budget & Policy Center. Mass Budget & Policy Center also maintains an excellent website of resources if you are looking for more information.

Lowell Education Justice Alliance (LEJA) meets regularly in Lowell to advocate for students and public education locally. You can keep up with their efforts by joining the group on Facebook OR emailing lowelleducationjusticealliance@gmail.com for more details. All who are interested in Lowell Public education, whether a students, parent, educator or community member are welcome to attend meetings.

LEJA is affiliated with Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance or MEJA. You can visit the MEJA website for more information by clicking here.

If you are moved to contact your State Legislator to add your own voice and to raise your concerns about the Foundation Budget, you can find contact information for every member of the Massachusetts Senate or House by using Find My Legislator.

United Teachers Of Lowell 495 is participating in several statewide events for Fund Our Future. Please be sure to check our email blast, Five for Friday for dates and times. We welcome all members to make suggestions for future events.

PHENOM, of Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts, has a lot of information about the higher education funding bill, the Cherish Act.

If you were unable to attend the Forum, you can see a video recording of the presentations on Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance’s Facebook page.

It seems pretty clear to me

About two weeks ago, the Massachusetts Legislature failed once again to update school funding formulae known as the "Foundation".  In my opinion, this is not only a huge disappointment, it is a disservice to students, families, and public schools in 351 cities and towns across Massachusetts.Here in Lowell, the erosion of school services and supports can be traced in the budget cuts that have been necessary over the last nearly 20 years. In the late 1990s, when an elementary class size reached 25, it was common practice to assign a paraprofessional to that classroom, which allowed for more focused and individualized attention to students. In 2015, my retirement year, my grade level of 100 students and 4 classroom teachers shared 1 paraprofessional.In the 1990s and early 2000s, elementary school staff included not only a library aide, but a certified Library Media Specialist. The library was a space where students not only learned research skills, but were exposed to wonderfully diverse literature and media curated by the Library Media staff. By the mid-2000s, all but one Library Media specialist was cut from the Lowell Public Schools and school libraries were maintained by Library Media aides. This year, 2018-19, the school budget has cut all library staff in Grades Kindergarten through Grade 8 essentially closing the libraries to any students below Grade 9.These are but two examples of service cuts in Lowell. There have been many others. Teachers in Lowell spend inordinate amounts of personal money (in my own case, I spent on average of $1,000 each year and some years much more) to supply classrooms. Social workers, Speech and Language therapists, OT, PT, Special Education.... all carry larger-than-reasonable caseloads.Have municipalities like Burlington or Wellesley cut K-8 library staff and access to school libraries? Of course not. Wealthier communities make up the shortfalls in Foundation funding from their property tax base and a community that is able to afford to allocate more funds toward schools. Does that seem equitable to anyone? (read WBUR's commentary Inaction on School Funding Will Keep Opportunity Gaps in Place.)What does our Commonwealth say about our schools and the Commonwealth's responsibility to fund education? We only need to look at the Commonwealth's Constitution and this paragraph:

“Wisdom, and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislatures and magistrates, in all future periods of this commonwealth, to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them, especially the university at Cambridge [and] public schools and grammar schools in the towns….” Mass. Const. Pt. 2, C. 5, § 2.

As of this writing, the Legislature has failed our schools and our children. They have failed in their duties to "cherish" education and they have failed to provide the funding that would allow ALL public schools across Massachusetts to provide equitable educational opportunities.We must tell our narratives as parents, students, educators, and community members. We must let our legislators know in no uncertain terms, that to continue to underfund the Foundation Budget Review Commission's recommendations is unacceptable. We need to cherish our schools here in Massachusetts and fix the funding so that every child has access to equitable educational opportunities.

25-year old calculations do not make equitable access to schools

If a picture is worth a 1000 words, this one, courtesy of Colin Jones of Mass Budget is one of the most compelling reasons why we need to implement the Foundation Budget update (S.2525) which is currently languishing in Committee.Communities with greater wealth have the luxury of adding to the grossly under-calculated "what it costs to educate a student" (Chapter 70) calculation. Here's an example: in neighboring Burlington, MA, the per pupil cost calculated $9,940. In Lowell, that base number is set at $11,734.  Based on the economics of each community, the Commonwealth determined that Burlington's state aid be set at $1,724 leaving the remainder, $8,341, for the Town of Burlington to provide. Recognizing that Lowell's community economics are different from Burlington, the numbers look quite different: state aid is $8,875 and the City's required contribution is $2,859. In an effort the keep this "simple", which it is not, I'm ignoring the whole cash vs. "in kind services" debate.Burlington's per pupil costs are enhanced by the Town's ability to add $8,409 to what Massachusetts has determined is the cost of educating a student in that town. Lowell, with many more demands on its municipal budget, adds $518. So, in the end, Lowell is able to spend $12,252 on every school student (public and charter) while more affluent Burlington can allocate $18,474.This is not just a simple numbers game; it gets worse. Those per pupil determinations that the Commonwealth starts with are based on 1993 (yes, that is correct) formula calculations. So in 2018, the data determining how much each community is expected to expend and raise for each student is already 25 years out of date.The Foundation Budget Review Commission tackled this issue 2 years ago, but the recommendations were not implemented. It was not forgotten by everyone, however, and a refreshed bill, S.2525 unanimously passed the Massachusetts Senate last month. Now it's the Massachusetts House's turn. And this week, with some strong advocacy by Rep. Vega, House members are appealing to Speaker DeLeo to move this legislation out of the House Rules Committee and on to a floor for a vote.Locally, because state funding in education has been whittled away Lowell's kids are on the losing end of budget roulette: our K-8 students will no longer have school libraries, for example.As of this morning, only Rady Mom from the Lowell Legislative Delegation has signed on to Rep. Vega's letter asking that Speaker DeLeo move the FBRC bill (S.2525) out of committee for a vote.I cannot understand why our other two representatives are hesitating to embrace a reform that would - over time - provide Lowell's children with equal access to educational services. Maybe one of them can explain that to me.If your Representative is either Mr. Golden or Mr. Nangle, please call, fax, or email them today. We need to fix the funding formulae in Massachusetts so that every child, no matter the ZIP code in which they reside, has equal access to education in the Number One Schools in the Nation.