After An Educator's Journey
Out of the classroom & into the universe
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Once upon a time, I taught 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders. Now I’m retired and working on new ventures.
Category: School Funding
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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,…
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Every time I lead a Balanced Literacy course, I ask the participants to create a list of what is needed in the classroom IF funding were no problem. This Spring Semester group came up with these ideas. (yup, a couple tongue-in-cheek, but mostly serious). Unfortunately, most of these are out-of-reach as our school budget reflects…
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When I first met my mother-in-law, I was totally fascinated by the organization she used to allocate family finances, the system we fondly refer to as the “envelop system”. My mother-in-law would take an amount of money each week, break it down into smaller portions, and put each portion in its own coin-sized manila envelop…
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There is so much to digest from last evening’s Funding Forum. So I’m just going to start with one aspect of Massachusetts school funding – the poverty level calculations. Here’s a bit of recent history. In 2014, the year prior to when I retired, the poverty level in Lowell overall was 75.1%. It was called…
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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…
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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…
After An Educator's Journey 