I remember the last time the legislature was concerned about cuts to K-12 education, and the senate tossed additional money into the Chapter 70 formula late in the budget process. Town meeting season was over, and the municipal folks were able to say that times were tough, we made other sacrifices and funded the schools over the minimum, so we will park the money in free cash. It didn’t take too long for the senate, who made tough choices to toss some additional money into the Chapter 70 pot, to understand that their work to restore cuts in their local schools were thwarted by the municipal funding conduit. Since then, the senate hasn’t made a move to increase the traditionally conservative local aid numbers in the house budget.
The task is to make sure these funds make a direct and immediate impact on our schools. We can’t afford to allow any of these funds to experience any unintended diversions at the state or local level.
I think the federal rules try to do what you suggest, Pablo. They say:
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p>Do you think that will be enough to get the outcome you seek?
… but, given the history of K-12 education funding in the past ten years, I still worry.
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p>Likely, they’ll dole it out in proportion to a district’s poverty level (Title 1).
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p>2. This is on top of $100 billion chunk last year, of one-time money, for the stimulus.
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p>The $100b was part of the $787b “whole stimulus.”
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p>For perspective, $100b was twice the normal annual budget on all education stuff.
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p>How was it divided?
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p>2a. $95 billion was entitlement. The original plan was to tie it to some policy change. But Sec Duncan bailed on that.
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p>2b. $4.2 billion pool is called Race To The Top. Competitive. Gets lots of press.
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p>MA is a finalist to get a separate $250 million or so as a one time thing. We’ll know in some weeks.
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p>Maybe 10 to 15 states will ultimately win. Two have already. Delaware, Tennessee.
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p>2c. I3 was a $650 million fund. Competitive. Nonprofits could apply directly for grants to scale up.
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p>A local winner was Boston Teacher Residency.
It didn’t take long to blame hard working teachers for the systemic underfunding of our public school system and the society which allows poor children to show up to school starving and expects them to sit in chairs and learn for hours upon hours a day.
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p>This little bit of money does come at a high price, accepting policy solutions that will continue the deterioration of our public school system.
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p>Rather then using the projected cuts in Pentagon’s golden toilets as suggested and being carried out by Sec. of Defense Gates to truly fund quality education, Obama negotiated a cut in food stamps to pay for the transfer of our tax payer money to private schools (ie Charters) and union busting (ie firing half the staff and rehiring with no contracts or worse ones).
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p>The firings are not as envisioned only to cut the mythical hoards of tenured teachers phoning it in as our children stab one another. But the union Reps and youngest teachers eager, despite the odds, to teach our next generations. Of course tenure is a problem, but firing 50 to 80% of the teaching staff and a Principal after TWO YEARS is not a solution.
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p>We need real education reform, one that allows innovation in our PUBLIC schools, teachers to use testing to assess student strength and meet their needs, not testing writ-large to make funding judgments for an already impoverished system. And not the punitive testing we do now, which decides student’s fates and takes over any time that might be spent teaching something useful.
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p>We need to be serious about funding education in a way that shifts our priorities to actually giving 21st Century education. That funding should come with a policy that is from teachers and matches the experience of public education.