Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Our School System and Upcoming Ballot Questions

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Of course there is much room for improvement. While we have made gains in closing the opportunity gap between students in low-income school districts and those in wealthy communities since the Education Reform Act was placed in 1993, we still face great challenges. Parent and student activists, teachers, administrators and elected officials in Boston are all engaged in efforts to improve the way we educate our children. Now is not the time to retreat.

This year voters are being asked to weigh in on a ballot question that could very well have a profound impact on school reform efforts. Ballot Question 3, which would cut the state’s sales tax by more than half, would remove $2.5 billion from the state’s budget. Opponents of the measure estimate it would cut $43 million in state education and local aid funding from Boston’s budget.

With the Boston School Department already contemplating school closures and other drastic cost-cutting measures, it’s clear that further cuts to school funding would have a devastating impact on our school system and our efforts to improve it.

Additionally, ballot Question 2 would eliminate the state’s affordable housing law and ballot Question 1 would eliminate the sales tax on alcoholic beverages, eliminating funding for substance abuse treatment and prevention. These ballot questions would have a devastating impact on the low-income communities that are home to the majority of the students in the Boston schools.

In these tough economic times, it may be tempting for many to vote yes on ballot questions whose proponents promise tax savings. The lure of a few more dollars in consumers’ pockets can easily blind voters to the damage these ballot questions could have on our communities and our education system.

Proponents of the ballot initiatives say our government can do more with less. But the fact remains that the communities in our state with the best student performance are school systems with small class sizes, where students have access to up-to-date text books and instructional materials and where students are offered a broad range of extracurricular activities.

Providing all of our state’s students with the opportunity to learn will require more investment, not less. And it’s an investment Massachusetts voters should be willing to make. The educational attainment of today’s students will determine the aptitude of tomorrow’s workforce. Our state’s economy depends more on the educational level and skill of its workforce than anything else.

The Boston Parent Organizing Network and the Citywide Parent Council is urging a no vote on all three ballot questions. Let’s protect our investment in our state’s future.

Myriam Ortiz
Executive Director
Boston Parent Organizing Network

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Comments

  1. why not find other ways to save money? The claim that a tax cut always has to hurt teachers, police, and firefighters gets really old when you consider how much government waste there is up on Beacon Hill – for example, the Herald had a piece yesterday about all these “publicity” positions where cronies are making over a hundred grand a year to “communicate” about what our government is doing for us, but the reality is, you have to pay thousands of dollars to submit a FOIA to ever really get any information…

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    p>http://bostonherald.com/news/p…

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    Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office boasted five communications staffers earning nearly $300,000 before senior adviser Corey Welford left to work on Coakley’s re-election campaign. Welford was pulling down $89,000.

    • That’s the response you get – that examples of waste like this are too little money to bother with in the face of pressing need.  The fact that these are just the ones we found out about, and added together amount to a lot, is not mentioned.

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      p>Sales tax revenue is not earmarked for drug treatment, schools or local aid in any way.  Period.  It goes into the general fund.

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      p>The Legislature chooses what to cut in the same way a municipality does.  If a municipality chooses to lay off police instead of closing the dump two days a week, that’s their choice – it’s not forced upon them.  If the Legislature chooses to punish the cities and towns with local aid cuts if the ballot questions pass, that’s their choice.

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      p>At least then we’ll have the money in our pockets to pay our higher property tax bills locally, if need be.  We won’t be anxious supplicants hoping the magic distribution formula won’t screw us over one more time.  

  2. Massachusetts can be proud to have been the first in the nation to establish a public education system.

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    p>Perhaps because John Adams was careful to make sure that  it was included in our State Constitution. In one very long run on sentence.

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    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, public schools and grammar schools in the towns; to encourage private societies and public institutions, rewards and immunities, for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings; sincerity, good humor, and all social affections, and generous sentiments, among the people.

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    p>I particulary like the virtue part.

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    p>  

    • bitterly at that comment. The budget for the BPS has cut funding for regular ed at the expense of special ed, ELL and non-educational services. There is little resemblance between John Adams’ vision and what actually happens at the BPS.

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      p>The BPS is now a machine which is primarily operating to collect federal funds for various programs for underperforming students while starving its regular ed for the middle class.

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      p>It doesn’t matter to the bureaucracy that the high taxes, fees and regulations depress the city economy and produce more underperforming students by killing the incomes of city residents. In fact that’s better when you apply for federal funding. They’ll keep on sucking money down until the last middle class family moves out of Boston.

      • Check out this report:
        http://www.cgcs.org/Pubs/Boston_09.pdf

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        One of the abiding impressions left with the Council’s team was how little students with disabilities were blended into the general instructional program of the district. Students were often moved around to schools outside their neighborhoods and largely separated from other
        students in a way that was well outside the intent of the IDEA and other programs to grant these students full access to the general education program afforded other students.  

        It was also the strong sense of the Council’s team that exacerbating the academic problems of students with disabilities was a poorly defined and structured districtwide literacy strategy or program. There was evidence that students in Boston were being placed in special education, in part, because their lack of basic literacy skills may be mistaken, consciously or
        unwittingly, as a disability.

        There was also a considerable lack of clarity about the district’s handling of behavioral problems in a consistent and constructive manner.

        Finally, the state bears considerable responsibility, as well, for the unusually high rates of special education placement in Boston and other school systems across the state. The state’s own rules and regulations essentially invited the overidentification and placement of students with disabilities.  

        • Special ed has worked out to be money for poor kids, which I am not necessarily against, however it is like you said going to be misdirected into some kind of pseudo-medical process, when the problem is dad is gone, mom has two shitty jobs and the kid never gets any sleep because he lives in an apartment building with a bunch of hooligans.  

  3. The BPS system of budgeting is basically dysfuntional and will never educate students properly even in good times.

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    p>The special ed and now ELL mandates will continue to suck money in, and the establishment of teachers, aides and administrators whose salaries are enhanced from all that money will continue to demand high taxes whatever the economic effects.

  4. that ensure that special needs kids and English Language Learners are offered an opportunity to learn and succeed. There are many schools in Boston that are doing very well integrating the middle class white kids with special needs kids and English Language Learners thank you very much. Sometimes two teachers to a classroom.

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