The well-intended legislation was aimed at addressing persistent racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps, but what Beacon Hill perhaps didn’t foresee was the greater financial pressure it would place on municipal budgets as sluggish state aid growth that has not kept pace with inflation, strict limits on local tax increases, and rising costs continue to trap many local governments between a rock and a hard place.
Student Opportunity Act
Posted inOpinion
We are shortchanging rural schools and the students they educate
An overhaul of the state’s approach to funding rural school districts is desperately needed in order to provide their students with the education they deserve.
Posted inEducation
From T support to school aid, surtax emerges as crutch for state budgeting
Gov. Maura Healey’s spending proposals has reopened debate about whether voters intended for the surtax on high earners to fund only new investments or anything related to transportation and education.
Posted inState Government
Growing health care pressure drives up spending in Healey’s annual budget
MassHealth spending would increase more than 7 percent under Gov. Maura Healey’s new state budget proposal, roughly twice as much as all other state spending in a reflection of the challenge Beacon Hill faces to control health care costs.
Posted inEducation
On target: ed reform money reaching poorer districts
THE LOW-INCOME, HEAVILY IMMIGRANT city of Chelsea is getting over $2,600 per pupil more in state education aid than it did two years ago. That translates to nearly $19 million […]
Posted inEducation
Legislature will increase school funding next yearÂ
THE LEGISLATURE HAS agreed to take a more generous approach to funding public schools next year than Gov. Charlie Baker did, responding to concerns from education advocates that Baker’s proposal was inadequate.  The legislative approach reflects […]
Posted inEducation
School advocates call Baker’s funding proposal inadequateÂ
GOV. CHARLIE BAKER said Wednesday that his budget proposal for next year fully funds the first year of the Student Opportunity Act, the overhaul of the state’s education funding formula […]
Posted inEducation
Education funding shortfall could spur new lawsuitÂ
WHEN MASSACHUSETTS LAWMAKERS passed a landmark rewrite of the state’s school funding formula last year, it was done with a lawsuit hanging over their heads. Now, advocates are keeping a close eye on the […]
Posted inEducation
5 ideas for generating better school district improvement plans
GATEWAY CITY EDUCATORS returned to school following the winter break pinching themselves. Just before the holidays, Gov. Baker signed the Student Opportunity Act (SOA), a landmark bill that promises to […]
Posted inEducation
The new Massachusetts ‘grand bargain’ in public education
ANY PARENT WHO has watched her child walk into school for their first day of kindergarten – or dropped her off at college some 13 years later – knows it […]
Posted inEducation
With education bill-signing, cheers and challengesÂ
AFTER YEARS OF false starts and Beacon Hill standoffs on a growing funding crisis that has seen school districts shed hundreds of teachers and pare back vital curriculum offerings to […]
Posted inEducation
Agreement reached on ed funding billÂ
LAWMAKERS HAVE REACHED agreement on a long-awaited education funding bill, setting the stage for the most significant update to the formula for financing Massachusetts school districts since the landmark 1993 […]
Posted inEducation
State oversight critical in education bill
AS HOUSE MEMBERS on Beacon Hill prepare to debate and vote Wednesday on the Student Opportunity Act, Massachusetts stands at a crucial moment in charting the course of education funding […]
