CLT
UPDATE
Tuesday, October 5, 2004
Teachers union tries to extort
taxpayers yet again
So what do you want us to do about it? That's what the state Supreme Judicial Court justices asked lawyers yesterday arguing about education funding.
"We know more money isn't the answer," Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall said during the hourlong hearing.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, October 5, 2004
SJC: Money alone won't boost education
Botsford's major recommendation is that the SJC require the state to "ascertain the actual cost" of implementing the Massachusetts curriculum frameworks for all children.
Once the true costs are known, it will be difficult for the state to fail to appropriate the money needed so that schools can provide our students with the varied and rigorous education envisioned in our state standards.
It will be a challenge to meet this duty, but it is a challenge worth embracing in a state that has such a long and proud tradition of recognizing the importance of public education. Our state has set high standards for the nearly one million children who enter our classrooms every day. With a favorable court ruling, Massachusetts may be among the first to take the important step of examining honestly how much it costs to teach all children -- whether rich or poor -- all the academic subjects they are expected to master.
The Boston Globe
Monday, October 4, 2004
The true cost of public education
By Catherine A. Boudreau
[President, Massachusetts Teachers Association]
There are several fundamental flaws with this reasoning. Chief is the confusion between association and causation. High-scoring districts spend more above foundation, but they also have demographic advantages. Dozens of analyses prepared for the court found no evidence linking spending and performance after controlling for demographics.
Among high-poverty districts, Revere scores the highest, but spends the least -- about 101 percent of foundation. Medfield, a relatively wealthy district, also spends little more than foundation and is among the highest scoring districts in the state....
Statewide, education spending grew by 12.7 percent from fiscal 2001 to 2004 and did not fall in any year of the recession. Total education wages grew steadily, rising 14.8 percent in the Hancock districts from calendar year 2000 through 2003, even as total private sector wages fell.
In January 2003 -- as state revenues were in freefall -- Brockton negotiated a contract under which any teacher with fewer than nine years of service could expect to receive 25-37 percent raises over three years. The court cites program cuts and layoffs in districts such as Brockton, but these cuts would not have been necessary, had negotiators shown more restraint....
The thrust of the Hancock suit -- funded almost entirely by the unions -- is an attempt to redirect policy back to another round of school funding hikes, and away from the central issues of accountability, leadership, flexibility, and effective intervention that are so critical to fulfilling the promise of education reform.
The Boston Globe
Monday, October 4, 2004
School performance isn't just about spending
By Robert M. Costrell
[Chief economist, state Office for Administration and Finance]
The Supreme Judicial Court will hear arguments tomorrow about whether the state is shortchanging children in its poorest school systems in a lawsuit that could have sweeping implications for the way Massachusetts finances public education.
If the state's highest court agrees with a Suffolk Superior Court judge that Massachusetts is failing to give enough money to poor districts, the ruling could force the state to overhaul the way it funds schools and require that hundreds of millions of dollars more be spent on education....
The dispute over school funding dates to 1978, when families in 16 of the state's poorest towns contended that their right to an equal education was being denied.
Three days after the SJC's 1993 decision, Governor William F. Weld signed the Education Reform Act, initiating a decade of overhauls. The changes resulted in the MCAS exam, statewide curriculum standards, tougher teacher certification rules, and billions spent to close the gap between wealthy and poor school systems. The state's basic aid to schools increased 12 percent each year over the past decade, from $1.3 billion to $3.2 billion....
Under the current school aid formula, the amount of state money a school receives varies widely, depending on how much cash a community can raise for education through property taxes. For example, Lawrence, where property values are comparatively low, gets 99 percent of its school funding from the state. Weston, with some of the highest property values in Massachusetts, gets about 9 percent of its school funding from the state. On average, basic state education aid constitutes 44 percent of the amount that school systems spend per pupil.
Those changes did not go far enough, said families from 19 school districts in poorer communities, who renewed the legal challenge to the state in 1999....
Norma L. Shapiro -- the president of the Council for Fair School Finance, which helped bring the suit -- said the evidence showed that poor school districts are "much better than they were beforehand ... but that's still not sufficient."
The Boston Globe
Sunday, October 3, 2004
SJC set to weigh school funding
Hundreds of millions in state aid at stake
Justices on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court questioned the effectiveness yesterday of ordering costly remedies for lagging test scores, high dropout rates, and other woes sought by lawyers for some of the state's poorest public school systems....
The oral arguments drew an overflow crowd because of the case's significance. The court's ruling, expected early next year, could lead to sweeping changes in how the state pays for public schools and could affect similar cases pending in 23 other states....
Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll said that the court appeared to recognize that the state has made great progress in improving public education and that targeted assistance to struggling schools, not an overhaul of the financing formula, is the right approach.
"I think that what came through was the recognition that it's about more than just money," Driscoll said.
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, October 5, 2004
School woes not simple, say justices
Struggling districts may need more than money
The state's highest court yesterday grilled lawyers on both sides of a landmark lawsuit that claims the state has failed to adequately fund public schools.
Some of the Supreme Judicial Court's seven justices expressed misgivings about ordering the Legislature to pump more money into public education.
"There is a plethora of information that suggests money alone doesn't do it," Chief Justice Margaret Marshall told Michael Weisman, a lawyer for students in 19 low-income and rural school districts....
"So what you're saying, in essence," Justice Robert Cordy asked Roney, "is that the court ought to exercise restraint?"
"Yes," Roney responded. "You could put it that way." ...
State Rep. Deborah Blumer, D-Framingham, said she hopes the SJC's ruling paves the way for the Legislature to devise a new, more equitable education funding formula.
"Money isn't the only answer, but it's part of the answer -- a significant part," she said. "I don't think there is any way to get around putting more funding into education."
The MetroWest Daily News
Tuesday, October 5, 2004
SJC grills lawyers in school funding suit
Mention education reform to most people and watch their eyes roll back in their heads.
More than a decade has passed, $30 billion in new money spent, lawsuits have been filed and major legislation approved, and still no one - not educators, not politicians, not the courts - have been able to devise a way to provide an equal and quality education to poor and rich school districts throughout the state.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, October 5, 2004
Lesson is $ alone won't improve schools
By Howard Manly
Whenever anyone says it's not about the money, you can bet it is about the money.
And that came as no surprise to the justices of the Supreme Judicial Court who yesterday heard argument on why they should wade into the issue of whether the state is adequately educating its children....
But over the past decade, since the high court last ruled on the issue of education funding and the Legislature passed the School Reform Law, Massachusetts has allocated an additional $30 billion to education....
As Justice John Greaney noted, the court before deciding "big constitutional issues, needs to figure out how they are going to enforce them."
For example, making early childhood education available to every child who could benefit from it is estimated to cost an additional $1 billion. Ought the court be in the business of ordering the Legislature to come up with the money to do just that? And if so, what then do we have a Legislature for?
A Boston Herald editorial
Tuesday, October 5, 2004
High court ponders its ed funding role
Barbara's CLT
Commentary
The teachers union is on a rampant end-run again, after grabbing an additional $30 billion from taxpayers since "education reform" was adopted.
More Is Never Enough (MINE) and never will be.
"Total education wages grew steadily, rising 14.8 percent in the Hancock districts from calendar year 2000 through 2003, even as total private sector wages fell."
After they have squeezed all they can from the legislative branch (and local school committees and town meetings) the “education
establishment,” most notably the teachers unions, is back in court again.
From the beginning, “education reform” to the teachers unions meant “more money for us”, and had little to do with “the children.” Once the Legislature was forced by a SJC decision in the early ‘90s to appropriate more money for education, the unions went to work in local communities to make sure they “got theirs.” Weak local negotiators and stacked town meetings supported higher pay and benefits; thus the sad refrain we sometimes hear now, that the kids don’t have pencils or toilet paper.
Over the decades, the unions resisted accountability and management reforms. The Ed Reform Act, over their objections, incorporated reform, including charters schools, as a condition of the new revenues. The Massachusetts Teachers Association, in particular, has never relaxed its hatred of the non-union charter schools, nor hid its resentment of accountability in the form of
MCAS. Many legislators have carried the unions’ water, especially in the form of caps on the number of new charter schools. Accountability is holding its own, however, since a two-thirds vote is needed to override the governor’s vetoes of anti-reform legislation.
So the educational establishment, including the unions, have gone back to court, trying to get an order for more revenues before this accountability and management reform thing gets out of hand! So far, the SJC doesn’t seem to be buying it. But if, as has happened elsewhere, the court orders more tax dollars to be sent to the schools
(i.e, the unions), Massachusetts will find itself in a constitutional crisis as the Legislature
decides whether to obey a court order or not. Taxpayers stand by, and beware!
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Barbara Anderson |
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, October 5, 2004
SJC: Money alone won't boost education
By Kevin Rothstein
So what do you want us to do about it? That's what the state Supreme Judicial Court justices asked lawyers yesterday arguing about education funding.
"We know more money isn't the answer," Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall said during the hourlong hearing.
Citing similar lawsuits in other states that have dragged on for two decades and a past instance of judicial activism gone awry, members of the state's highest court asked both sides arguing a landmark education lawsuit how the justices could improve education from their seats on the bench.
"This, it seems to me, is going to get us into a huge policy issue," said Justice John M.
Greaney, citing the messy Clean Elections suit where the SJC was forced to order the sale of state assets to raise money.
Neither side wanted to draw conclusions from the line of questioning, but Assistant Attorney General Deirdre Roney told the justices that the state Department of Education is already doing the job by targeting foundering schools and districts.
"We think this is a better approach to fixing their schools rather than simply a funding increase," she said.
Michael Weisman, lawyer for the Council for Fair School Finance, insisted in and out of court that the case wasn't just about the money. Weisman wants the court to order a funding study to see what extra programs are needed.
A decision is expected by the end of the year in the suit, filed on behalf of 19 poor cities and towns. In addition to yesterday's arguments, the SJC has the record from a 78-day trial before Suffolk Superior Court Judge Margot
Botsford, who wrote a report saying the state wasn't meeting its obligation to educate all kids.
Education Commissioner David Driscoll told reporters afterward the Romney administration is preparing changes to the formula that divides state education aid.
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The Boston Globe
Monday, October 4, 2004
The true cost of public education
By Catherine A. Boudreau
[President, Massachusetts Teachers Association]
Today the Supreme Judicial Court is scheduled to hear arguments in the school funding case, Hancock v. Driscoll, filed on behalf of students in 19 low-income urban and rural school districts. If the SJC adopts the recommendations of Suffolk Superior Court Judge Margot
Botsford, the Commonwealth will be required to conduct a thorough and objective study of how much it would cost to provide children in Massachusetts with the level of education to which they are constitutionally entitled. Those of us who work in public education have no doubt that such a study would highlight the reality that many schools simply do not have the resources they need to meet state learning requirements. This is especially true in communities serving a large number of low-income children.
After hearing testimony over nine months, Botsford issued a report last April in which she concluded that the state education funding formula established in 1993 "does not presently provide sufficient funds" to permit the plaintiff communities to implement state learning standards.
"Despite a number of impressive accomplishments of the Commonwealth and the Department of Education over the past 10 years," Botsford wrote, "the record here establishes that the plaintiff children are not receiving the education to which they are constitutionally entitled."
Evidence submitted during the trial demonstrates why spending levels required over the past decade, though significantly higher than they were before, have fallen short. A key factor is that the funding formula under the Education Reform Act of 1993 was designed several years prior to the establishment of ambitious new state learning standards. Those standards are embodied in "curriculum frameworks" in seven subjects: English language arts, mathematics, history and social science, science and technology/engineering, health, foreign languages, and the arts.
Botsford found gaping holes in what the plaintiff districts were able to offer students toward meeting those standards. For example, she found that the overcrowded, 106-year-old Forest Park Middle School in Springfield has no science or language laboratory and only 12 microscopes. The city's arts program had 31 music teachers and 27 art teachers for more than 26,000 students. The arts were no better off.
"Obviously, the program is not aligned with the state arts curriculum framework," Botsford wrote. "Too many children can go through the Springfield schools never having taken any classes in any of the arts: the district's director of the arts estimates that half of the graduating class of 2003 in Springfield went through K through 12 without any arts instruction at all." Botsford heard many hours of testimony on similar inadequacies in other districts, more than enough to convince her that the problems are significant. And the evidence continues to mount. Just last month the state reported that more than one-third of all districts failed to make "adequate yearly progress" toward meeting MCAS test score goals set by the Department of Education at the direction of the federal government.
This raises a fundamental question of fairness: How can students and schools be held accountable for meeting state educational standards if the Commonwealth has not met its duty to ensure sufficient funding for the task?
Botsford's major recommendation is that the SJC require the state to "ascertain the actual cost" of implementing the Massachusetts curriculum frameworks for all children.
Once the true costs are known, it will be difficult for the state to fail to appropriate the money needed so that schools can provide our students with the varied and rigorous education envisioned in our state standards.
It will be a challenge to meet this duty, but it is a challenge worth embracing in a state that has such a long and proud tradition of recognizing the importance of public education. Our state has set high standards for the nearly one million children who enter our classrooms every day. With a favorable court ruling, Massachusetts may be among the first to take the important step of examining honestly how much it costs to teach all children -- whether rich or poor -- all the academic subjects they are expected to master.
Catherine A. Boudreau is president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association. The
MTA, the Massachusetts Federation of Teachers, the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, and the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents jointly filed an amicus brief on behalf of the plaintiffs in the Hancock case.
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The Boston Globe
Monday, October 4, 2004
School performance isn't just about spending
By Robert M. Costrell
[Chief economist, Office for Administration and Finance]
Last April, Superior Court Judge Margot Botsford concluded that the Commonwealth's foundation budget -- a school district's minimum allowable spending -- is constitutionally inadequate in four low-income districts that are part of the Hancock case. As the Supreme Judicial Court hears arguments in the case today, it is time to take a hard look at the reasoning behind the opinion.
The plaintiffs' original argument was based on two "adequacy" studies they commissioned. One found that Cambridge was one of the only adequately funded districts in the state, a district ranked by the Globe at 311 out of 373 on MCAS results. Another came to the equally curious conclusion that two-thirds of the state's highest-performing districts were not spending enough to succeed. Botsford rightfully rejected both of them.
The court relied instead on evidence of a disparity in spending as a percentage of foundation budget between high- and low-scoring districts. The court also cited "profound cuts" in education funding during the recent downturn. A closer look at the data show that these, too, are at best a shaky basis for the finding of inadequate funding.
Under our system, the Commonwealth funds the difference between what a district can afford and the foundation budget. The formula assigns a premium for educating low-income children, so the foundation is about 25 percent higher in poor districts than in wealthy ones.
As a result, per-pupil spending among districts in the poorest quartile last year averaged $8,700, a bit more than the wealthiest districts, at $8,500. Massachusetts is one of the few states in the nation that has reversed the spending gap.
Instead of actual spending, the plaintiffs based their case on spending as a percentage of foundation budget. Foundation budget is much lower for wealthy districts, but they are free to spend more, and many of them do. Consequently, as a percent of foundation, wealthy, high-scoring districts spend more than poor ones, even though they spend less in actual dollars. From this admittedly "rough" approach, the court concluded that the state is in constitutional violation, with the foundation budget too low for every district in the state.
There are several fundamental flaws with this reasoning. Chief is the confusion between association and causation. High-scoring districts spend more above foundation, but they also have demographic advantages. Dozens of analyses prepared for the court found no evidence linking spending and performance after controlling for demographics.
Among high-poverty districts, Revere scores the highest, but spends the least -- about 101 percent of foundation. Medfield, a relatively wealthy district, also spends little more than foundation and is among the highest scoring districts in the state.
Higher spending also doesn't correlate with improved performance. The Globe's recent list of most improved districts not only includes Revere, but also Winchendon and Springfield -- two of the four Hancock districts.
The court's reliance on spending as a percent of foundation has the following implication: No increase in the low-income premium, no matter how large, could eliminate the finding of
underfunding. Increasing the poor districts' foundation budget would raise their spending in actual dollars, but not as a percent of foundation; the disparity on that measure would remain.
Botsford finds funding inadequacies have been exacerbated during the recent economic downturn. But the court's data are wrong. The judge estimated that Brockton's spending would decline by $10 million last year; it actually rose by $2.6 million. Per-pupil spending barely dipped in one of the plaintiff districts and rose 2 to 3 percent in the others.
Statewide, education spending grew by 12.7 percent from fiscal 2001 to 2004 and did not fall in any year of the recession. Total education wages grew steadily, rising 14.8 percent in the Hancock districts from calendar year 2000 through 2003, even as total private sector wages fell.
In January 2003 -- as state revenues were in freefall -- Brockton negotiated a contract under which any teacher with fewer than nine years of service could expect to receive 25-37 percent raises over three years. The court cites program cuts and layoffs in districts such as Brockton, but these cuts would not have been necessary, had negotiators shown more restraint.
At this stage of education reform, funding is neither the problem nor the solution. In one candid passage, Botsford observed that sharp variation among one district's schools, "shown not to be particularly related to funding, indicates unaddressed problems of management and leadership."
The thrust of the Hancock suit -- funded almost entirely by the unions -- is an attempt to redirect policy back to another round of school funding hikes, and away from the central issues of accountability, leadership, flexibility, and effective intervention that are so critical to fulfilling the promise of education reform.
Robert M. Costrell is chief economist in the state Office for Administration and Finance. This column is adapted from a longer article in
CommonWealth Magazine.
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The Boston Globe
Sunday, October 3, 2004
SJC set to weigh school funding
Hundreds of millions in state aid at stake
By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff
The Supreme Judicial Court will hear arguments tomorrow about whether the state is shortchanging children in its poorest school systems in a lawsuit that could have sweeping implications for the way Massachusetts finances public education.
If the state's highest court agrees with a Suffolk Superior Court judge that Massachusetts is failing to give enough money to poor districts, the ruling could force the state to overhaul the way it funds schools and require that hundreds of millions of dollars more be spent on education.
The lawsuit, which is being argued 11 years after the SJC declared that Massachusetts had violated its constitutional duty to provide an adequate education to all public schoolchildren, could also influence similar cases pending in 23 other states, legal specialists say.
"This is an extremely important case," said Victoria J. Dodd, a professor of law at Suffolk University who has studied school-funding cases across the country. "The result will influence our Massachusetts public education system and thus will affect the quality of life and the economy for decades to come."
The landmark lawsuit, which was filed by families in 19 school systems, says the state has failed to close the gap in educational opportunities available to children in wealthy and poor school districts, despite restructuring the financing formula following the 1993 decision and pumping billions of dollars into Massachusetts' 1,900 public schools.
Poor districts fare worse than affluent ones, according to the suit, whether the benchmark is class size or quality of libraries, the number of computers in classrooms, or opportunities for early childhood education. As a result, the lawsuit says, students in poor districts are more likely to have lower MCAS and SAT scores and higher dropout rates.
The plaintiffs won a major victory in April, when Judge Margot G. Botsford ruled that poorer school districts have made progress, but are still not providing the education to which students are entitled. She recommended changes including establishment of free preschool programs for 3- and 4-year-olds from low-income families, construction of adequate school buildings, and determination of how much money is needed for children with special needs, among other things. She also called for better leadership in some school districts named in the suit. If the SJC agrees with Botsford's judgment, state education officials could be required to carry out her recommended remedies.
As is customary, each side will have only 15 minutes to make arguments before the
SJC. The court's guidelines recommend that the justices issue a ruling within 130 days. The plaintiffs say they hope the court will issue a ruling early next year.
Michael D. Weisman, the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, said Thursday that Botsford acted after hearing overwhelming evidence that the state is neglecting its duty to provide an adequate education, an obligation enshrined in the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights by its author, John Adams.
"I don't want to predict what the Supreme [Judicial] Court is going to do," said Weisman, who was also the lead lawyer in the 1993 case. "Judge Botsford has made very clear what she thinks needs to be done."
The attorney general's office, which is representing the state, and Heidi B. Perlman -- a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, the defendant in the suit -- declined to comment. In legal briefs, however, the state contends that many of the schools in poor districts have improved markedly. The state argues that Botsford's recommendations represent an intrusion by the judiciary into legislative and executive functions.
The state also contends that funding is not the main reason students in some school districts outperform students in others.
"Across-the-board funding increases were part of the solution to the problems of the Massachusetts public schools in 1993, but they are not the right solution in 2004," said a brief by the attorney general's office. "The trial evidence is clear that, at this stage of education reform, the pressing need instead is for accountability and targeted assistance."
Edward Moscovitch, one of the authors of the current school-funding formula and a witness for the state at the trial presided over by
Botsford, agreed.
"The single biggest thing holding us back is not money," said Moscovitch, president of Cape Ann Economics, a consulting firm. He said the problem is that "the vast majority of principals and teachers don't ... know how to turn schools around, and the [Education] Department has not been in a position to implement a program to help them to do it."
The dispute over school funding dates to 1978, when families in 16 of the state's poorest towns contended that their right to an equal education was being denied.
Three days after the SJC's 1993 decision, Governor William F. Weld signed the Education Reform Act, initiating a decade of overhauls. The changes resulted in the MCAS exam, statewide curriculum standards, tougher teacher certification rules, and billions spent to close the gap between wealthy and poor school systems. The state's basic aid to schools increased 12 percent each year over the past decade, from $1.3 billion to $3.2 billion. Schools added elective courses, reduced class sizes, and provided summer school.
Under the current school aid formula, the amount of state money a school receives varies widely, depending on how much cash a community can raise for education through property taxes. For example, Lawrence, where property values are comparatively low, gets 99 percent of its school funding from the state. Weston, with some of the highest property values in Massachusetts, gets about 9 percent of its school funding from the state. On average, basic state education aid constitutes 44 percent of the amount that school systems spend per pupil.
Those changes did not go far enough, said families from 19 school districts in poorer communities, who renewed the legal challenge to the state in 1999. The districts are Barnstable, Belchertown, Brockton, East Bridgewater, Fitchburg, Gill-Montague Regional, Holyoke, Leicester, Lowell, Lynn, Mashpee, Orange, Revere, Rockland, Sandwich, Springfield, Taunton, Uxbridge, and Winchendon.
Their suit is called Hancock v. Commissioner of Education, for Julie Hancock, an 11th-grader at Brockton High School.
During a 78-day fact-finding trial before Botsford, both sides focused on four key districts: Brockton, Springfield, Lowell, and Winchendon. Lawyers compared them to three affluent districts used for the same purpose in the 1993 case: Brookline, Concord, and Wellesley.
Norma L. Shapiro -- the president of the Council for Fair School Finance, which helped bring the suit -- said the evidence showed that poor school districts are "much better than they were beforehand ... but that's still not sufficient."
Dianne Alperin, principal of the Charles W. Morey School in Lowell and one of the witnesses for the families, pointed out last week the kind of problems faced by the school, which serves 420 children from prekindergarten through the fourth grade.
The red brick building is 114 years old and looks its age. A girls' bathroom is missing a patch of floor tiles. A boys' bathroom is missing part of the door. The main three-story building is inaccessible to students who use wheelchairs; a second-grader broke her leg last year and had to be transferred to another school because there is no elevator. Two cinderblock closets serve as the office for a social worker and as a room where children take tests to see if they need special education.
"The school was supposed to be torn down and rebuilt about two years ago, but it's since been postponed because of a lack of funding," Alperin said.
Half of the students at Morey are of Cambodian, Laotian, Vietnamese, and Chinese descent, and many entered school with English as their second language. Unlike children from wealthier communities, relatively few children at Morey have been to preschool, said
Alperin, who previously worked in the Ipswitch and Topsfield school systems. Morey's preschool program can only accommodate about 16 children; many applicants have to be turned away.
"It would be nice to offer [preschool] to every student who was going to enter your building, because you could start to build a relationship with families when the children are little, and that serves you well on many fronts," Alperin said.
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The Boston Globe
Tuesday, October 5, 2004
School woes not simple, say justices
Struggling districts may need more than money
By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff
Justices on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court questioned the effectiveness yesterday of ordering costly remedies for lagging test scores, high dropout rates, and other woes sought by lawyers for some of the state's poorest public school systems.
As they heard arguments in a landmark lawsuit over education funding, several members of the state's highest court acknowledged that four school districts at the heart of the legal challenge are still struggling, 11 years after Massachusetts overhauled the way it pays for public schools.
Nonetheless, other factors, including management of the districts and the training received by teachers, may account for why schools in Brockton, Lowell, Springfield, and Winchendon have failed to match the gains of other school systems, some of the seven justices said.
"What ... comes through to me loud and clear is that there are real problems in these districts that have nothing to do with money," Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall told Michael D. Weisman, the lead lawyer for families in 19 poorer school districts who contend that the state is violating its constitutional duty to provide an adequate education to all schoolchildren.
Several justices, however, seemed alarmed that the four districts face persistent problems, including dropout rates as high as 50 percent, comparatively poor MCAS scores, and overcrowded classrooms.
In 1993, after the court issued a ruling in McDuffy v. Secretary of Education, the state pumped billions of dollars into Massachusetts' 1,900 public schools, established statewide curriculum standards, and toughened teacher certification rules, all in an effort to close the gap between poor and wealthy school systems.
"How long do we wait for the children of the commonwealth to get what McDuffy said [they were entitled to]?" Justice Roderick L. Ireland asked Assistant Attorney General Deirdre
Roney, who represented the Department of Education, the defendant in the case.
The oral arguments drew an overflow crowd because of the case's significance. The court's ruling, expected early next year, could lead to sweeping changes in how the state pays for public schools and could affect similar cases pending in 23 other states.
The suit contends that poor districts fare worse than affluent ones, whether the benchmark is quality of libraries, the number of computers in classrooms, or opportunities for early childhood education. Money is a major factor, the plaintiffs say. Under the current school aid formula, the amount of state funding a school receives varies widely, depending on how much cash a community can raise for education through property taxes. Poor communities with lower property values typically get a higher percentage of state funding than more affluent communities.
The plaintiffs won a big victory in April, when Suffolk Superior Court Judge Margot G. Botsford ruled that poorer districts have made progress, but are still not providing the education to which students are entitled. Botsford was appointed by a single justice to conduct a fact-finding trial.
Botsford recommended a series of sweeping changes, including establishing free preschool programs for 3- and 4-year-olds from low-income families, constructing adequate school buildings, and determining how much money is needed for children with special needs. She also called for better leadership in some districts.
If the SJC agrees with her judgment, state education officials could be required to carry out her recommended remedies at a potential cost of hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
However, Roney pointed out that the state has already dramatically increased basic aid to schools -- 12 percent a year during the last decade, raising the total over the period from $1.3 billion to $3.2 billion -- in an attempt to close the gap between districts. She said Botsford's recommendations, including establishment of free preschool programs that could cost $1 billion a year, represented an intrusion by the judiciary into policy and spending decisions that should be made by the governor and state lawmakers.
Rather than overhauling school financing statewide, Roney said, the SJC should exercise restraint and let the state identify underperforming schools and turn them around.
"You're talking about four school districts that are anomalous," she said.
But Weisman said the 15 other districts named in the suit have similar problems, and he pooh-poohed suggestions that, as he put it, "350 districts are doing well, and four are doing poorly."
Given the potentially broad implications of the case -- called Hancock v. Commissioner of Education, for Julie Hancock, an 11th-grader at Brockton High School -- the court gave each side 30 minutes to make arguments, twice as long as usual.
Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll said that the court appeared to recognize that the state has made great progress in improving public education and that targeted assistance to struggling schools, not an overhaul of the financing formula, is the right approach.
"I think that what came through was the recognition that it's about more than just money," Driscoll said.
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The MetroWest Daily News
Tuesday, October 5, 2004
SJC grills lawyers in school funding suit
By Michael Kunzelman, Staff Writer
The state's highest court yesterday grilled lawyers on both sides of a landmark lawsuit that claims the state has failed to adequately fund public schools.
Some of the Supreme Judicial Court's seven justices expressed misgivings about ordering the Legislature to pump more money into public education.
"There is a plethora of information that suggests money alone doesn't do it," Chief Justice Margaret Marshall told Michael Weisman, a lawyer for students in 19 low-income and rural school districts.
Weisman, who delivered oral arguments on behalf of plaintiffs in the Hancock vs. Driscoll case, said problems with the state's education funding formula are "systemic" and cannot simply be solved with more funding.
"No, it's not just about money," he said. "It's about what resources are necessary to be spent in particular ways."
Assistant Attorney General Deirdre Roney, lead attorney for the state, said the state Department of Education already is making improvements in districts where large numbers of students have failed to meet minimum performance standards.
"The commonwealth is taking action for those children through its accountability system," she said. "We have a reliable accountability system."
"So what you're saying, in essence," Justice Robert Cordy asked Roney, "is that the court ought to exercise restraint?"
"Yes," Roney responded. "You could put it that way."
The SJC did not immediately issue a ruling yesterday.
MetroWest lawmakers and school officials said the court's decision could have a profound impact on all school districts, not just the state's poorest.
"Not only is it important for Massachusetts, but it's also important nationally because Massachusetts is looked at as one of the leading states in terms of reforming public education," said Framingham School Superintendent Christopher
Martes.
Martes testified last fall during the Hancock case's 10-month-long trial, which was presided over by Superior Court Judge Margot
Botsford. Botsford later ruled that the state has failed to meet its constitutional duty to provide adequate resources to students in poorer districts.
Martes said Botsford's ruling also recognized that the state's formula for distributing aid to schools is not equitable to districts with similar demographics -- a complaint commonly voiced by officials in Framingham and other suburban communities.
"We do not get much of a contribution from the state and haven't since the beginning of Education Reform (in 1993)," he said.
State Rep. Deborah Blumer, D-Framingham, said she hopes the SJC's ruling paves the way for the Legislature to devise a new, more equitable education funding formula.
"Money isn't the only answer, but it's part of the answer -- a significant part," she said. "I don't think there is any way to get around putting more funding into education."
Education Commissioner David Driscoll said the state already has invested billions of new dollars in schools since the passage of the Education Reform Act of 1993.
"We have a constitutional obligation and we're making great progress," he said. "We're seeing great improvement."
Throughout yesterday's hour-long hearing, the SJC justices peppered the attorneys with complicated questions about Education Reform and the 1993 law that gave rise to the plaintiffs' lawsuit.
Justice Martha Sosman, citing the statewide 95 percent passing rate on the MCAS exam, asked Weisman what is "irrational" about an education system that appears to work for the vast majority of school districts.
"That sounds to me like at least an indicator that most schools are responding positively to the reforms in the education format," Sosman said.
Weisman, however, said the passing rates are misleading because they do not take dropouts into account.
"When we talk about pass rates, we have to talk about all the children," he said.
Weisman also chided the Legislature for slashing funding for MCAS remediation -- from $50 million to $10 million -- while holding students to the same standards as before the money was cut.
"It is simply a default of the state's responsibility to (help) every child reach their full potential," he said.
The list of 19 plaintiff districts includes Brockton, Lowell, Revere, Taunton, Uxbridge and Winchendon.
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The Boston Herald
Tuesday, October 5, 2004
Lesson is $ alone won't improve schools
By Howard Manly
Mention education reform to most people and watch their eyes roll back in their heads.
More than a decade has passed, $30 billion in new money spent, lawsuits have been filed and major legislation approved, and still no one - not educators, not politicians, not the courts - have been able to devise a way to provide an equal and quality education to poor and rich school districts throughout the state. Underlying it all is the fatally flawed assumption that all students would flourish if provided the necessary tools to "cherish the interests of literature and the sciences" as required by the Massachusetts Constitution. The reality is that not all children cherish the educational opportunities they are offered.
The question then becomes one not of money but of strategy. What system can ensure that the small percentage of children unable to pass standardized tests - or even remain in school - become productive members of society? As it is now, state prisons are filled with inmates, the great majority of whom have attained no more than an eighth-grade education. For them the choices were criminal and wrong.
Unfortunately, that reality is not part of the discussion. The state Supreme Judicial Court heard arguments yesterday in an ongoing case to determine whether more money should be spent on closing the achievement gap between the rich and poor in general and minorities and whites in particular. To be sure, money is a factor, but it's not the only factor. Even Superior Court Judge Margot
Botsford, who last April wrote a 357-page report to the high court, readily conceded as much and recommended improving the administrative, managerial and leadership capacities of the less well-off school districts.
But the focus is on the money as legislators worry about the potential of spending millions more on something that is all but impossible. Robert Costrell is the state's chief economist and offers surprising facts in the most recent edition of Commonwealth Magazine.
Last year, the foundation budget - the minimum necessary to provide a quality education - in wealthy districts was about $6,700 per pupil, Costrell wrote. For districts in the poorest quartile, it averaged about $8,300, some 25 percent higher. Costrell explained that the difference in expenditures is the result of the foundation budget formula that assigns a premium of $2,000 to $2,500 for low-income children (depending on grade level), and an additional premium for limited-English-proficiency students.
Costrell argues that those premiums have worked well in closing not only the achievement gaps but also the spending gaps. "As a result," Costrell wrote, "while K-12 school districts in the poorest quartile spent, on average, more than $8,700 last year, districts with the least poverty spent about $8,500."
The bottom line is that money is being spent. In fact, Massachusetts is fourth in the country in terms of per-pupil expenditures. What is at issue - and Gov. Mitt Romney [related, bio] is absolutely right on this matter - is
accountablity.
In his state of the state message earlier this year, Romney said, "Great new school buildings aren't enough. We need to face up to the reality that some of our schools are just not educating our children. Some schools are seeing as many as one-third of their students drop out of high school before the end of their senior year. Some have disappointingly low MCAS scores. An achievement gap persists."
But while Romney came up with a plan to fund more kindergarten and summer school programs as well as provide special classes for disruptive students, his proposals fall far short in dealing with those students still left behind. Romney talked about getting parents more involved and enabling principals to hire and fire teachers at their individual discretion.
More importantly, more work needs to be done on defining proficiency and making sure that proficiency is the standard - not just getting by.
The longer the courts and politicians debate over money rather than quality, the longer it will take to right the ship for those least likely to flourish under the present system.
The good news is that the courts, public educators and politicians are trying their best.
The bad news is that all too often, their best is not good enough.
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The Boston Herald
Tuesday, October 5, 2004
A Boston Herald editorial
High court ponders its ed funding role
Whenever anyone says it's not about the money, you can bet it is about the money.
And that came as no surprise to the justices of the Supreme Judicial Court who yesterday heard argument on why they should wade into the issue of whether the state is adequately educating its children.
It is true the Massachusetts Constitution says, "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," including the public schools.
It was a point noted by Chief Justice Margaret Marshall when she said, "Education is a kind of rock- bottom guarantee."
But over the past decade, since the high court last ruled on the issue of education funding and the Legislature passed the School Reform Law, Massachusetts has allocated an additional $30 billion to education.
"It's not just about money. It's about what resources are going to be spent in particular ways," argued Michael D. Weisman on behalf of students in 19 school districts that are the plaintiffs in the case.
What Weisman was suggesting to the court was in many ways even more frightening than simply throwing money at the problem of underperforming district. He was suggesting the court engage in a level of micromanagement that hasn't been seen in this state since U.S. District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity had to rule - in connection with the school desegregation case - on such issues as how many basketballs would be bought for Southie High.
Weisman wanted the court to look at not just the bottom line, but such things as classroom size and how large a school's library is. Oh, and how the state's funding mechanism - the so-called foundation budget - "consistently underestimates teacher salaries."
Get the picture?
Once the court starts down that path, there will be no turning back.
As Justice John Greaney noted, the court before deciding "big constitutional issues, needs to figure out how they are going to enforce them."
For example, making early childhood education available to every child who could benefit from it is estimated to cost an additional $1 billion. Ought the court be in the business of ordering the Legislature to come up with the money to do just that? And if so, what then do we have a Legislature for?
The Legislature and the Department of Education have put enormous amounts of money and effort into improving education in the commonwealth with testing, remedial education and supervision for underperforming schools. Judicial micromanagement isn't going to improve the situation no matter what the advocates say.
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