First Annual Implementation Report
Goal II. Administer a fair and equitable system of school finance.
Introduction.
Adequate, equitable, and stable financial support for public education is a pre-requisite for excellence. Such a foundation of financial support by no means guarantees excellent schools, but the lack of such support practically guarantees that a school will fail.
On June 18, 1993, when the Governor signed the Education Reform Act into law, he made a promise on behalf of the himself and the Legislature that every school would receive proper financial support. Three days prior, the Supreme Judicial Court cemented that promise in the landmark case McDuffy v. Robertson, when it found that the state was constitutionally required to "cherish its schools."
With these two actions, the Commonwealth took a major step forward towards creating a system that meets the criteria of adequacy, equity, and stability. This is accomplished by establishing two sets of standards.
The Foundation Budget.
The first standard of financial support relates to the determination of what constitutes an adequate budget. The Education Reform Act creates a standard budget called the "foundation budget" for each school based on the particular number and mix of students in that school. The foundation budget is a model, minimal budget which the Legislature determined to constitute adequate funding. It is a budget built mostly on assumptions (i.e. for every 100 students, X guidance counselors and Y teachers will be needed, Z of whom should be special education teachers). Additional resources are made available for each additional low income, vocational, and bilingual student.
In the first year of implementation, only 103 of the 351 communities sent their students to schools that met the standard of adequate funding as determined by the foundation formula. The schools in the other 248 communities had a gap between what they were currently spending and the standard of adequacy, called a "foundation gap."
In order to fill this foundation gap, the Legislature set a standard for equity of local taxation to ensure that no community was forced to unfairly tax its property owners to fund its schools. The Legislature and Governor then promised to make up the difference between what communities could raise based on their standard of local taxation and their schools' foundation budgets.
In order to fund this historic promise while maintaining previous financial commitments, the Education Reform Act establishes a funding schedule that ratchets up the state appropriation to schools by approximately $150 million each year though the end of the century. These increases will nearly double the state's direct appropriation to schools by the year 2000 from $1.5 billion to $2.8 billion.
Barring a further court order, future legislatures and administrations are not legally bound to the funding schedule. However, by setting standards of adequacy and equity, the Legislature will invite close scrutiny from the plaintiffs of McDuffy v. Robertson should the financial commitment included in the Education Reform Act be undermined. By the early Fall, Department staff will have resolved remaining questions of interpretation sufficiently to generate a five year budgetary projection for each school. With these five year projections, our schools will achieve the third criteria, stability.
The Impact of New Funds on School Districts.
While a full analysis of the impact of Education Reform funds can not be undertaken until school districts file their end-of-the-year reports in September, the results of a Department of Elementary and Secondary Education survey indicate that the vast majority of the new funds were spent on educational purposes. New Bedford reported spending almost 50% of their new funds on maintenance projects and major school repairs. Abington reported using their new funds to open a fourth elementary school. Everett used their funds to recall and hire a total of forty-two teaching positions. And in Attleboro Education Reform funds were used to create a new, fully staffed Office of Graduate Opportunities to assist students in applying for financial aid for college and to place students in jobs.
Across the Commonwealth, class sizes were reduced as teachers were hired and staff positions filled. New programs were created and old programs that had disappeared due to lack of funding were restored. In some cases whole new media centers were built to house new technology for use by students. Professional development was made available to teachers, both as in-service training and in conjunction with nearby teacher training institutions.
Problems in Implementation of the Foundation Formulas.
The transition from 350 different municipal systems of school finance to one statewide system was not without its problems. The lateness of the Education Reform Act's final passage created major confusion about districts' budgets through the summer and in to the Fall. This confusion was compounded by conflicting interpretations of regional obligations and the implementation of two systems of waivers. The staff of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and Department of Revenue did their best to assist school and municipal personnel in interpreting the foundation formulas for the unique situations of their individual districts. At conferences, local public forums, and scheduled meetings, over the first six months of the Act Department staff held individualized sessions with the majority of school districts.
By December, although only a handful of districts still had problems with their FY'94 calculations, questions had begun about the FY'95 projections. Even though some issues remained to be resolved, the Department fulfilled the Commissioner's commitment to distribute FY'95 preliminary estimates by the end of January. With some minor alterations, these estimates were reinforced by separate House and Senate resolutions and by an initial distribution of the Department of Revenue's "cherry sheets" on May 17. Next year, all efforts will be made to resolve all remaining interpretation questions in time to distribute solid estimates in March.
School Choice
In determining that it is fundamentally a state not local responsibility to provide equal education, the Supreme Judicial Court made it clear that the quality of education that a student receives should not depend upon his or her place of residence. School choice furthers this trend by creating a system in which parents can choose to send their children to schools in communities other than that in which they reside. While the Education Reform Act did not establish inter-district school choice in Massachusetts, it did expand it in two important ways. Most importantly, it further corrected gross inequities in the initial statute, making the program far less punitive on poorer school districts. Whereas the initial 1991 school choice statute required poorer sending districts to pay the full tuition charged by the receiving district, the Education Reform Act caps the amount that a receiving district can charge and provides reimbursement to schools that spend below the foundation budget level. The second important change to school choice that took effect during the first year of Education Reform, is that districts were now assumed to participate in the program unless their school committee took an affirmative vote to opt out.
Funding for Early Childhood and Adult Basic Education
The foundation budget covers only those students between the ages of five and twenty-one. If the commitment to adequate educational funding is to be extended to young at-risk children and adults who lack basic skills as well, new systems will need to be worked for these areas. Only 32,000 (64%) of the more than 50,000 economically disadvantaged three and four year olds (200% of poverty line) are currently receiving any educational services. The cost of expanding these services to provide full, adequate early childhood education to all economically at-risk children could by over $100,000,000 a year. If additional funds are expended to provide at least partial subsidies to some of the other 128,000 three and four year olds, the cost will continue to grow. The Governor's Commission on Early Childhood is currently reviewing the options for addressing this critical need and is expected to report its findings to the Board and Legislature in December, 1994.
Similar work is underway to address the needs of adults in need of basic education. According to the National Adult Literacy Survey, over 50% of our adult population lacks the basic skills they need to be partners in their children's education and successful contributors to the economy. A recent survey undertaken by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education concluded that only 2% of the adults in need of basic education services could be served by the current state system. A Working Committee of the Massachusetts Adult Education Committee is expected to file a final report with the Board and Legislature by October 15, 1994 that will detail options for expanding adult basic education services to better serve the needs of the Commonwealth.
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last updated: May 15, 1995
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