Issue Position: Education

Issue Position

There is hardly anything more important to our future as a Commonwealth than the education of our children. Education is not simply how we train a workforce, but how we impart values, how we grow good citizens and healthy families, how we more fully develop human talent and potential. The answers will not be and have never been found solely in the classroom, but there is surely more that we can do as a state, in concert with other policies proposed here, to support local school districts with the collective challenge of providing a quality education for all of our children, and prepare them to lead fulfilling lives.

Local Aid

While Chapter 70 education funding has recently increased, Unrestricted General Government Aid has not risen, or risen as fast, so that a larger share of unrestricted aid and/or locally-raised revenue may be appropriated to maintain minimum net-spending according to state requirements. However, the school funding formula allows municipal governments to count costs that are seemingly tangential to the education of a child toward the spending requirement, encouraging financial managers to write off as many costs as possible, from the parking costs of teachers in a municipal garage to the plowing of a school parking lot. Spending on education should not depend upon how much it snows in a given year, and yet currently it does. Special education costs can also unexpectedly spike during the year if individual education plans require contracting with private education providers. Some highly-specialized cases can cost a district hundreds of thousands of dollars with little accountability for the funds spent because the amount that private providers can charge has been allowed to rise faster than the special education circuit breaker reimbursements to local governments. A more direct and favorable link ought to be made between the two policies, and Massachusetts should explore how willing public school districts might provide in-house regional services more efficiently and cost-effectively for special needs students and their families. It is wise from time to time to review and revise funding formulas, if necessary, to ensure that they are working to fairly and fully support a quality education for every child.

Early Childhood Support

We know that much of the foundation for lifelong learning and success comes from the development of a child even before birth, and in the first several years before most children have entered the public education system. Massachusetts may therefore benefit from greater interdepartmental collaboration--facilitated perhaps with an elevated role for the Office of the Child Advocate--and more comprehensive support offered by the Department of Early Education and Care. Increasingly, children are raised by single parents who must struggle to balance the need to work and care for their children, or by two parents who can neither afford to stay at home nor to send their children to daycare facilities. Yet funding falls far short of the needs of parents working or in school, resulting in a long waitlist to access services. As your Lieutenant Governor, I would be a strong child advocate myself, working to ensure universal access to pre-kindergarten and pushing for a sliding-scaled child care tax credit which would be fully refundable for those most in need. Massachusetts, like most of the country, would also benefit from a state Family Medical Leave Act to fill significant gaps left by the federal unpaid parental leave law. While these kinds of policies in some cases require increased funding, they also hold the potential for significant long-term economic and social benefits.

Educating the Whole Child

Education is not a business. It cannot be run like a business, because children are simply not raw material to be churned or manufactured into functioning adult employees. Teaching to standardized tests mostly ensures only that some students get a bit better at taking tests. Is this what we want? Or do we want our children to grow into healthy and happy adults--entrepreneurial workers, thoughtful citizens, caring neighbors and nurturing parents? What we choose to measure is important. Much attention lately has been spent on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) instruction in the belief that this is the future of our economy and critical to our global competitiveness. This is largely true, and yet only part of the story. Just as important as knowledge in these rapidly developing areas, is a firm grounding in the foundational values required to appropriately apply that knowledge. A good education system ought to produce more wisdom, to guide the work of our next generation in every kind of field. It's not just about know-how, but knowing why and to what end. Because this kind of wisdom is so often transmitted to us through the arts and other experiences, it is more important than ever to ensure that the programs most likely to be cut in a difficult fiscal environment--the arts, foreign languages, music, athletics, financial literacy and civics--are kept or restored, and woven into the entire curriculum. We should strive for an education system that promotes more than rote learning, learning that is interdisciplinary, hands-on and project-based, that does limit understanding to compartmentalized fragments but to recognizing the integrated whole.

Supporting Teacher and School Innovation

While the classical goals of education remain unchanged, teaching methods can always evolve to meet the needs of students according to time and place. Rather than place more and more rigid demands on classroom instruction, Massachusetts ought to try an alternative approach of supporting more freedom and creativity among teachers and in the classroom. Punitive approaches misunderstand the differences in external and internal human motivation, seeking through external motivation to squeeze more productivity out the teaching workforce, instead of nurturing and rewarding the more common internal motivation of teachers as leaders of their classroom. A School Innovation Grant program, similar to the existing Community Innovation Grant initiative, could tap into the natural desire for improvement by funding teacher-initiated and -driven projects to encourage greater staff collaboration, parental involvement, engaging instructional innovations, and better learning environments before, during or after school hours. These could provide important examples not only within their schools, but to other schools in their district and the Commonwealth, catalyzing change from within the system, rather than relying on an unsustainable, exclusive model of change from without.

Level Playing Field

With mixed results at best, charter schools have not lived up to the promise of spurring experimentation and systemic change in public education. Moreover, the increasing presence of charter schools on an uneven playing field has threatened the ability of local school districts to equitably fund traditional schools. While some charter schools serve an important purpose within a school district's overall mission, others simply detract from that purpose, failing students in the charter school and the district alike. A revision of the current rules for charter schools could ensure that they better serve their initial intent:

o Local Approval: Each new charter school approved ought to be subject not only to review and approval by the state, but also by the local district to ensure consistency with the district's comprehensive goals and objectives.

o Teacher Certification: All teachers funded through public education ought to attain the same level of certification. All children deserve support from equally qualified professionals, not quick substitutes on the cheap.

o For Children, not For-Profits: No charter school ought to be run in order to generate profits either for the school itself or for a parent education management company.

o Fair Selection & Funding: The state annually reviews demographic data of students in each charter school, but still funds those schools with a flawed calculation of the average per pupil spending in the district, without considering subpopulations with disadvantages requiring special education, English language learning and extra support services. The result is that the traditional public schools bear a disproportionate burden with fewer resources on average than a charter school. A fairer selection methodology and a mechanism which attaches the extra funding required for educating certain subgroups would allow traditional public and charter schools to work on a level-playing field.

o Full Reimbursement: Lastly, the charter school reimbursement account ought to be fully funded so that local communities are not subject to uncontrollable costs.

Public Health Account

Currently, most of the funding for local education budgets comes from revenue raised by local property taxes and from Chapter 70 state aid. This administration has admirably kept its commitment to measured increases in state aid, as Massachusetts slowly climbs back from years of declining economic conditions and revenue. Nevertheless, cuts and layoffs resulted from the Great Recession, often to the most vulnerable programs and staff. In some communities, lunch and athletic programs suffered, with cafeteria services privatized and unemployment costs perversely covered by the stock growth of state investments in companies like Aramark. Most concerning is that the health and ability of our students to learn has been compromised by short-term thinking borne out of fiscal necessity. A new local aid Healthy Students Account to promote long-term public health could be created by segregating out a minimum per pupil level of spending on cafeteria, physical education, athletics, nurse staffing, health education and other related needs, and adding resources above that minimum level to ensure that current education costs cut in the short term do not lead to much larger health costs in the long term. Funding might also encourage active transportation to school (walking and bicycling) with more support for Safe Routes to School and Mass in Motion initiatives like "walking buses" for healthier lifestyles and reduced district transportation costs. By tapping nearly half a billion dollars in unused federal funding, and restructuring current regulations, my supplemental Local Farms to School plan can ensure that every child in elementary school has access to a nutritious breakfast and healthy start to the day. It would also ensure that as we grow the leaders of tomorrow, we can sustainably grow our local economy today.

Higher Learning

Today, fewer opportunities exist for those who have not graduated from college or university, while the costs of completing a degree continue to rise out of the reach of many students and their families. This has led to increasing economic inequality and health disparities not simply nationwide, but particularly in Massachusetts, one of the wealthiest states in America. By investing heavily in early childhood care and learning, we can certainly expand the opportunities for children later in life, but we need to do more for those already enrolled in our public education system. Continuing to invest in our community colleges can help students academically and financially cross the bridge to four-year institutions, or to further develop professional skills for positions in growing job sectors. Similarly, state government can encourage more innovation and collaboration among public high schools, community colleges and universities to make the possibility of a higher education more of a reality for our students. High schools with a flexible five-year curriculum option might better meet the needs of all its students--whether an advanced honors student or a recent immigrant with limited English proficiency. In a formalized program, advanced students could take college courses in high school to be awarded a joint high school and associate's degree after five years with the option of paying only for the last two years of a university, while students requiring more attention could be better prepared for a community college or university by learning at pace nearer to their own. Some schools already do this somewhat informally and through existing resources, but a formal initiative could reorganize programs and state rules to greatly increase the positive impact upon educational opportunity. Lastly, Massachusetts can encourage more access to higher education with merit and need-based scholarships for free or reduced tuition attached to post-graduation service requirements similar to our nation's military academies. Working through the established Commonwealth Corps and tapping into both federal and state resources, young scholars could commit to years of public or non-profit service in fields that fit their educational experiences and the most pressing needs of our Commonwealth. A program that retains our talented young people in public higher education and returns graduates to work for the public interest in our communities, could produce not only a more civic-minded citizenry, but also thriving local economies.

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