Thread by @TracyNovick

Okay, #MAEdu, let's talk FY22 and the Student Opportunity Act:

https://twitter.com/massmunicipal/status/1352682857756504064

First up:

The FIRST year, Governor Baker?

This is the second year of SOA implementation: you're missing one.

So, are we going to do this in six years, or are we just going to kick the can ANOTHER year on kids?

Remember, school funding is builds on prior years.

We never get that missing funding back.

Also: what are the base numbers being used?

Is the Governor dropping enrollment, even though we all know that was an artificial drop?

There's a decent chance that a WHOLE bunch of those kindergartner and preschoolers are going to be back this fall if we manage to get kids into buildings, PLUS we'll have the USUAL enrollment of preK and K!

...and less funding than usual?

Next up: low income count.

No, you don't get to up the count of kids and NOT increase the AMOUNT the 1/7th or 1/6th of the way to the goal.
Let's not play that game this year.

There being more kids who are low income doesn't mean that each kid should see less implementation of the full funding needed.

Oh, and do we know how many low income children there are *really* in the Commonwealth right now?

In short: I'm approaching this framing with skepticism, given the past history of the Governor's framing on education funding (and...everything else).

This is absolutely not the time to underfund public education, particularly state-dependent public education, particularly education for the kids hardest hit by the pandemic.

I've been less than impressed with the state's handling of the pandemic already; adding half measures on SOA will only make it all worse.

and with that, we'll await Wednesday...#MAEdu

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