Thread by @TracyNovick

You know, it’s a crying shame how much of a deficit of information these columns start from bostonglobe.com/2021/07/17/met…

I mean, there’s literally stacks of information, from the Foundation Budget Review Commission report, to the district reports post-FBRC that got SOA passed, that show exactly what districts are missing.

Now, to be fair, that’s pretty much been blown off by the state, too: thus DESE’s “proven strategies” list, which is really just “a list of things Commissioner Riley thinks are cool.”

If you’re not starting from the literally thousands of teachers missing in Gateway classrooms, the millions of dollars in maintenance backlogs, the persistent underfunding of supplies budgets, then honestly you’re missing the actual gaps.

Whizz-bang programs may check boxes for the Commissioner, but they aren’t why districts needed the money.

I’m glad this talked to some districts, but I’ve said before and I’ll say again: the Globe needs to expand their Rolodex.

I mean, if you’ve followed me for a bit, you’ve seen these charts before, but if you take the *state’s* calculations of legally adequate and you compare them to actual district spending, you get this:

Brockton: millions of dollars short, hundreds of teachers missing

Holyoke: millions of dollars short, more than a hundred teachers missing

Springfield: millions of dollars short, hundreds of teachers missing

And damn straight Worcester:

This isn’t rocket science; it’s what happens when the districts that don’t have additional local resources keep up with health insurance and special education costs. THIS WAS THE POINT OF THE FOUNDATION BUDGET REVIEW COMMISSION.

Look, were it me who’d voted SOA?

I’d be asking how dare the Commissioner fritter away his oversight on pet projects when we have districts that are desperately short teachers and have millions of dollars in maintenance and operations they’re out.

The above, BTW, are from the Tale of Four Cities: dropbox.com/s/pbdj2dxxd0az… #FBRC

As someone on a Committee on the “other” (I assume?) side of the “Great Divide” this branch of the Globe is supposed to be covering, I’m appalled at how often they miss what the divide actually is.

The thing is, no one is looking over the shoulders of wealthier districts on where they put *their* “extra” money, because it is seen as *theirs*—I am going to tell you right now: they aren’t going to the programs the Commissioner is pushing.