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Wonky but Revealing: Cutting Class, a report from MassBudget on the problems--visible and hidden--with the public education funding formula here in the great state of Massachusetts.


The Executive Summary gets the main points, but there are many nuggets throughout the whole text.  Key takeaways: There are some structural and some situational issues with the "foundation budget" for school systems--what  schools spend on their system, minimum, which differs from district to district depending on number of low-income students, distribution of elementary vs. middle vs. high school students, and so forth.

Structural: the formula was set based on 1993 figures, which weren't adjusted once it was signed into law in 1994, thus always lowballing district needs.

Situational: health care costs and special-ed costs are higher than what you might expect.  Many reasons for both, mostly understandable.  The result: districts pull money that could be used for regular ed teachers and other services to fund their legal obligations to special-ed and employee benefits.

Circumlocutionary: By "the great state of Massachusetts," I actually mean, "the Bay State," "the citizens of the great state I governed," or "home," depending on which version you prefer from what Romney used in his victory parity speech tonight.  By my count he did mention the state's name twice, but it was listening to him get around having to say "great" and "Massachusetts" in the same sound-bite-bound sentence was almost as painful as, well, as listening to him speak in general.

By "home," he expanded by way of saying, "It's nice to be home for the first time in two months."  Hmmm.  Hasn't been in Massachusetts in a while?  As my mother might say, that's sort of how he governed.

Policy Takeaway for the Week: It's likely the only major legislation to get through the Massachusetts Statehouse before summer is the budget, and a bill to contain health-care costs.

First reaction: man, that's slow.  Why doesn't anything ever get accomplished in politics?

Second reaction: considering how much health care eats up the state budget, a health-care bill is an education bill, a transportation bill, a community-development bill.  In theory--the devil will be in the details, of course.