Boston Public Schools delivered the preliminary Fiscal Year 2018 budget to the Boston School Committee on February 1st. Despite the tightly controlled messaging from both the Mayor’s Office and the BPS Budget Office which promised that school level spending would increase by 3% next year, 49 schools are losing a total of $11.47 million, according to BPS’s own WSF School by Comparison spreadsheet.
The losses are staggering, especially after 3 consecutive years of similarly devastating deficits. Brighton High is losing $1 million; McCormack Middle School is losing $936,000; the Dever, the Tynan and Madison Park are all losing over $700,000 each. For a full list of schools experiencing losses this year, click here.
What is truly alarming to us is that the evisceration of our urban schools has become so commonplace that the Mayor’s Budget Office and school department didn’t even acknowledge these budget cuts at their February 1st budget presentation. Our schools are already operating on austerity budgets after 3 consecutive years of multi-million dollar losses. Donors Choose crowd-funding and parent councils deliver even the most basic schools supplies; many schools have only a part-time nurse; the cuts to Weighted Student Funding last year mean that there are more students in classrooms with fewer adults and fewer resources.
This year, like many years before, our children will lose teachers and professionals who had gained their trust. Burke High will lose 4 positions, including a librarian, an English teacher, a math teacher and a para-professional. Charlestown High, Excel High, Brighton High and the McCormack will all lose their librarian. As more BPS school libraries become unstaffed or under-staffed, we are wasting valuable resources and risking the loss of a high school’s accreditation.
Twenty three of the schools receiving budget cuts this year are categorized as DESE Level 3, eleven are Level 2, and six are Level 1. Because these cuts are related to a decline in enrollment in a choice based system, a correlation must be drawn between a school’s DESE level and their desirability to BPS families. We must consider supplemental funding interventions for schools in which higher DESE levels have a detrimental impact on funding as a result. [See our data related to losses and DESE levels here]
Of greatest concern, at least one Level 5 and six Level 4 schools will suffer from budget cuts in next year’s budget. Dorchester Academy is losing over $100,000; Channing Elementary is losing over $380,000; Grew is losing over $200,000; Winthrop is losing nearly $200,000; Madison Park is losing over $700,000. Brighton High is losing over $1 million, as well as 90% of their current teachers in an attempt to turn the school around (Excel High is also losing 90% of their current teachers). How can a school be expected to improve when they are being given less resources to do it?
We analyzed the schools funded through WSF and were shocked to discover that the current funding system means that roughly half of our schools are on the losing side of the enrollment game. In the context of this graph below and the current national conversation about school choice during the DeVos confirmation hearings, we’ll certainly be continuing the conversation about how school choice can result in the unintended consequence of under-funding the schools already facing the greatest challenges.
Contact me on Twitter @krissycabbage.
