Thursday, the Massachusetts Senate unanimously passed the Student Opportunity Act, an unprecedented $1.4 billion new investment over the next seven years in K-12 public education. This legislation ensures public schools have adequate resources to provide high-quality education to students across the state, regardless of zip code or income level.

The Student Opportunity Act significantly helps school districts that serve high concentrations of low-income students. All school districts will benefit from updates to the existing funding formula, along with increased state investment in school construction and renovation, and special education. The bill passed 39-0.

“Every child deserves an equal opportunity for an excellent education,” said Senator Pat Jehlen (D-Somerville). “Our commonwealth needs all our citizens to be well prepared. This bill is welcome and overdue. I’m grateful to legislative leaders for all their work and their commitment to stay the course on this reform.”

In 2015, Senator Jehlen served on the Foundation Budget Review Commission (FBRC). The Student Opportunity Act fully implements its recommendations of ensuring that the school funding formula provides adequate and equitable funding to all districts across the state.

The bill provides an at least $1.4 billion in new Chapter 70 aid above inflation when fully implemented over the next seven years. The bill modernizes K-12 education funding:

• Estimates school districts’ employee and retiree health care costs using trend data collected by the state’s Group Insurance Commission (GIC).
• Increases special education enrollment and cost assumptions to more accurately reflect district enrollment.
• Increases funding for English learners (EL).
• Addresses the needs of districts educating high concentrations of students from low-income households by:

o   Districts educating the largest percentage of low-income students will receive an additional increment equal to 100% of the base foundation;

o   Returning the definition of low-income to 185% of the Federal Poverty Level, as opposed to the 133% level that has been used in recent years.

In addition to implementing the FBRC’s recommended formula changes, the Student Opportunity Act provides additional state financial support in several areas:

• Increasing foundation rates for guidance and psychological services
• A commitment to fully funding charter school tuition reimbursement
• Expanding the special education circuit breaker, which reimburses districts for extraordinary special education costs, to include transportation costs in addition to instructional cost.
• Raising the annual cap on Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) spending, for construction and renovation from $600 million to 800 million, enabling more projects to receive assistance.

In order to track and reproduce successful school and district-level innovations and policies, the legislation calls on school districts to develop and make publicly available plans for closing opportunity gaps. The Secretary of Education will collect and publish data on student preparedness in each district for post-graduate success in college and the workforce.

An amendment filed by Sen. Jehlen was adopted on a unanimous roll call vote. The amendment strengthened local accountability by clarifying the important role that parents on school improvement councils, special education parent advisory councils, and English learner parent advisory councils have a role in making school and district plans.  In addition, the amendment clarified that school funding cannot be withheld if the district does not meet its improvement targets.

These plans will include specific goals and metrics (both input resources and outcomes) to track success. “It’s really important for parents to not just be audiences, but to be active participants in decision making, that is what will make the difference,” said Senator Jehlen.

The legislation now moves to the Massachusetts House of Representatives for their consideration.

— Office of State Senator Patricia D. Jehlen