The deep cuts slated for Boston high schools in this year’s city budget have sparked activism among students and parents, including packed school committee meetings, walk-in demonstrations at City Hall and the State House and a picket line at Mayor Martin Walsh’s State of the City address.
The budget pits the parent activists and students against the Walsh administration in what has become in many ways a war of numbers, with the sheer size of the city’s $1.027 billion school budget being deployed by officials and parent groups to reach radically different conclusions.
In a BPS Power Point presentation, department officials assert that this year’s budget is the largest in the city’s history.
“This is true,” Charlestown High administrator Sung-Joon Pai wrote in an email that circulated among teachers and parents. “However, it is like saying that 2016 is the highest numerical year ever. Our budget should be larger every year.”
As Pai pointed out, the $13.5 million increase in school funding over last year — a 1.35 percent bump — is $25 million less than last year’s $38 million increase, and not in keeping with the schools’ rising costs.
At the same time, the city’s increased tax revenue from new housing and office space which last year added $47.5 million to the city’s tax rolls, on top of the $46.7 million in increases the city has levied on existing properties — has many activists questioning the city’s motives in dishing out a budget that spreads cuts across virtually all of the city’s high schools.
By the numbers
$1.027 billion – fiscal year 2017 school budget
$13.5 million – increase in funding over last year
$38 million – 2016 increase over 2015 funding
$94.3 million – 2015 increase in City of Boston tax revenue
$400 million – inflation-adjusted decline in state’s Chapter 70 funds to Mass. schools (2002-2015)
“I don’t know the answer,” said Mary Battenfeld, an activist with the parent group Quality Education for Every Student. “I do know it’s not because we don’t have the resources. We do have the resources.”
In community forums and School Committee meetings, the students, parents and teachers of high school students have given hours of testimony on the benefits of programs that are due to be cut under the current budget — foreign languages, SAT preparatory classes, librarian positions at most schools, Advance Placement courses.
“More than 200 people will be laid off,” said City Councilor Tito Jackson.
Jackson and other city councilors are holding a series of meetings on the school budgets, soliciting testimony from community members. While the councilors do not have the power to add funds to departmental budgets, they can vote up or down on the mayor’s budget.
“A budget is a values statement,” said City Councilor Matt O’Malley, speaking during a budget meeting in Jamaica Plain Monday. “We need to demonstrate our commitment to public education. It is expensive in Boston. We have kids who are a lot more expensive to educate than those in other school districts.”
One group requiring resources are English language learners, a group that has grown in Boston from 10,923 in 2010 to 16,228 this year, notes Battenfeld.
Sam Tyler, president of the Boston Municipal Finance Research Bureau, says rising payroll costs are forcing cuts. He notes that the city’s school funding has remained more or less constant, constituting 35 percent of overall municipal spending.
At the same time, BPS employees — teachers, paraprofessionals and administrators — receive contractual pay increases that are pushing up operational cost. Meanwhile, during the administrations of former Mayor Thomas Menino and under current Mayor Walsh (2012-2015), BPS hired 737 new employees, increasing its workforce by 9.1 percent.
By August, unions representing school department employees will negotiate a new contract, Tyler notes.
“The cost of that contract will be added to this year’s budget,” he said.
But Battenfeld says the teachers’ salaries are a red herring in this year’s budget, given the sheer scale of the overall numbers. While scheduled salary increases account for $20 million, this year’s budget increase is $25 million lower than last year’s.
“So much of this year’s budget is being blamed on teacher salaries, it’s hard not to see it as connected to the teacher contract,” Battenfeld said.
If there one thing all sides in the debate over school funding seem to agree on, it’s the fact that costs are rising. At the same time, federal funding and the state’s Chapter 70 education aid have been declining. The Chapter 70 funding, which the state provides to all cities and towns, has declined by $400 million since 2001, according to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center.
The students, parents and teachers who are turning out at meetings across the city make a compelling case to the council, noted O’Malley.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in terms of parents and teachers coming together,” he said. “The BPS communities have taken a one-for-all approach. We’re seeing a more cohesive BPS community.”
