Education Legislation

HD #2634 “The MCAS Reform Bill”

An Act to Enhance the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System to Ensure that all High School Graduates meet the State’s Standards

Lead Sponsors:  Representative Carl Sciortino and Senator Pam Resor

This bill directs the board of education to create a High School Graduation Requirements Committee which will be given the responsibility of developing a multiple assessment system to determine student competence.  It will ensure that multiple formats and measures be used to gauge competence, and provides for students who do not meet minimum standardized test scores the opportunity to offset their scores with other measures of performance.  Finally, it provides that, until the committee develops and implements the new graduation requirements, no student shall be denied a diploma for failing to obtain a passing score on the MCAS.

Budget Priorities

Amend Chapter 70 Formula to set a new minimum foundation for all students in the Commonwealth.

This budget priority would modify the FY08 Chapter 70 aid formula to provide a minimum of $2000 per student for every student in the Commonwealth no matter where they live.  This $2000 baseline or “floor” in dollar amounts would reverse the minimum percentage calculation used in the current formula increasing aid to cities and towns as well as give school districts a dollar figure to better plan and budget prior to town meetings and municipal planning deadlines.  Additionally, this should not penalize communities that pass an override.  Finally, this priority would continue to include an inflationary factor for annual increases to chapter 70 that is equal to the average costs of increases in wages, pensions, and health insurance.

Line Item: 7061-0012

Circuit Breaker Reimbursement for Special Education

This budget request would increase SPED Circuit Breaker funding from 75% to 80%.  Additionally, it would expand the pilot transportation program from $300,000 to $600,000 allowing more incentive start-up grants for educational collaboratives across the Commonwealth.  Finally, this budget priority would increase from $3,000,000 to $6,000,000 the earmark for districts with extraordinary increases in SPED costs associated with students who move into communities after municipal and school budgets are approved by the local governmental body.    

Line Item: 7035-0006

Regional School Transportation

This budget request would increase funding to regional schools for transportation reimbursement to $60,000,000, and increase of $4,500,000.  Senator Resor is pleased that in the past two years we have been able to increase funding in this account, but these levels still fail to reach the 100% mandate the state pledged to fund in the 1960s and reaffirmed in the late 1990s.  During the last five years, the underlying transportation expenses, and particularly fuel costs, have risen substantially.