The 2006 Education Aid Reform

Starting in Fiscal 2002, the state moved away from reliance on the statutory Chapter 70 formula, distributing education aid based on annually changing formulas written into outside Section 3 of the annual general appropriations act. It was increasingly recognized that, although Chapter 70 had been fairly successful in reducing disparities in education spending, it was …

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Education Aid in the Financial Crunch

During the financial crunch, the state abandoned some formula elements that were designed to better match aid to community ability to pay. The result over the past four years has been an erratic pattern of aid increases which does not treat communities of similar wealth in similar ways. An additional feature of the erratic pattern …

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What’s wrong with Chapter 70?

The three pages linked to at the bottom of this page explore the implementation of the education aid reforms of 2006 through the financial crunch and consider alternative implementations for FY2013 and beyond. Education aid was formerly distributed to communities pursuant to Chapter 70 of the General Laws and “Chapter 70” is still shorthand for …

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What’s your take on the Governor’s new plan for the community colleges?

Does it make sense to you?  It seems very narrow in focus to me.  It seems that it would allow a very important segment of our higher education system to be ruled by the interests of businesses – primarily businesses in the Boston area.  There also seems to be a focus on creating “schools” that …

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