Senate Unanimously Passes Student Opportunity Act

Press Release from the Senate President’s Office:

Today, the Massachusetts Senate unanimously passed the Student Opportunity Act, an unprecedented $1.5 billion new investment in Massachusetts 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. Assuming inflation, over time the bill could provide an estimated $2.2 billion.

The Student Opportunity Act significantly helps school districts that serve high concentrations of low-income students. At the same time, school districts across the Commonwealth will benefit from updates to the existing funding formula, along with increased state investment in other vital education aid programs such as transportation, school construction and renovation and special education. The bill passed 39-0.

“With the passage of the Student Opportunity Act, the Senate is reaffirming its commitment to the idea that providing a quality public education is not a luxury—it is both our greatest responsibility and our greatest opportunity as a state,” said Senate President Karen E. Spilka (D-Ashland).  “I am proud of the diligent and thoughtful work done by Senator Jason Lewis, the education committee and the Senate, as well as the tireless work and advocacy done by students, parents, teachers, administrators, advocates and others to bring this bill to fruition. Massachusetts made a commitment to public education in the 18th century, and today we are much closer to bringing that commitment into the 21st century to meet the needs of students today. I look forward to this bill passing the House and becoming law.”

“Access to a high-quality public education is a fundamental right for every child, and that’s why the Student Opportunity Act will make an unprecedented $1.5 billion investment in our public schools, ensuring that school districts across the Commonwealth have adequate and equitable resources to provide all students, especially those facing adversity, with a high-quality public education,” said Senator Jason Lewis, Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on Education (D-Winchester). “The passage of the Student Opportunity Act today marks a bold step into the 21st century for our public schools of Massachusetts and for all future generations of students.”

Taking into account these new investments, policy updates and the needs of all types of districts, the Student Opportunity Act creates new ways to monitor and measure progress, support effective approaches to closing opportunity gaps, and deliver results for all students.

“Ensuring equal and adequate funding for the education of future generations is one of the most important issues we face as lawmakers. The Student Opportunity Act takes bold steps to close the achievement gap by implementing the recommendations of the Foundation Budget Review Commission and increasing funding for all school districts,” said Senator Joan B. Lovely (D-Salem), Senate Vice Chair of the Joint Committee on Education (D-Salem). “I appreciate the hard work that Chair Lewis, President Spilka, Chair Rodrigues, and my Committee colleagues put into crafting this historic, once-in-a-generation bill.”

The Student Opportunity Act fully implements the recommendations of the 2015 Foundation Budget Review Commission (FBRC) ensuring that the school funding formula provides adequate and equitable funding to all districts across the state. The bill provides an estimated $1.4 billion in new Chapter 70 aid over and above inflation when fully implemented over the next seven years. The bill modernizes the K-12 education funding and policy landscape in four areas:

• Estimates school districts’ employee and retiree health care costs using up to date health insurance 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) that is differentiated by grade level to reflect the greater resources required to educate our older EL students.
• Addresses the needs of districts educating high concentrations of students from low-income households by:
  • Providing additional funding based on the share of low-income students in each district; districts educating the largest percentage of low-income students will receive an additional increment equal to 100% of the base foundation;
  • 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 categories to help public schools and communities deliver a high-quality education to every student. Those fiscal supports include:

• Increasing foundation rates for guidance and psychological services in recognition of the growing need for expanded social-emotional support and mental health services.
• A commitment to fully funding charter school tuition reimbursement, which provide transitional aid to help districts when students leave to attend charter schools, within a three-year timetable.
• Expanding over four years the special education circuit breaker, which reimburses districts for extraordinary special education costs, to include transportation costs in addition to instructional cost.
• Raising, as the result of a further amendment, the annual cap on Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA)spending, for construction and renovation by $200 million (from $600 million to 800 million) , enabling more projects across the state to be accepted into the MSBA funding pipeline, which reimburses towns and cities for a portion of school building costs. 

In addition to new funding and other support, the Student Opportunity Act establishes the 21^st Century Education Trust Fund to provide districts and school’s access to flexible funding to pursuing creative approaches to student learning and district improvement.

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. These plans will include specific goals and metrics to track success. In addition, the Secretary of Education will collect and publish data on student preparedness in each district for post-graduate success in college and the workforce. 

Moreover, the Student Opportunity Act establishes a Data Advisory Commission to help improve the use of data at the state, district, and school levels to inform strategies that strengthen teaching, learning and resource allocation.

Following robust debate on the floor, the Senate also adopted several amendments to the Student Opportunity Act related to recovery high schools, Massachusetts School Building Authority and municipal fiscal challenges related to Ch70.

• Directs the Department of Revenue (DOR) and DESE to analyze the method of determining required local contributions in the Chapter 70 school funding formula for the purpose of improving equity, predictability and accuracy; and
• Establishes a Rural Schools Commission to investigate the unique challenges facing rural and regional school districts with low and declining enrollment. The Commission will make recommendations for further updates to help impacted districts and communities.

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