Kudos to state Rep. Natalie Blais and state Sen. Adam Hinds for continuing to showcase problems in the state’s Chapter 70 aid formula (3/29 “Local officials say state education budget deficient, hurts rural districts”). State Sen. Jo Comerford also deserves thanks for her work on this issue. As Mohawk Trail School Committee chairwoman Martha Thurber noted, small (usually rural) districts that have been “held harmless” because of declining enrollment are ill-served by the state aid formula. That’s because the state thinks it’s doing the districts a favor by level-funding their education aid when the formula says they should be getting less, but the reality is that the districts don’t cost less to operate (in fact, like everything else, they usually cost more). As a result, districts often have to make cuts, which can then trigger further enrollment declines. It becomes a vicious cycle. State education officials’ preferred response has been to recommend forming larger districts, but even when that’s possible a bigger district with declining enrollment still has the same problem. A more effective solution would be to recognize that smaller districts necessarily cost more per student to operate, and to fund them accordingly, but there hasn’t been enough serious support in Boston for doing that. The Student Opportunity Act was a wonderful and welcome effort, but it didn’t address this basic problem. Our local legislators do “get it,” and they are doing their best to shine a light on this issue, but until state education officials and others get serious about the realities of funding education in an environment of declining enrollment, small districts will continue to be under-funded and their member towns will be left to deal with the consequences.
Mike Naughton
Millers Falls