Over the past several weeks the Recorder has provided badly needed and much appreciated coverage of the final report and recommendations issued by the state Legislature’s Rural School Commission (formally the Commission on the Fiscal Health of Rural School Districts).
This much-awaited report is the latest in a long line of state-sponsored studies that have highlighted the myriad ways in which rural education and rural communities are being short-changed. Among these are: Updating the Structure and Finance of Massachusetts Regional School Districts (2017); Fiscal Conditions in Rural Schools (2018); Special Commission on Improving Efficiencies Relative to Student Transportation (2020); and Public Infrastructure in Western Massachusetts: A Critical Need for Regional Investment and Revitalization (2021).
While each of these addressed some parts of the sustainability issue confronting rural school districts, the Report of the Rural Schools Commission ties many of these pieces together and concludes: “Many rural school students simply no longer benefit from an education with the same level of resources and breadth of opportunity as their peers in the rest of the state.”
The Report correctly identifies the heart of the problem as the state’s Foundation Budget formula, which forms the basis for the allocation of state aid to education. Using a complex calculation based largely on the demographic characteristics of each district’s enrolled students and assumptions about the costs involved in educating those various types of students, the state determines what it calls “an adequate spending level for each school district.” It then determines, based on another even more complex formula, how much each town should be able to “afford” to support its schools. The state then provides education aid to make up the difference between the “adequate” school budget (which no one in public school finance truly believes is anywhere near adequate) and what a town (or, in regional districts, towns) can “afford.”
As the Report points out, the fundamental problem with this approach is that the Foundation Budget formula is (1) based purely on annual student head count, (2) assumes a district enrollment of 2,500 students, and (3) does not account in any way for the higher per pupil costs associated with operating smaller rural school districts with significantly fewer students. The Report clearly answers the question rural districts most often hear: how come costs don’t go down as enrollment goes down? Using data from the Mass. Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), the report compares the costs for various DESE expenditure categories, finding that per pupil costs in districts with fewer than 1,300 students significantly exceed per pupil costs in districts with more than 1,300 students. In FY20:
• Administrative costs per pupil were 41.4% higher;
• Special education costs were 21.9% higher;
• Building operation and maintenance costs were 13.3% higher;
• Insurance and retirement benefit costs were 16.9% higher.
In only one DESE category (professional development) were per pupil costs lower for low enrollment districts.
These costs remain high because they bear little or no real relation to enrollment numbers. Every elementary school classroom, for example, still needs a full-time teacher whether there are 25 students in the class or 10 students. There is still a building to light, heat and maintain. There are still retiree benefits to be paid. There still needs to be a superintendent, a special education director, and a business office to deal with budgeting, payroll, accounts receivable/payable and other essential back office functions. These costs do not change with enrollment.
After almost two years of research and — very importantly — direct conversations with rural administrators, educators, facilities directors and town officials, the report makes eight key recommendations, among them:
• Increasing annual aid to rural schools from the FY23 level of $5.5 million to an annual appropriation of at least $60 million and changing the formula for aid distribution to provide the most help to districts that most need it.
• Changing the way the state reimburses districts for transportation costs, which are particularly onerous for large, sparsely populated rural districts.
• Providing additional incentives for greater regionalization (where possible) and shared service agreements to achieve broader efficiencies.
• Changing how and when extraordinary special education costs are reimbursed.
• Shifting responsibility for school choice tuitions to the state once a district loses more than 10% of its students to the school choice program. This is of key importance to rural districts where inadequate (enrollment-based) funding leads to a vicious cycle of program cuts, which lead to additional students “choicing out,” which lead to further cuts in funding …
The issuance of this report, while critical, is only a first step. As we have seen with the many “rural reports” that have some before, nothing will change unless the commission’s recommendations are translated into meaningful legislation. Fortunately, area legislators — led by commission co-chairs (retiring) Sen. Adam Hinds and Rep. Natalie Blais — have been long and strong advocates for rural schools. But they cannot make progress alone. Parents, educators, taxpayers, town officials and school committee representatives across western Massachusetts need to read and share this report, become familiar with the data its presents, and advocate aggressively to make these recommendations a reality. (You can find the report at: https://malegislature.gov/Commissions/Detail/510/Documents.) In particular, the co-chairs of the Legislature’s Joint Education Committee, Sen. Jason Lewis and Rep. Alice Peisch, need to hear all of our voices.
Rural schools in Massachusetts are facing imminent financial crisis. We do not have much time.
Sheryl Stanton is the superintendent of Mohawk Trail Regional School District and Martha Thurber is chairwoman of the Mohawk Trail School Committee.