Not just numbers on a page: The impact of underfunding on children and education workers across the state

SELWYN Contributed photo/Trish Crapo
Published: 01-31-2025 9:41 AM |
Massachusetts Senate President Karen Spilka recently stated that she was hearing from senators around the state that schools within their districts were badly underfunded and so it was time to re-examine the state’s approach to funding, which is welcome news. I hope that President Spilka and her colleagues take the time to listen to and take seriously the stories that those actually working in the schools have to tell about the impact of underfunding on the children and education workers across the state. It is one thing to look at funding formulas, and quite another to realize that the numbers on the page carry a real impact on the lives of real children. That became very clear to me at a recent Zoom on educational funding.
At that forum, after an hour or more looking at the state funding formula, cost of living statistics, and pages filled with numbers, I asked one of the superintendents on the Zoom to talk about what it meant to her students, her educators, and to her to be perpetually underfunded. That question unleashed an impassioned response, as the superintendent poured out the pain, frustration and lived experience of trying to serve all of the district’s children while lacking the necessary personnel, resources, and time to meet their needs.
As she spoke, it became clear to me that we need to listen first to those who are involved — educators, students and families — if we are going to make effective change. I decided to interview a number of education leaders, in and out of Franklin County, to hear their stories about their schools. While each district has its own unique strengths, challenges, and student populations, there was much agreement among the leaders I spoke with, and that’s what I will share next.
I first asked what the superintendents wanted their students to take with them when they graduated, what they hoped the students had gained from their time in the school district. The responses were consistent; they wanted the students to have gained the knowledge, confidence and skills that would enable them to live productive and joyful lives. They wanted their students to have a broader and deeper appreciation of the larger world, including an awareness of its problems and inequities, and a willingness to act to make things better for themselves and for those around them. They wanted students to leave with basic skills in reading, math, and critical thinking so that they could carry out research on their questions and interests, take care of their personal finances and make sense of (and sort out) information from misinformation. They wanted them to be able to communicate and work with others, to have civic awareness, and to live meaningful lives.
The educational leaders I spoke with echoed what the superintendent stated in our Zoom meeting. There was not enough money or time (that money buys) to allow them to do their work. Their teachers did not have time to really get to know their students as people, to build relationships. There was not enough time for the teachers to plan together, to coordinate their approaches to particular students or subject areas. There was neither time nor money for necessary professional development through the year, which was especially crucial because some of those they were hiring had little or no experience with children. There was high turnover, especially in the poorest districts since they could not offer teachers or paraprofessionals enough of a salary to keep them from year to year, and there was no consistency in the funding they could expect from the state, which made long-term planning very difficult. There was neither time nor money enough for the district personnel to sit together to develop a coherent, powerful strategic plan; they were too busy putting out fires and racing to the next crisis.
The superintendents also expressed their concerns about how many children were coming to school with serious academic, social and emotional needs, with many classrooms almost half full of students needing special services. The teachers were not prepared to meet the severity of the needs in their rooms and the districts could not hire enough specialists to meet those needs.
They also talked about the aging buildings in which many of them worked, making it impossible to give students experience with the latest technology, such as 3D printers, that are currently in use in the fields and that are available in many private schools and wealthier public schools. One of the goals of the educational leaders is to give their students experience in a range of fields and disciplines so they can make informed choices about what they want to pursue after graduation, but the schools can’t provide those experiences.
More than half the districts in Massachusetts do not receive enough money from the state to match the constantly rising costs for transportation, insurance, special education, technology, or salaries. Positions remain unfilled, there are not enough substitutes, so paras are teaching classes, and teachers are paying for supplies out of their own pockets. At the same time, schools are becoming de facto social service agencies, responding to the needs their students are bringing with them. They are facing overwhelming challenges that worsen by the day. What can we do?
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First, we have to realize that we have created this situation through the decisions our elected officials have made over the years. Despite the fact that we are one of the wealthiest states in one of the wealthiest countries in the history of the world, we have set up a public education system that is failing too many of our children. We can and must do better.
Our challenge is to help our elected decision makers to see the human impact of the budget decisions they make, to do what that superintendent made us see and feel as she described the impact of underfunding on her students and her educators. We are putting the lives and futures of our young people at risk if we short-change the education we are responsible for providing, which in turn puts our own futures at risk. We are fortunate that our local legislators do understand this and have worked hard to provide more resources for the schools, and they have been able to bring about some change, but so much more is needed.
This is, at its heart, not an educational funding question, because funding is only the means towards achieving what we have decided is worth doing. The question is, what do we want for all of our children. How do we keep all kids in our minds and in our hearts as we make our budget decisions? And how do we stop accepting as regrettable but necessary the consequences of the decisions we make that hurt kids, as if there is nothing else we can do? We’ve been doing that for too long. It is good to hear that Senate President Spilka is ready to have the legislature take another look at public education in Massachusetts.
Doug Selwyn taught at K-12 public schools from 1985 until 2000 and then at university as a professor of education until he retired in 2017. He is the chair of the Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution education task force. You can reach him at dougselwyn12@gmail.com.