Loss of students is among concerns as councillors put hold on education budget (update)
Click to see the $151 million proposed school district budget for fiscal year 2014.
The $151 million school district budget ran into trouble Thursday, with five city councillors voting to keep it in committee instead of sending it to the full council for a vote.
Councillors Leland Cheung, Craig Kelley, Denise Simmons and Minka vanBeuzekom voted against the proposed budget. Tim Toomey voted “present.” Ken Reeves left for another appointment before the 4 p.m. Finance Committee’s public hearing reached a vote.
With only three councillor votes in favor – Mayor Henrietta Davis, committee chairwoman Marjorie Decker and David Maher – the budget remains with the Finance Committee for more talk with School Committee members and district and city staff. The next hearing was to be at 9 a.m. Thursday if necessary, with this vote likely making it necessary.
The reasons for keeping the budget in committee varied.
“I’m concerned about kids leaving for charter schools, which could cost us as much as $10 million next year, ineffective programs like the High School Extension, very high out-of-district placements and the lack of multiple, objective measures of narrowing the achievement gap laid out in the budget,” vanBeuzekom said.
Some of Kelley’s reasons overlapped. He said in an e-mail to parents that he had a long list of concerns and wanted, among other things, “to see CPS take a much more aggressive stance in figuring out why we’re losing students to other schools and districts and to charter schools (about 390 kids for a cost of something like $9 million to $11 million, depending on the state’s reimbursement formula) … and I’d like a budget that explains why if, as the superintendent said, we’re spending the right amount of money on education, we’re getting the results that we get.”
He also repeated a longtime complaint: That the budget didn’t go into detail on how money was spent. That position got support from Cheung, who said the city manager was obliged to deliver answers that were data-driven and focused on outcomes, “and we need to look at the school budget through the same lens.”
“A lot of questions were raised during discussion that I don’t think received sufficient or appropriate answers from the superintendent,” Cheung said. “I’m not prescribing any particular program or remedy … but there are a litany of things people have talked about for years and years and that were not even addressed.”
When Superintendent Jeffrey Young was pressed on the topic of offering universal early childhood education – there is now a pre-kindergarten program offered to some parents by lottery, with those losing the lottery having no public options – “he said we’re going to think about it in two to three years,” Cheung said. “We’re building now. We’re projecting a quarter-billion dollars in [school construction costs] and you haven’t even thought about how to encompass it?”
Educator response
Marc McGovern, vice chairman of the School Committee and a candidate for council in November, called the vote “unprecedented” and urged parents to contact the opposing councillors to urge them to pass the district budget, which was approved last month by the School Committee after an eight-month process of community meetings, discussion among teachers, principals, administrators and staff, budget subcommittee meetings and discussion by the full membership.
“In the several weeks since the School Committee passed the budget, none of these councillors contacted members of the committee or administration to ask questions or express concerns. This was a complete blindside to the public school community,” McGovern said in an e-mail to parents.
Young’s office, when asked about next steps for the budget, referred questions to the School Committee. Messages were left with McGovern, chairman Fred Fantini and Davis who, as mayor, runs the School Committee as well as the council. Messages were also left with each councillor voting against moving the budget to the full council.
McGovern felt the decision came without adequate public explanation and worried that “politics and personality conflicts” played a role in threatening a budget that included such things as increased funding for special education, community outreach, speech and language specialists, school psychologists and an additional Special Start class.
Forward
“I am confident that we can all agree on a strategy to both pass this year’s budget and make improvements, to the budget and to our kids’ education, in future years,” Kelley said. He looked forward to a meeting in the coming weeks that might give “a better understanding of how this budget proposal fits in with the educational and fiscal realities of the city.”
The city’s entire proposed $507 million budget – of which education is the largest line item, at about 30 percent – must be adopted by June 5. The council was projected to adopt it May 20.
Because the School Committee crafts its budget independently, the council can only vote it up or down. But councillors said they would take the time they were allowed to get answers.
“We have a fiduciary responsibility to the city and to ensure every child who graduates has the the tools to succeed in whatever field they choose to pursue,“ Cheung said. “And there are clear deficiencies in the school system. We’re partners with you [in the school district]. Just tell us what’s needed.”
This post was updated May 10,2013, with Cheung’s comments.
I want to address the issues raised by Minka and Craig. First let me say that I applaud them for at least saying why they voted against the budget. I have yet to hear explanations from the other councilors.
1. Charter Schools: Our charter school enrollment has been essentially the same. Families choose charter schools for their children for a variety of reasons; some based on the public schools and some not. Voting down the budget will not, in any way, help retain students in the Cambridge Public Schools.
2. Minka called the High School Extention Program “ineffective”. I ask her to publicly clarify that statement. What does she know about this program? I have never seen her at any of the graduations, listening to the students and families talk about how this program saved their child’s education. Has she ever visited the program? Has she spoken to the principal?
3. Out-of-District Placemnts: I have worked with children in this population for 20 years. Many children need services that the public schools cannot provide. We should applaud the fact that Cambridge, unlike other communities, looks at the needs of their special education children first, rather then denying them services because of money. Again, Minka makes these claims with little to no knowledge about the issue.
4. Craigs comment that he is confident that we can pass this years budget and make improvements to the budget, makes me wonder if he knows that the City Council can only vote the budget up or down. They cannot decide where money goes. That is the job of the School Committee.
These issues may be of concern to these Councilors but what they did last night was insulting to the parents, teachers, and administrators of this district who worked for months to develop a budget. This was not leadership.
Marc McGovern
Cambridge School Committee
One other topic for Minka. She stated that she is concerned about controlled choice and that Fletcher Maynard Academy is mostly children of color. My question is if this is such a concern, so much so that Minka will vote down the budget which includes money for a new autism classroom, school psychologists, inclusion specialists etc, why hasn’t she attended the close to a dozen meetings we have held on controlled choice over the past year? I wonder if she has read the incredibly detailed reports on controlled choice that we have put out (thanks to Alice Turkel and Fred Fantini)? I certainly didn’t see her at our last Tuesday night meeting when we went over at least 20 recommendations on possible ways to improve controlled choice.
I had the misfortune of seeing some of the City Council hearing on the school budget. It was an embarrassing spectacle. I did not hear a single sensible question and most of the remarks were incoherent or deeply ill-informed or both. No one stated any coherent reason, symbolic or otherwise, for rejecting the budget as a whole, or for making any particular change to it and yet it was voted down. The mix of irresponsibility, obstructionism, and willful ignorance was remarkable, but what I was really amazed by was the deep disrespect that the “opponents” showed for the schools, the school committee, the system’s staff and administrators. If I didn’t know better I would think that I was seeing Republicanism in action.
The stream is available on the City website. Take a look and join me in thanking God we have a City Manager form of government!
Last Thursday, I left the City Council’s School Budget Hearing confident that the School Department’s Budget request would move along to the final vote in a few weeks. It did not. I was surprised, but did not think it was a “blindside” or a result of “personality conflicts” or “lack of leadership”,”irresponsible”, “obstructionist”, “ignorant”, “insulting”, or “disrespectful”. One characterization I do agree with is that it was “political”. And in the best sense of the word, that is exactly as it should be.
The dollar spent on a couple of minute’s worth of teaching takes a complicated path from taxpayer to child. The Budget Hearing is an essential part of that pathway and assures that public debate, when needed, occurs.
The fact that public debate rarely occurs is no excuse to avoid it when it happens. And if you’re having the debate, make your questions clear, and your answers helpful.
I have been involved with the Cambridge Public Schools since I moved back to the City over 13 years ago. We have always spent a considerable amount more per pupil than the majority of other cities and towns. It’s fair to ask for goals, how the money is being spent and measurable results.
I understand the frustration when questions been asked and answered before, but you need to take a sabbatical if you’re tired of giving the answers. Any teacher will tell you that.
Tom,
You are completely missing the point. No one said that we didn’t want to answer questions or that there shouldn’t be public debate. No one said that the Council didn’t have a right to ask questions about how the budget was being spent. The point was that those weren’t the types of questions they asked. No one said, “I’m voting against the budget because I think we spend too much money per pupil” or “I’m voting against the budget because we need to spend more on special education.” That would be understandable.
The Supt and his team answered every question that was asked. What couldn’t be answered was promised to be followed up on. So this isn’t about limiting public debate, Lord knows, we had months of public debate at the SC. So don’t try to wrap this into your political campaign of “non-transparency”. There was plenty of opportunity for the Council or anyone else to contribute to this process.
And I’m not sue how you can say it wasn’t a blindside? According to the dictionary to be “blindsided” means: “To catch or take unawares, especially with harmful or detrimental results”. None of these Councilors expressed any concerns prior to the meeting, not only during the months leading up to the budget being voted on by the SC but in the several weeks since its passing. Not one of these Councilors made a phone call, wrote an email or pulled any one of us aside to say that they had concerns. It was the definition of a “blindside”.
Does anyone know why we spend 26k+ per student? Other municipalities (I’m looking at you Brookline) spend roughly 10k less and do just fine. Just an honest question that has nothing to do with my candidacy for the 2013 election cycle.
That being said I’ve witnessed in the past couple of years several major decisions hit the floor that have been completely messed up by a city council that likes to chime in at the last second. On the face of it they look lazy. It seems typical to take no interest, do no homework, and then ask the most asinine question yo can think of at the time of decision or simply vote “No” because no one sent you flower basket.
If this was a political move they’ve all screwed up bad. I wonder why Minks and Simms didn’t feel the need for a “What should I do”-esque op ed. or the “Why I voted No on X” piece that followed the MIT bid. Maybe they thought it more important to justify publicly why they voted to stop Kendall’s future than to stall the future of the children attending public schools? (Hows that for political spin?) I can’t wait to run …
Short answer on cost: We have the money — as a municipality we are much richer than Brookline because of all the new commercial development around Kendall. And we have a much more difficult educational challenge because our school population includes many more children from disadvantaged families. About 45% of Cambridge’s students are eligible for free and reduced lunch as opposed to less than 15% in the Brookline system. So part of the school population is a lot like Brookline’s and part is more like Boston’s. We also have a much smaller portion of our population in the schools because a far higher percent of the City’s residents do not have children, so the system is smaller in scale, and for that reason more costly. The other specific mechanisms for the higher costs include smaller schools and classrooms, and lots of staff in the schools to try to allow them to meet the needs of both the children or are ready to race ahead and those that face big challenges, in school and beyond.
Thank you Yorker. I didn’t realize the huge difference between subsidy vs. non-subsidy. The class I taught at CRLS was about 30 kids the first semester and 22 for the second. However I did have a host teacher and a student teacher usually present. Any idea as to the total population of Cantabridgians that have school age children and do not require some sort of subsidy?
With home prices where they are it seems like we’ve create a nasty situation where only the poor and the rich can survive, and I’d wager that the majority of people living in the 3mil+ enclaves are not sending their kids through this system at all.
The only stats I’ve seen suggest that there has been a 2% decline in school-age children. Are you saying its actually more than that?
As an expecting parent I am wrestling with the thought of putting my child in the Cambridge system. On one hand I found CRLS to be diverse and offered a wide range of electives. On the other it seemed a like it would be easy to get lost in the shuffle and the divide between class among the students seemed palpable.
Patrickbarrett-Yorker is correct, we spend it because we have it. And a lot of it. Most cities and towns in MA spend well over 50% of their total budget on schools. We have so much money, we barely spend 30%.
I compared Cambridge spending in 2012 with the City of Lowell. Two former industrial towns on major rivers. Same total population and form of government. We spend the same dollar amount as Lowell on schools, but serve half the number of students and offer them a lot more academic support. So we spend twice as much per student and it shows: For what it’s worth, our MCAS test results are better than Lowell’s.
On the municipal side, we spend five times as much per resident on human services, seven times as much on libraries, twice as much on public works, police, fire and the City Manager. Oh, and eleven times as much on the City Council and Mayor.
Amazing to see the contrast in spending! Unfortunate that the City Council is not more focused on the area of greatest excess — the cost of having them (we are definitely not getting our money’s worth there!). Though, of course, Lowell is much poorer and probably not the best comparison.
Even more remarkable is the other side of the equation. Cambridge can afford this level of spending despite having some of the lowest residential property tax rates in the state (much lower than Brookline, for instance).
Patrick:
In addition to what Tom stated, we also have a very expensive model. We have very small schools with plenty of staff. You would be hard pressed to find another district that has K-5 schools of 250-300 students that has a principal, assistant principal, family liaison, guidance counselor, etc. We also offer free all-day kindergarten starting a 4.5 years old, many other districts charge for that. We have Special Start and Montessori which both start at 3 years old. We don’t charge any user fees for busses, clubs, sports etc., as many other districts do. We used to hear a lot about how much money we wasted on Central Administration, however that figure is about 3%, which is in line with other districts. One of the reasons we want to fund a Program Evaluator (assuming the budget passes) is to have someone who can evaluate different programs that we are funding to ensure that we are spending our money wisely. You also have to remember that the figure of $26,000 includes everything. That is not money that is going to each student. So that includes maintenance, staffing, utilities, busses, etc. So, having a district that believes in small schools that are staffed well, is very expensive.
Thank ya’ll. This has been an education in itself. I’m always baffled by the amount of services offered in this city. The more I learn the more annoyed I get at the people around me who seem to simply want more more more.
I’ve heard that Cambridge also spend an enormous amount on special education, so much so that parents with special needs children move to Cambridge for that reason. Any idea if this is true? Not sure if school system demographics bear this out…
John S.
I suspect not true. Most public school systems spend considerably more per SPED student than for non-SPED students. As far as out-of-school placements, Cambridge would pay the same amount as Lowell.
If spending per pupil was the main criteria for any parent’s decision, then Cambridge would have lots of families moving here. It’s not the main criteria. The quality of the academics and extracurricular activities are.
For what it’s worth, I have been pleased with what the Cambridge schools offered my sons. I’ve always been puzzled why they don’t draw in more students, and, since the money’s there, how we can do better.