“Like a lot of people, I have been thinking about the congruence of all of the costs of maintaining a high-quality education in Arlington — for the buildings, the personnel, the programs and the curriculum materials.
“Like all of you, I have and will continue to participate in the many important meetings to attempt to come to a consensus to find the best way forward within the financial limitations we face.
“While we have been extremely focused most recently on working with funding decisions constrained by our local resources, the more time I have spent looking closely at the issues before us, the more I am convinced that increasing funding at the state level by raising more revenue is the only thing that will really get us to where we need to be.
“I know you are thinking along the same lines, and it was great to see our local representatives at the last School Committee meeting. They are all strong advocates of our schools.
“But it is pretty clear, that without strong and impassioned advocacy, we will continue to have to rely on regressive local property taxes to fund our schools.
“I want to personally commit to expending time and energy in the upcoming months to help the parents that are so committed to educational excellence in our schools understand that in order to have smaller class sizes, neighborhood schools, differentiated curriculum, high achievement, and exciting learning experiences for our students, we will need to become vocal and effective advocates for more state funding.
“We will need to mobilize parents, community members, and town officials both inside Arlington, and more importantly, across the state.
“We have opportunities to do this before us now. The failure to capitalize on these initiatives, and the failure to redirect some of the local energy to state level solutions, will leave us all with less than we would like to see.
“We need to engage our friends and neighbors, and our respective organizations around the concrete initiatives that we have before us.
“1. Charter School Funding Formula
“a. Arlington is currently losing $100,000 to charter schools. This total reflects the amount of Chapter 70 aid that will be diverted from the school district to charter schools. This amount is for eight students who live in Arlington and attend a charter school. It may be a small number compared to what we need, but it represents about one and a half teachers. We need to support the Senate’s efforts to revisit and revise how charter schools divert money from local school districts. Clearly more urban communities are suffering even more. Our neighbors to the north and east are affected to a much greater extent. Medford is slated to lose $4 million to charters, and Somerville $7 million in FY16.
“2. Foundation Budget
“a. If new formulas are used from the Foundation Budget Review Committee, Arlington would net an additional $3.6 million for our schools. Our local reps talked about a phase-in idea over four years. Our current governor and speaker of the House say we can’t afford it and that new revenues to support the formula adjustments are not on the table. Without active, vocal, and organized support, we risk this report ending up on a shelf.
“3. Fair Share Millionaire’s Tax – add a 4-percent surcharge to income over $1 million
“a. Estimated $1.5 billion annually in new revenue for both public schools and transportation (4,000 people – a fraction of 1 percent of the population)
“b. This proposed legislation needs to get through two Conventional Committees of the joint legislature in order to be put on the 2018 ballot.
“Even if we raise significant new revenues in Arlington through property-tax overrides and debt exclusions, we will not be able to afford the combination of new buildings and funding for the operating costs of a well-resourced education system in Arlington without statewide changes in taxation and policies.
“If we are unable to capitalize on these opportunities, we will lose the chance to shift the conversation on education. There are some concrete initiatives that we have worked hard to produce, but if we can’t carry them over the finish line, we will find ourselves back here having the same conversations again and again.
“I know I am preaching to the choir in this room, but I want to encourage us all to commit to educating our friends, community members, and our respective organizations (MTA, MASS, MASC, MMA) about the benefits of working together to make legislative changes at the state level that would allow us to build and maintain the type of educational programming we would all like to see in Arlington and across the state.”
This viewpoint was published Sunday, Jan. 31, 2016.
