5th Middlesex Senate Race Features Debates Over School Funding

WAKEFIELD, MA — Discussions of school funding across Massachusetts have emerged in the spotlight in the Fifth Middlesex District state senate race in recent weeks, including in multiple exchanges in a candidates debate in Wakefield last week.

Shaped by a recent teachers strike in Malden and ongoing educator contract negotiations in Melrose, the discussion has seen candidates Jason Lewis and Ed Dombroski spar over state schools funding, 2019 legislation aimed at addressing funding issues, and the state School Building Authority, which backs various school building projects.

“This is hard,” Republican candidate and current Wakefield Town Councilor Dombroski said of current challenges facing districts last Monday.

Dombroski criticized Lewis, a Democrat and an incumbent in the Fifth Middlesex District, for issues during his tenure in the legislature.

Lewis responded, acknowledging challenges facing local schools while noting the Student Opportunity Act, which passed in 2019 as a reform to the state’s Chapter 70 school funding process.

“That law has unequivocally helped each of the communities in our district,” Lewis said.

Districts Face Budget Concerns

Public school district budgets combine state aid through the Chapter 70 program with local funding to produce their budget. While other grants and funding sources also filter in, those state and local elements represent much of an annual budget’s composition. Chapter 70 funding is intended to differ between districts depending on individual communities' ability to pay toward required minimum per-pupil spending.

Nonetheless, some state and local officials and education experts have pushed to increase funding across the board.

The Fifth Middlesex District includes Malden, Melrose, Wakefield, Reading, Stoneham and parts of Winchester. The region has seen recent educator contract disputes tangle with school budget concerns in recent months.

In Malden, educators went on strike last week after negotiations failed to produce a new contract to follow a previous deal that expired earlier this year.

In Melrose, teachers have protested, voicing frustration over the state of contract negotiations more than 100 days after their last contract expired.

Malden educators ended their strike last week after reaching a tentative agreement with the school district that included a series of wage and salary increases, among other things.

Melrose educators haven’t gone on strike. The union and its supporters were at City Hall in Melrose last week, though, rallying before the School Committee for more action in negotiations.

Speaking prior to the Melrose demonstration, Dombroski said he had “tremendous sympathy” for Malden teachers and school officials navigating difficult contract talks.

He noted Chapter 70 funding, saying the system remains “woefully broken.”

Candidates Talk Student Opportunity Act

The Student Opportunity Act sought to rework Massachusetts’ school funding formula by creating a program where school districts could set targets to address various achievement gaps among students to then get additional funding. The act aimed to send more money to districts with students from low-income families and students who are English language learners, as reported by Boston.com at the time.

In an update in December of last year, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education said the state is drawing money for Student Opportunity Act programs from Chapter 70 and federal ESSER COVID-19 relief funds, among other sources.

Lewis said the act is one of his proudest accomplishments from his years to date in the state legislature.

“It was a victory heralded by all the education stakeholders,” he said of the act’s passage.

He pointed to local funding wins in the years since the act passed. Among them, he said Wakefield has seen a $1 million increase in funding thanks to 2019 reforms. Melrose has seen a similar spike, according to Lewis. Malden, he said, has seen a $3 million increase.

“That law has and will continue to bring millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars of additional funding for our public schools in this district,” Lewis said.

Continuing comments last week, Dombroski compared Malden Chapter 70 funding to nearby Chelsea, where the rate of per-pupil Chapter 70 funding was nearly double Malden’s rate in the 2022 fiscal year, according to state funding documents.

“We need to do better,” Dombroski said. “We cannot expect these communities to make up the shortfall.”

The state provides a list of comparable districts for each district in Massachusetts based on enrollment, grades served and what it describes as “special populations.”

Chelsea isn’t on Malden’s list of comparable districts.

Within its group, though, Malden sat close to the middle of the pack in terms of 2022 Chapter 70 funding. Its per-pupil rate of $7,429 was higher than the rates for Barnstable, Marlborough, Milford and Waltham schools. The rate was lower than those for Brockton, Chicopee, Everett, Lowell, Lynn and Revere.

Malden exceeded the state average for per-pupil Chapter 70 funding in 2022 of $6,064.

Observers Note Concerns

Looking statewide, education observers have flagged concerns about the current state of Massachusetts school funding and its goals.

A coalition of advocacy groups shared a report in September saying that student achievement gaps the Student Opportunity Act sought to address have actually widened since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and its related learning disruptions in 2020.

Groups called on legislators, at the time, to make a series of changes across education levels to expand access, address equity concerns and improve career planning services, among other things.

Think tank Mass Inc separately said the Student Opportunity Act was falling short of its stated mission in March of last year.

“The Legislature hasn’t provided certainty that the state will make good on its promise to deliver the funds in equal increments over the law’s seven-year phase-in period,” the organization wrote. “Lacking confidence that they will see these scheduled increases in Chapter 70 aid, school districts have been hesitant to develop plans to deploy the new funds strategically.”

Mass Inc said the state and its schools should focus on getting students back to school while spending federal aid to begin to address lost learning during the pandemic.

Then, Mass Inc said, officials should dig into fluctuating state aid figures to find ways to ensure more predictable rates for districts and their own planning processes.

Debate Talks MSBA

As debate between Lewis and Dombroski last week touched on Chapter 70 and school funding, candidates also shared their thoughts on the state School Building Authority.

The authority typically partners with communities to issue large grants aimed at supplementing some school project costs.

As local projects such as a planned new Stoneham High School facility risk running over budget, though, municipalities often end up turning back toward taxpayers for more money.

Just this fall, Stoneham officials have indicated that they will likely need to return to Town Meeting asking for additional funding to complete the high school project.

Lewis said officials will need to figure out how to secure more funding from the state beyond what the School Building Authority has already promised in order to avoid leaving local taxpayers on the hook.

He highlighted connections on Beacon Hill and elsewhere in state government that he said will help make that happen for local communities.

“I’ve shown that I can get big things done,” he said.

Dombroski countered Lewis, criticizing him for his record prior to current school building project challenges.

“He has had 13 years to remedy a very outdated reimbursement formula through the MSBA and he has failed to do it,” Dombroski said of Lewis.

Early voting is underway across Massachusetts. Election Day is Nov. 8.

See previous coverage of last week’s Fifth Middlesex District State Senate debate here.