(from a 2018 article wicked local newsbank)
In Massachusetts, a 1991 initiative known as inter-district school choice gives parents the option of enrolling their children in a public school district in a community other than their hometown. While the law lets each school district decide whether to accept out-of-district students, no district can deny its students the right to leave.
“School choice money can be a major factor in determining both the revenue you gain and the revenue you lose for many school districts,” said Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. “Depending on where you are, districts may really depend on that money to sustain the services they’re able to provide to students ... School choice has made districts a little more competitive with each other.”
In 2016 and 2017, Medfield had around eight students leave the town for school choice, adding up to around $50,000 in assessments. That amounts to around 0.14 percent of the school budget, but some parents say that money should be spent on salaries.
Since state funding follows the students, school choice has had the unintended consequence of widening the gap between affluent suburban districts and cash-strapped urban and rural school systems, according to some critics. When a student leaves one public school system for another, state funding goes from the sending district to the receiving district in the form of school choice tuition. To soften the blow for sending districts, the state caps school choice tuition payments at $5,000 per student.
For districts that gain and lose large numbers of school choice students, the aggregate financial impact can be large.
In Medfield, the town has opted not to receive students through school choice every year since the program’s inception in 1991.
School Superintedent Jeffrey Marsden said there are a number of reasons Medfield doesn’t accept students from other districts, including concern about class sizes and the budget issues that would be created.
“We’ve had conversations about it, but we just didn’t think it was a good idea,” Marsden said. “Part of it is that we had projections of class sizes being high.”
This school year, some classes are up to 25 students, well above the district’s goal of 20 or 21 per classroom.
“It just doesn’t make any sense to add more students from outside the district when we’re already looking into building a new elementary school,” Town Administrator Michael Sullivan said.
The budgetary numbers for school choice also don’t add up, Sullivan said.
“We spend around $14,000 to $15,000 per student, and if we’re going to get $5,000 per student from school choice, that’s not a very good deal,” he said.
Marsden added that Medfield residents have chosen to invest in their schools as a service to the children in town.
“Strong education is part of the philosophy of this community,” he said. “An overwhelming percentage of residents moved here because of the schools. The community really values and treasures its schools, and we’re all very proud of that fact. To bring someone from outside the district to only get $5,000 back, there’s a fairness factor involved. We’re also not running a business, trying to pack kids into our schools to create revenue. This community values spending money to educate its own children.”
Sullivan said school choice can work well for other districts, especially when they have a higher percentage of commercial and industrial properties. Businesses pay taxes without adding children to the school system, so a city like Cambridge or Boston can afford to add students to the district from outside. But since Medfield is 94 percent residential, with about 21 percent of its residents in the school system, it would be much harder to afford the extra students, Sullivan said.
“The schools are doing a very good job, so people move here for the schools,” he said.
At least one parent doesn’t agree with Marsden and Sullivan. Chris McCue wrote in a letter to the Medfield Press that she believes school choice is “a potentially viable option for addressing budget shortfalls.”
“Holliston received $969,229 in School Choice tuition this year, and was able to restrict participation to 6th, 7th, 9th and 11th grades, according to a recent report on the MA Department of Education website,” she said. “On the flip side, Medfield paid $56,234 in FY18 school choice tuition for students who left to attend receiving districts.”
McCue also said that the committee is not following the law. The state requires each district to discuss school choice each year, at a public hearing held before June 1. Last year, the school committee voted to opt out of school choice at its June 5 meeting.
“It’s unacceptable that the school committee has not held the required public hearings on school choice as required by law,” McCue said. “How does Medfield get away with not adhering to the law, and then put on the table potential teacher layoffs in 6th grade due to declining enrollment?”
Marsden said the district is meeting state requirements and following the example set by other districts.
“By having school choice on the posted agenda for a public meeting, that satisfies the requirement for a public hearing,” he said. “To say that we are not holding these hearings is just not true. Does the state require the meeting be held before June 1? Yes. Does just about every other district make their decision during the first meeting in June? Yes.”
Whatever opinion parents and residents have about the school budget, they are welcome to attend the next school committee meeting. A public hearing, specifically for the purpose discussing next year’s school budget, will be held on Monday, Jan. 29 at 7:30 p.m. in the Lowell Mason Auditorium at Medfield High School.
Opposite experiences among neighbors
In the small town of Avon, more than a quarter of all students enrolled in the public school system come from other communities on school choice. According to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, school choice students brought more than $958,000 into Avon last fiscal year.
“The choice revenue is close to a million dollars, or about 11 percent of our budget,” Avon Superintendent Paul Zinni said. “When you’re talking about 11 percent added into your budget, that’s significant.”
In nearby Brockton and Randolph, the situation is drastically different. Randolph lost more than $850,000 due to school choice last year, while Brockton lost $1.3 million, according to the DESE.
Brockton schools have struggled financially in recent years, and losing students to both school choice and charter schools hasn’t helped.
“We’ve cut almost every program and extracurricular,” said Brockton’s chief budget officer, Aldo Petronio. “We’ve laid off probably 150 teachers out of 1,400 over the past few years.”
Petronio, though, said the impact of school choice has been minimal compared to charter schools. Because of the cap on school choice tuition, Brockton loses $5,000 per student leaving on school choice. Each student who leaves for a charter school, however, draws more than $11,000 in funding away from the district, he said.
“I think charter schools should be funded the same way school choice is funded, with a cap of $5,000 per student,” Petronio said.
Koocher said similar concerns are common in urban districts losing large numbers of students to charter schools.
“If a charter school comes in and disrupts the entire economy of scale, that can be enraging to a district,” Koocher said. “With school choice at $5,000 per kid, you’re willing to live with that even if you’re not happy with it. But with charters, you could lose $18,000 per kid. It’s a white hot, if not blue hot, public policy issue because you can really cripple a district with a charter school draining the money.”
Marketing themselves
In recent years, many public schools have undertaken more efforts to market themselves to parents in the community, highlighting programs and success stories. The intent is to retain some of the families thinking about sending their children elsewhere.
Milford Superintendent of School Kevin McIntyre said such outreach efforts have become much more common throughout the state.
“I would say a decade ago, a lot of schools didn’t necessarily have to market to their own residents,” he said. “Now we find we have to share all the great things that are happening in the Milford Public Schools on a regular basis with members of our community.”
Milford lost $1.2 million in funding due to 198 students leaving in fiscal 2017, but brought in more than $584,000 from 103 pupils opting into the district, according to the DESE. Internal district data McIntyre provided is slightly different from the state data, showing 112 students coming in and 193 leaving.
“We definitely have a school choice deficit, but over the last few years, we’ve been seeing that trend start to reverse,” McIntyre said. “We’re seeing the number of students choicing in increasing dramatically.”
The increase in students coming in has led to Milford having to turn away some school choice students in certain grades due to limited capacity. When demand exceeds capacity, the state requires receiving school districts to hold a blind lottery. Preference can be given to siblings of students already in the school system.
“Sometimes a neighboring district may have a program we don’t offer that may meet a student’s needs. Conversely, a student may come into Milford because of a program we have that isn’t available in their home district,” McIntyre said. “Giving parents options has been a positive thing.”
