Will Austin is a former public school teacher, principal, and the founder of Boston Schools Fund. You can find his writing on Substack at Boston Focus.
In towns large and small across Massachusetts, headlines these days warn of impending school budget cuts because of yawning budget shortfalls. Boston, which shed hundreds of teachers just two years ago, is not an exception: On Wednesday night, the School Committee voted unanimously to release 300 to 400 employees for the next school year to address the district’s fiscal crisis.
Losing educators is devastating for communities. Unfortunately, current Massachusetts law may make it worse. State statute requires municipalities to lay off teachers based on seniority. As Boston and other communities go through the painful process of rightsizing their districts, they won’t be able to consider the effectiveness of their teachers in many, possibly most of their decisions.
This is fundamentally unfair to younger teachers and educators of color who will be the first to lose their jobs — as well as for the children they work so hard to serve.
Why are school districts facing these budget cuts? Federal funding looms large. Pandemic-era funding expired last year, and the Trump administration created discord when for no apparent reason it terminated $106 million in funding for summer school and other out-of-school programs in Massachusetts last year. Boston is facing its own revenue crunch, with lost commercial tax revenue and fewer children, which further drives down state and federal aid.