Is there a school crisis? (Boston, Worcester: health insurance, home, school district)

[LookinginMA]

Okay, I apologize in advance for any ignorance ; I am trying to figure out the school system in MA as it seems quite different than in MD. In MD we are not as town specific as I am finding here. For example, in MD all of Worcester County (Southboro, Westboro, Shrewsbury....) would be a part of Worcester County Public Schools not each their own district. The money for the entire district would be spent as needed, not just for your specific school. Make sense? Also in MD we do not have a town meeting to vote on tax increases; that is done by our elected county officials. My point is that I am a little concerned after visiting some towns and talking to educators, parents and other well meaning individuals who tell us that certain towns have voted the past two years or so NOT to increase taxes even though programs are being cut left and right in the school, enrollment is up but the school buildings cannot accommodate the increase in students and some elementary schools have portable classrooms. They have informed us that there is a great divide between the younger families moving in and the baby boomers and seniors who have already put their children through school. I do not think seniors should be "taxed-out" of a town they have more than likely lived in all of their lives however, I also think schools should be a priority in the towns. So what's the answer? Is this happening in most towns or is it town specific??

We had Shrewsbury at the top of our search list until many of these comments were specifically told to us by Shrewsbury residents.... yet we notice Shrewsbury was ranked well at Boston.com and scored well on MCAS. Any thoughts?

[CaseyB]

Yes, it is town specific. In Massachusetts, there is limited county government (except for the court system) as opposed to other states. You may often see a great variation in two adjacent towns. The town meeting concept insures that citizens have a direct say in how the tax dollars are spent, otherwise they'd be even higher here than they are now.

[CaseyB]

johnycakes, in our town any override has to clear town meeting before it can make it onto the ballot.

[smarty]

With average of 20-30% growth in kids population a few year back, every good school system has problem. If you move into a town and pay say $5000 a year in taxes but has 3 kids, it means someone else is paying $10K on your child's schooling. To get the same level of service, your taxes should be going up at 20% a year. Proposition 2.5 is to limit that kind of tax hike unless the town vote for it.

10% increase does not seem much. However, if you keep overriding ever year. Your taxes double every 8 years. Your $4K tax bill will be come $8K. Remember, it only covers the same level of service. If you want a new school, you will have to pay more. Just imagine how you would feel if you are a senior with fixed income. The cost of living increase is only a few percent but your taxes double in that time period.

The interesting thing is if the senior move out of town. Guess who will be moving in? A family with 3 kids. Hence, your taxes will go up even more to get the same level of service.

Do we need $50-100 million school? After spending that amount of money on the building, guess what you need to spend on heating it, filling it with staff, health insurance cost for those staff to keep it running. Every one wants small class sizes. Just imagine if you change from class size of 30 to 25, you budget increases 15%. If you go from 25 to 20, it is a 20% increase. On top of the teachers, it means you probably need more administrative staff like assistance principal. I heard certain town (who will remain nameless) built a new school but decide not to move since they did not budget for staffing the new school.

[speakeasy]

I just happened to land on your comments while investigating yet another request by Ashland to spend money .... I HOPE you never have to know what it is to lose your home when your are towards the end of life !!! You obviously have no idea what it is to just get by every week. Ashland made some silly moves in spending more then it could afford - a balanced budget requires tough choices.

[LovelyBoston]

I guess I just don't view this as a crisis. Honestly, down where you are, your schools face the same budget pressures -- there is never unlimited money, but prices always rise -- it is just that here, we allow individual townspeople to make the decision, rather than delegating those decisions to elected officials. I highly, highly doubt that the budget pressures themselves are any different here than in MD; it is the procedure for deciding how to deal with those pressures that differ. And also, these towns you name have more than one school; so within the town, the tax dollars are spread out. Shrewsbury has 9 schools total, for example.

In general, towns appear willing to raise taxes to invest more in needed school services and buildings when that need is clear to the residents. When residents think they can do without for a while, they do without. It is about striking a balance between providing the best education and not squeezing the elderly population out of the towns through higher taxes. I think the balance works well.

On another noted, Mass schools perform exceedingly high compared to the nation as a whole, so something we're doing must be working. Check out the US Chamber of Commerce's recent report on education, state by state: http://www.uschamber.com/icw/reportcard/default

Massachusetts was at the top in almost all measures in this report. So don't be scared off by the local control of the school budget. Just research the town, look at how they've invested in the schools over the years. At some point, every town faces a "no" vote on a tax override, because we only have so much money and sometimes we have to put off spending. But the best districts don't let it get too bad. Shrewsbury is a decent school, but their buildings are old.

And FYI, in that same general area, in Central Mass, check out Millis -- fantastic school district there.

[starzfalldown]

God Bless our direct democracy!