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The Boston teachers’ contract in April 2025 delivered pay raises for staff, a $181 million increase in school spending, and the end of more than a year of contentious negotiations.
The deal, agreed to shortly before a planned union protest of Mayor Michelle Wu’s State of the City address, averted what could have been a high-profile battle during an election year.
What the deal didn’t do: Guarantee Boston had the money to pay for it.
By the January after Wu’s reelection, city officials proposed cutting up to 400 jobs in the coming year’s school budget.
It’s a scenario that has played out across the state. Teachers unions have flexed their muscles in recent years, picketing and even striking to secure contracts with better pay and working conditions. Local politicians, seeking to avoid school disruptions and union pressure in elections, agree to substantial raises and other benefits.
But a tradeoff has emerged: Many of the same districts, including Boston, Newton, and Marblehead, announced budget cuts and layoffs within a few years of the new deals.
Similar episodes have played out across the country, according to Marguerite Roza, director of Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab.
“That’s the playbook these days,” Roza said. “Unions are asking for things they know the district can’t afford, and saying, ‘I don’t care, go get the money.’”
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In Boston, staff cuts were driven by surging health insurance, transportation costs, and more. Other districts have cited rising special education costs, with more students being sent to specialized private schools with tuition paid by taxpayers.
Boston Superintendent Mary Skipper made clear in February, however, that one reason for the budget shortfall was “collective bargaining costs” — an oblique reference to the raises and benefits the city agreed to in recent contracts.
Some of the cuts — about 160 positions —are due to three school buildings slated to close at the end of the year. Enrollment has dropped in Boston and across the country in recent years, forcing administrators to consolidate schools.
But Boston’s layoffs next year extend beyond schools that were already scheduled to close.
In a statement, Boston schools spokesperson Samara Pinto said the teachers’ contract “reflects a shared commitment to strengthening student supports, improving services for staff, students, and families, and taking a more equitable approach to compensation, particularly for the district’s lowest-wage workers.”
Pinto did not address a question from the Globe about whether the city warned the union that layoffs would follow the new contract.
Boston Teachers Union president Erik Berg rejected the suggestion that the contract exacerbated the city’s budget crunch.
“No one should accept the false choice between fair compensation and fully staffed schools,” Berg said in a statement. “Boston’s students deserve both.”
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The pattern has repeated itself across the state.
In 2024, teachers who walked picket lines in three North Shore communities — Beverly, Gloucester, and Marblehead — won substantial raises for teachers, increases to starting pay for classroom aides, and new paid leave benefits.
Less than two years later, Beverly officials proposed job cuts to help close a $4 million budget shortfall.
Marblehead school leaders approved at least $1.7 million in cuts and the elimination of more than a dozen positions. And in Gloucester, officials are discussing cuts that would impact nearly two dozen school employees.
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Max Page, president of the statewide Massachusetts Teachers Association, rejected the idea that there’s a tradeoff between wages and staffing. Municipalities all over the state are facing budget challenges, Page said, including ones that have not had high-profile labor battles.
“The blame is that there’s not enough money in state coffers and the state is not spending enough to support our public schools,” Page said. “In a state this wealthy, with this many resources, I don’t accept that.”
On Beacon Hill, legislators are considering revising the state’s school funding system. But even some of the state’s biggest-spending districts face layoffs this year.
Newton Public Schools, for example, approved significant raises to end a contentious, 11-day strike.
“This is a sustainable contract,” then-Mayor Ruthanne Fuller said in 2024 after the deal was reached. “There will be no layoffs.”
It hasn’t worked out that way.
Now two years later, Newton schools are facing staff cuts even after the city allocated an extra $17 million for its next education budget.
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