STATE OFFICIALS ARE marking the 25th anniversary of the landmark 1993 education reform law with a statewide set of events being held under the banner “Leading the Nation,” a reference to the top performance of Massachusetts students on national achievement tests.
But the boasts and bows are colliding with an inconvenient truth: The state’s students may be leading the nation, but Massachusetts is lagging badly on the funding promise to schools that was a key pillar of the reform law being celebrated.
Two-and-a-half years after a state commission sounded the alarm on school finances, the Senate took a step toward addressing the problem by unanimously passing legislation on Thursday that calls for a revamp of the school funding formula that districts rely on.
The bill calls for the Legislature and the state Executive Office for Administration and Finance to establish a schedule each year for a phasing in of the recommendations of the Foundation Budget Review Commission, a bipartisan panel that delivered recommendations in October 2015 that would boost state aid to schools by $1 billion to $2 billion per year.