Education Justice Advocates Urge Governor Baker to Fully Implement Student Opportunity Act on Original Schedule

Parents, Students, Educators, and Community Activists Call for Two Years of Funding in Upcoming State Budget

BOSTON – The Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance (MEJA), the statewide coalition of parents, students, educators, and community activists that most recently led the campaign to pass the state’s landmark Student Opportunity Act, today sent a letter to Governor Baker urging him to fully implement the Student Opportunity Act under the original schedule promised little more than year ago.

"Over the last year, the COVID-19 pandemic created immense new challenges for our schools and our communities. And while federal aid prevented catastrophic cuts in our public schools and helped finance some necessary safety measures, the promise of the Student Opportunity Act was delayed," the letter reads. "As we begin to recover from the pandemic, getting students back on track academically, socially, and emotionally must be a top priority. To make that possible, the state must get school funding back on track as well."

"In the FY22 budget for the school year that begins this coming September, that means two years of the seven-year funding schedule that was promised under the Student Opportunity Act that you signed with great fanfare on November 26, 2019," the letter continues. "It also means updating the foundation funding formula to count the true number of students in poverty, because we know that pre-pandemic numbers do not accurately reflect the hardships families are now facing.”

Included in the letter to Governor Baker are stories from several students, parents, and educators expressing their support for a state budget that meets the full scale of the many needs that exist in our public schools and colleges as we recover from the pandemic.

“In communities like Quincy that have been hit hard by the virus, this school year has just been about surviving and keeping kids engaged and connected as much as we can," said Bijun "Ivy" Xu, the mother of two elementary school students in Quincy. "In September, we need everyone focused on getting students back on track, and that will take more money for classroom aides, afterschool programs, interpretation/translation services, wraparound services, and more."

“The Student Opportunity Act needs to be fully funded. We as a state need it to help curb the crisis that all students of every educational level are facing," said Kelly O'Malley, a Paraprofessional in the Springfield Public Schools. "As a single parent, educator, and product of the same school system that I teach in and that my daughter attends, I see on a firsthand basis how much dire straits we are in with being so terribly underfunded. It is heart breaking! Even the school I work at does not have the same enrichment and educational programming that other schools in our district have.”

“Before the pandemic I was advocating for funding because kids were in need of resources due to their surroundings. Schools were cutting spending on afterschool programs and clubs, which were most kids' stress relief. I felt that schools were concentrating more on testing than on the social-emotional trauma that students were experiencing," said Jay’dha Rackard, a Boston Public Schools student. "Now that we have been in a pandemic for more than a year now, I feel that we need to concentrate on students academically, socially, and emotionally. In order to do that, we need funding. I had to find my own funding so that I can do a girls group to focus on these needs because I feel like we are struggling.”

The full letter to Governor Baker can be found here.

About MEJA

The Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance (MEJA) began to take form in 2015 at a dark time for public education. Corporate privatizers were coming for our communities’ public schools. Generations of students — especially low-income students, immigrants and students of color — were suffering in underfunded schools, with no end in sight. Public college students trying to stay afloat were burdened with crushing debt, while public college workers took on more and more responsibility for less and less pay.

MEJA brought together hundreds of organizations, unions, and community groups to fight to Save Our Public Schools and vote No on 2 in 2016. We defeated the push to allow unlimited charter school growth to destroy public education as we know it. We won big, by 62% to 38%.

After the 2016 election, MEJA became a nonprofit with a membership coalition of students, parents, educators, community activists, and union members committed to fighting against the Trump/DeVos Administration and defending public schools and colleges from corporate vultures. MEJA hired Charlotte Kelly as Executive Director in 2018 and built coalition tables in seven regions of the state to advocate for equitable resources and democratic control of our schools. MEJA hired local parents and community organizers to lead these battles.

MEJA pulled together our coalition once again to demand that we Fund Our Future by ensuring the promise of our K-12 public schools and demanding that our lawmakers cherish our public higher education system. We fought hard. We rallied, called, wrote letters, assembled at the State House, and made it clear that “no” was not an answer. Once again, we fought and we won! The biggest piece of education legislation in Massachusetts in 25 years, the Student Opportunity Act, phased in over seven years, committed $1.5 billion per year in new aid to K-12 public schools. The resources will be focused on the students and educators who need these resources the most after decades of neglect.

Now, as the COVID-19 pandemic crisis and economic collapse present massive challenges for our public schools and colleges, MEJA is working to ensure that the state’s commitment to K-12 funding is upheld, to provide our public colleges and universities with the resources they need to provide affordable, high-quality public education, and to address the root causes of systemic education inequities as we recover from this generational crisis.

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The Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance (MEJA) is a coalition of parents, students, educators, and labor, religious, student and community activists and organizations committed to protecting and improving public education and fighting for economic, social and racial justice. Learn more at https://massedjustice.org/