The Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education is calling on state and local leaders to aggressively pursue bold improvements in our schools using unprecedented federal dollars and increased state funding in order to:

• Accelerate the closing of racial and socioeconomic achievement and opportunity gaps that have not closed for three decades; and,
• Increase the percentage of students on-track for college and career success.

This will require substantial changes to how our education system serves students. The availability of considerable federal and state funding provides an opportunity to go big on behalf of our students and their families in ways that have not previously been possible.  There is an urgent need to do so. MCAS results for 2021, released last week, document significant academic harm to students from disruptions due to the pandemic, with the most vulnerable students often suffering the most.

Today, MBAE is releasing a vision for using federal funding to build a stronger, more equitable, more aligned education system than existed before the pandemic. The roadmap includes policy recommendations and steps the state and districts can take to promote the transformational changes needed to deliver for students.  The vision calls for state-level investments in support of school districts including:

• A $100 million deposit into the 21st Century Education Trust Fund, created as part of the landmark Student Opportunity Act, to enable innovative approaches to education delivery;
• A $150 million fund to ensure that every student has access to the device, connectivity, and technical support they need and to revolutionize how technology enhances learning;
• State financial incentives for schools and districts seeking to adopt personalized learning models that meet each student where they are with engaging content that builds core skills; and,
• Targets and transparency about state and school level impacts on student learning and efforts to close opportunity gaps and provide every student with a high quality learning experience.

The report also includes recommendations related to supporting student recovery, scaling proven strategies, enabling transformative school leadership, and creating necessary infrastructure and policy supports, among others.

Supporting student recovery is a critical piece of building a sustainable economic recovery. Learning lost over the past year and a half, if not addressed, could provide an economic headwind to this generation of students and disrupt the workforce pipeline for decades.

Read the full report.

Also read the Boston Business Journal op-ed we co-wrote with Eileen McAnneny, President of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, calling on state leaders to provide a bold vision for how federal funding could position the Commonwealth for long-term social and economic prosperity.