Fall River parents among group suing state over school funding

BOSTON — A lawsuit filed against state education officials Thursday, in which two local parents are named as plaintiffs, prominently features Fall River and alleges the Massachusetts education funding formula has significantly “harmed” students in Fall River’s public schools.

Denise DaPonte Mussotte, a mother of four Fall River students, and Maneisha Straker, another Fall River parent whose two children attend the city’s public schools, were among the 13 Massachusetts parents named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed in the state’s Supreme Judicial Court. Other plaintiffs were from the communities of Chelsea, Chicopee, Haverhill, Lowell, Orange and Springfield.

In a statement released by the plaintiffs, Mussotte referenced the growing needs of Fall River’s increasingly diverse student population.

“The state’s failure to fund the staff, material and services our children need to succeed targets them for failure, instead of the success their father and I teach them to strive for,” she said.

Also quoted in Thursday’s press release was Fall River Superintendent Matthew Malone, who echoed the lawsuit’s urging to update the state’s funding formula.

“In the 25 years since the court required a new era in school funding, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has abandoned its constitutional duty to ensure that all students receive a quality education,” he said. “Our local public school districts are splintered between the haves and the have-nots. For students in far too many communities who attend schools that are woefully underfunded, our state’s proud history and national reputation as a leader in public education is now just an empty story.”

Thursday’s lawsuit was developed by the Council for Fair School Finance, which filed the 1993 lawsuit McDuffy V. Secretary of the Executive Office of Education. That suit, which the Supreme Judicial Court ruled in favor of nearly 26 years ago, led to the establishment of state jurisdiction over issues of school finance and helped create the educational funding practices still used today. That same year, the state approved an education reform law establishing the public education funding formula still in place.

In recent years, critics have cited the 1993 formula as outdated and called for it to be amended in a way that reflects more contemporary public education costs and needs. Several proposals to overhaul the formula from state legislators and Gov. Charlie Baker are before the state’s Education Committee. Outside of Thursday’s lawsuit, the cities of Brockton, New Bedford and Worcester had also threatened litigation against the state last month.

The current formula, the CFSC alleges, has helped contribute to a number of the issues facing Fall River’s schools and students today. According to Thursday’s filing, Fall River has one of the state’s highest teacher turnover rates at 21 percent, a chronic student absenteeism rate of 27 percent, and the 34th lowest performing school district in terms of standardized test scores.

The suit concludes: “The lack of funding in Fall River has harmed students beyond just their performance in the classroom. Decreases in school funding have hurt students’ college and higher education opportunities, their employment prospects, and their access to jobs that could lift themselves and their families out of poverty.”

Simultaneously, Fall River has also been seeing an increase in the number of students whose education can be more costly to public schools. According to the suit, over 76 percent of the city’s 10,120 students are deemed high needs, with 67 percent qualifying as economically disadvantaged and 21 percent requiring special education services. More than 16 percent are English language learners.

Thursday’s filing outlines several specific criticism’s of the state’s current educational funding formula. The council is alleging that employee health insurance and special education costs, which account for two of the largest disconnects between actual expenses and what the current funding formula provides, have surpassed formula assumptions by more than $2 billion. The council also asserts that the formula “significantly underestimates” costs of providing adequate services to students who are from low-income households or who are English-language learners.

Changes recommended in the suit include a requested increase in per-pupil employee health insurance rates as well as a formula amendment that would change how these rates would be adjusted for inflation over time. The group has also requested the state increase the presumed percentage of special education students it uses in calculating funding for schools.