Still no certainty on timing for education reform bill

Education Committee Co-Chair Sen. Jason Lewis said last month that his committee was aiming for a June release of a consensus bill overhauling the state's school funding formula, and now, in the final week of June, Senate President Karen Spilka said she's hoping that timeline is still possible.

"I know they're working hard," Spilka said Monday afternoon, when asked if she thought it was likely a bill would emerge in June. "We're hoping, and the Senate, if it comes here, we'll take it up as soon as we possibly can once we have it."

House Speaker Robert DeLeo said Lewis and co-chair Rep. Alice Peisch have been meeting regularly.

"Whether that will be done by July, I don't know, but I think that they've been meeting, not only the two of them, but all the stakeholders as well," he told reporters after meeting privately with Spilka and Gov. Charlie Baker.

With a conference committee still working to finalize the state budget for the fiscal year that begins in one week, Baker said all versions of the spending plan "basically presume there's an education reform bill that gets passed."

"So that's good news for the school system come September of this year," Baker said.

Baker said the Education Committee has "big, complicated questions" before it, including elements of the funding formula, accountability measures, the timeline to implement a formula rewrite and "how we're going to ensure that kids in underperforming schools and underperforming school districts get the opportunities that they need to be successful."

"I consider this, and I'm sure they do too, to be one of the most important things that's going to happen in this session, and I'm sure they want to get it right," he said. -