On April 3, 2025, President Tang testified before the Joint Committee on Ways and Means on prioritizing impactful education investments as the state determines how it will spend surplus Fair Share Amendment revenue.
Read her full testimony here:
Good afternoon, my name is Jessica Tang and I am a mom, a middle school social studies teacher, and l am currently serving as President of the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and to testify today on behalf of the 25,000 AFT Massachusetts educators and staff working in our public schools, at our universities, in our libraries, and health offices and the tens of thousands of families they serve.
AFT Massachusetts is also a proud member of the Raise Up Massachusetts coalition, with whom we’ve spent the past decade working on critical issues like raising the minimum wage, establishing earned sick time and paid family medical leave, and passing the Fair Share Amendment - the source of revenue we are here today to discuss. We believe that the investments in transportation and education that the Fair Share amendment has enabled have been life changing for so many and could not have come at a better time as we confront challenges we have never seen the likes of before.
Education funding in Massachusetts is teetering at the edge of a fiscal cliff. This was the case before the Executive Order was signed to dismantle the Department of Education, and before $106 million in active grants was rescinded last Friday.
In this context, public education - like every other system – must adapt to the current reality to serve those who rely on us. For our schools, that means meeting the shifting needs of our students and preventing further harm. Today, we are still trying to make up for ground lost during the COVID-19 pandemic while the number of students needing services and support - especially mental health – continues to grow.
The cost for many local school districts to ensure every child has a free and equal public education outpaces the investment and reimbursements they receive from the state. This has been our reality for many years. Since January 20th, that reality has become a nightmare.
Services, protections, and investments are being stripped at an alarming pace. While nearly every aspect of life is being impacted by this, the Administration’s attacks on children are especially appalling.
The widespread layoffs, funding cuts, and attempts to shift services to departments without the knowledge or structure in place to implement them is a dangerous game. And, in this shell game, our children are the victims. The greatest harm will fall upon our most vulnerable students– students with disabilities, students from low-income families, English and multilingual language learners, and kids from rural communities.
Massachusetts – long heralded as a beacon for public education – has an opportunity to continue to be that beacon if we use the Fair Share funds to protect our children. We stand to lose generations of students who will no longer have access to the free and public education they deserve. That is not hyperbole. The well-being of hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts children and students are in jeopardy:
We have already lost in just the last three weeks:
$12 million in federal funding to provide local, healthy food to childcare programs and schools from a USDA grant program.
$106 million in cuts in previously allocated and disbursed grants that provided tutoring and support to address pandemic learning loss, mental health services, high quality instructional materials, building upgrades to improve air quality, professional development, and support for emergency license holders that are addressing teacher shortages.
The Northeast Regional Head Start office was just abruptly closed, which serves 10,000 Massachusetts children.
We are also looking at potential funding losses from the Department of Education that provide funding for special education (through IDEA), low income students (through Title I), Career/Tech education, early intervention for babies and toddlers, and more.
However, because of the Fair Share Amendment, we in Massachusetts have the ability to alleviate some of the harm and protect our most vulnerable students and continue to make investment in our future by providing relief now. Again, even before these recent cuts were made, our school districts were struggling with a fiscal crisis and are projecting layoffs without intervention from the state. The budgetary process for next school year is already well underway.
With H.55 – we’re here to share how best to maximize the impacts of the surplus Fair Share revenue from past years that has not been spent to prevent future cuts to school budgets. The extra $1.32 billion for education and transportation, which is completely separate from the $1.185 billion FSA funds to be allocated in the FY26 budget provide an opportunity for immediate relief.
- In H.55, we’re glad to see proposals including:
- $150M more for the special education circuit breaker to help defray some of the costs incurred this school year;
- $75M for capital improvements to help increase capacity at our state’s career and technical schools.
- $25 M to support the Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative, which we hope will expand universal pre-k in our public schools.
With the additional Fair Share revenue, we can further protect public education in regions across the Commonwealth:
- $106M would make up for the ESSER funding ripped out from under 20 school districts this week when the Administration reversed course and ended funds these schools were using for projects underway - funds they were told they had until next year to spend
- $6M to pay for the teacher preparedness programs in Boston, Holyoke, and Springfield- another group of funds snatched more than a year after the original disbursement
- $465M would be needed to address the upcoming fiscal year’s inflation glitch - something that schools have to come to expect which greatly lessens the investment of the Student Opportunity Act.
- $120M to reimburse school districts for regional transportation costs at 100% and non-regional transportation costs at 25%
- $3 million to support existing and new Community Schools throughout the state – a nationally-recognized strategy to promote equity in our schools and communities by organizing the resources of the community around efforts to accelerate academic and social development for students. We’ve already seen this successfully implemented in five cities across the state and believe an even greater investment as part of the reimagining high schools plan beyond the $3 million to sustain the current community schools would address many of the current challenges we are seeing in secondary education as well.
- Funding to create a Healthy and Sustainable Schools Office to conduct energy audits at our schools – many of which were built before WWII – and help districts create healthier, greener learning environments for their students and community – especially important considering the roll-back of federal clean energy initiatives and environmental justice protections
- An additional $48M to extend charter school tuition reimbursement over 4 years instead of 3 years to support school districts during the current funding crisis
- $50 million to support the Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative.
- $200 million for a reserve fund to protect the ability of our public higher education system to maintain staffing and meet the needs of students if there are significant reductions in federal funding, and to fund wage adjustments that bring staff and faculty wages in line with their peers in other states, accounting for the cost of living.
We also believe it would be prudent to fund a portion of the pension liability associated with the Retirement Plus Fix bill providing teachers hired before July 1, 2001, the opportunity to join the RetirementPlus program, as done in HB 2932/SB1884.
Due to the revenue from the Fair Share Amendment, we are better positioned than most states to weather the current storm and for our Commonwealth to continue to lead by taking critical steps to fill the gaps and do whatever we can to prevent further harm while continuing to enact proactive measures. Considering the level of uncertainty we have across sectors with the cuts and threats to critical programming we’re hearing from the White House, we also urge you to take action early this session to identify new sources of revenue and ways the state can invest to ensure economic security for all – including passing the Corporate Fair Share bill (also known as the GILTI bill) filed this session.
While the right to a public education may not be explicitly protected in the US Constitution - it is in the Massachusetts Constitution. If the White House is going to try to dismantle public education as we know it, the state has the obligation to step up and ensure that all children of Massachusetts have the resources they need to access the quality public education they are afforded under the Massachusetts Constitution. We believe in Massachusetts we can do it, and look forward to continuing to partner with all of you to identify and implement the solutions we need to protect our students, families and communities.