Representative Carl Sciortino helped push multiple amendments onto the Education Reform Act's final draft. By Jeremy F. van der Heiden Last Thursday, January 18th, the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed a final version of the Education Reform Act. Representative Carl Sciortino helped push multiple pivotal amendments onto the bill's final draft. The bill's major function will be to allow state and local officials to intervene in the event that a school or district is not meeting proper standards, as well increasing the number of charter schools allowed in the state. In addition, multiple amendments were added to further the success of the bill, and thus the schools themselves. These amendments include a regulation on the amount of funds a charter school can keep on hand. The idea behind this is to push the charter schools to take in only what funds are necessary in hopes to take some of the financial strain off of the host district.

According to Representative Sciortino, "the funding of charter schools out of the city's school budget has always been a challenge…charter schools are currently allowed to keep unlimited funds. The bill changes this to ensure that the district schools do not lose money to the charter schools that wasn't actually used on education. This is a big win for Somerville."

Another amendment included addresses transient and mobile students. The inclusion of these transient students in the bill is another big win for the city, considering Somerville's relatively high percentage of students coming in and out of the school district year by year. Representative Sciortino stated that: "our current education system does not adequately address the needs of the mobile students, nor the students who are impacted around them by the addition steps made to bring them up to speed. This bill for the first time includes transient students when assessing underperforming schools."

Mr. Tony Pierantozzi, the superintendent of Somerville schools stated that: "I am extremely appreciative of the work of Representative Sciortino and the Somerville delegation which resulted in the recognition of mobility as a factor in student achievement. Mobility impacts the instruction in classrooms on a daily basis in Somerville and throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts."

Somerville School Committee member and Treasurer of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, Mary Jo Rossetti, gave another well-deserved compliment to Representative Sciortino. Ms. Rossetti explained: "Rep. Sciortino's perseverance will benefit not only Somerville but all communities statewide. The passage of this amendment is a welcome and much needed addition to our efforts."

Although multiple amendments proposed by Representative Sciortino were implemented into the final draft of the bill, he ultimately did not end up voting on it because of a couple of unresolved issues. One of these issues is the over reliance on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or MCAS. Sciortino believes that the state must still address the pros and cons of this system, and work to strengthen its ability to work properly.

Another issue that Representative Sciortino found was with the way that charter schools take in funding. "The underlying way that we fund charter schools is simply inequitable," Sciortino said, "district schools can't afford to lose the tuition that they send to charter schools in the way they do now. I believe that it is only a matter of time before we have to address this in a comprehensive way, and I believe we can and will do that in the near future."

All in the entire bill proved to be a mostly positive piece of legislation. The amendments will certainly carry a lot of the weight in improving not only Somerville's education system, but that of the entire Commonwealth as well. Making the public schools around the state more efficient and tightly knitted will surely ease the states growing economic problems.

For any more information on this bill or upcoming proposals for new legislation, visit the City of Somerville's website, or that of the Department of Education for Massachusetts' website.