On the tree-lined streets of Northampton, Massachusetts, where I grew up, you can see the evidence of a school funding battle that has raged all spring and summer. Fund our schools, our kids, our future, lawn signs demand — an indictment of city officials’ reluctance to use the affluent town’s cash reserves to maintain level K-12 staffing and services despite the imminent expiration of federal pandemic relief funds.
City leaders are blaming Northampton’s K-12 budget shortfall on the loss of the temporary federal (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund; ESSER) money. But Michael Stein, a public school dad, political science professor, and Northampton School Committee member, told Jacobin the…