I graduated from Brockton High in 1993. I didn’t go through the changes that came after. What I remember is simple: winners. We played in back-to-back Super Bowls and won the state championship each year. In the classroom and on the field, Brockton expected excellence and delivered it. That’s the city I grew up in.
So what happened?
What Worked Before 1993
Before the Education Reform Act, Brockton funded its schools the old-fashioned way: local taxpayers paid the bills and held local leaders to account. When your dollars stay in your community, you watch them closely. Parents showed up. Teachers had backing. Principals set a clear tone. The culture was orderly and serious. Results followed.
Why the State Stepped In
In 1993, the Legislature and the Governor created a new system to fix chronic failure in other cities. They built the “foundation budget” and the Chapter 70 formula to send more state aid to districts that couldn’t raise enough from property taxes. The goal was fairness. The trade-off was control. Once the state sets the minimum your city must spend and sends most of the money, state rules follow.
What Changed for Brockton
Over time, the funding balance flipped. Today, more than four-fifths of Brockton’s required school spending is covered by Chapter 70 state aid; less than one-fifth is the city’s required local contribution. When most dollars come from Beacon Hill, most decisions drift there too.
Brockton’s FY26 budget shows it in black and white: Chapter 70 aid rising sharply, the local share shrinking, and major “Schedule 19” costs—health insurance, pensions, and charter assessments—sitting outside the classroom where families can’t easily see them.
The Decline, Step by Step
Let’s be honest about the timeline.
- Ownership faded. When the state took the lead on funding, many residents felt their voice didn’t matter as much. Participation dropped. Pride slipped.
- Bureaucracy grew. Formulas and mandates multiplied. One size rarely fit Brockton. Local initiative slowed because every change had to line up with rules from Boston.
- Short-term money masked long-term gaps. During COVID, federal ESSER funds papered over recurring problems. When those one-time dollars ended, the hole re-appeared.
- Trust broke. Independent reviews detailed deficits, weak controls, and poor communication—an $18 million shortfall in FY23 alone.
None of this means Brockton families stopped caring. It means the system made caring less effective. When responsibility gets separated from authority, results suffer. We lived it.
Why History Matters Now
If we don’t name what changed, we can’t fix it. The state’s model tried to equalize spending, but it also hollowed out local accountability. Brockton didn’t need saving in 1993; it needed freedom to keep doing what worked. We traded that for formulas and mandates. Thirty years later, the results are plain.
A Path Forward — Local Responsibility, Knowledge-Rich Schools, Real Accountability
We can turn this around. Here’s how.
- Put knowledge back at the center. E. D. Hirsch showed that every child needs a shared, content-rich foundation—history, literature, civics, science—taught clearly and in sequence. A common core of knowledge is the real equalizer.
- Make accountability real. Following Frederick Hess, measure what matters: reading, math, attendance, discipline, and growth. Publish school-level dashboards families can read at a glance—dollars in, outcomes out. Tie leadership goals to student results, not paperwork.
- Restore local control over dollars. Create a quarterly public “dollars-to-classroom” scorecard showing Net School Spending vs. classroom spending, Schedule 19 costs, and clear notes on variances. Brockton’s budget already lists these numbers—put them on one page and own them.
- Use state tools for local innovation. Start Innovation Schools for K-3 literacy and discipline. Expand Horace Mann charters built on Hirsch’s content and firm behavior codes. Align with DESE’s literacy push but keep control here: choose materials, train teachers, and stay consistent.
- Make every dollar visible. Publish a public budget dashboard each month. Internal versions already exist—open them to parents and taxpayers so everyone can track spending and results.
- Stop the one-time money trap. Don’t use grants or relief funds for permanent jobs. Require a “cliff plan” before accepting short-term aid.
- Rebuild the culture. Order, effort, and respect matter. Post a clear code of conduct, support teachers who enforce it, and back principals who back their staff.
The Goal
This isn’t about pointing fingers at anyone sitting in leadership today. Let me be clear: none of these points are directed at our current Superintendent—or any Superintendent past or present. The issues we face were set in motion long before any of them took the job.
The real problem lies in political decisions and state policies that took local control out of Brockton’s hands and replaced it with formulas, mandates, and bureaucracy. Those decisions reshaped how we fund and run our schools—and not for the better.
Since 1993, Brockton has been caught in a cycle of dependency and decline that began with good intentions but bad incentives. Every few years, new leaders step in and try to patch the holes, but the system itself keeps pulling us back. Real change can’t come from the top down—it has to start right here, with us.
The way forward is to understand our past—to be honest about what was lost when the state took over—and to make sure we don’t repeat the same mistakes.
We do that by rebuilding what worked:
- Local accountability for every dollar spent.
- A knowledge-rich curriculum that gives every child a solid education, not just test prep.
- Partnerships with parents and teachers, not directives from Boston.
Brockton doesn’t need saving from outside experts. We need to remember who we are—the City of Champions—and act like it again.
Strong schools. Strong city. Let’s make it happen.
Sources: Brockton Public Schools FY26 Budget Book (July 2025); RSM LLP FY2023 Budget Deficit Report (Sept 2024); Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 (Ch. 71); DESE Chapter 70 Program Overview.
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