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Highlighting News Stories for Our Town for the week of  March 22, 2004

Previous Newsbreak Archive

Newsbreak for Walpole

The Week – Mar. 22

The Year – 2004

The METCO Program

As spring enters in, the annual discussion and debate on funding town departments begins to heat up. At both the state level and the local level, there is always a difference between what revenue is available and what the budget requests seek.

Recently, at both the state level and the local level, questions have been raised concerning the funding of the METCO program.

Last week, students in the program and the statewide director of the program went to the legislature to lobby for sufficient funding to allow the program to continue in many suburban towns.

Meanwhile, many suburban towns have begun to consider the cost of supporting the METCO program in light of their own tight budgets.

What is METCO and why is this a funding problem?

Some 35 years ago, the METCO program came into being as a means of providing minority students in the city of Boston an opportunity to participate in the educational scene at nearby suburban schools.

The state set up a funding mechanism whereby a budget would be designed to allocate sufficient monies to be disbursed to school districts taking in METCO students.

1. The principle was that the funding was a state responsibility in support of the program.
    

2. The initiative years ago predated the inner city desegregation problems and the citywide busing trauma of the 70’s.
    

3. METCO is a program designed to offset in part the differences in the quality of educational opportunity in cities and towns.
    

4. Today, the state funding has been at a level insufficient to provide monies for towns to match their costs.
    

5. Thus, the towns are looking at a deficit program and balancing the social issues versus the financial.

With funding at the local level under scrutiny, and with the town meeting budget discussions ahead, the town, as with many others, may well be looking at METCO with an eye to the future.