Boston Focus, 5.23.25
Paraprofessionals: does more help actually help?
What do recent teacher strikes in Newton, Gloucester, Beverly, and Marblehead and the most recent Boston teacher contract all have in common?
Paraprofessionals.
Often referred to as “paras” or “aides,” paraprofessionals are non-certified educators who work in classrooms under the supervision of/in collaboration with a certified teacher. The working conditions and pay of paras has become central to labor negotiations not just in Massachusetts, but across the country.
Why?
The move to “inclusive” classrooms - where more students with special needs and English learners are taught in a general education environment - often requires more paraprofessionals. In Boston, paraprofessionals have become the core element of the district’s instructional strategy.
Even if Boston Public Schools (BPS) doesn’t always speak in those terms, their budgets do.
The number of classroom aides have grown by nearly 50%, the largest contributor to the district increasing its staffing by more than a quarter during this period.
Keep in mind that this staffing increase coincided with a dramatic decline in student enrollment.
There are two direct outputs.
The ratio of teachers and aides to students fell to 6.7 : 1.
With additional staff of all kinds and new bargaining agreements, labor costs in Boston increased by 50%.
But what are the outcomes?
The research is very limited. I could only find one random control trial (RCT) that found positive impacts of paraprofessionals, and that study was very narrowly construed (focusing on a specific form of professional development and reducing severe disciplinary issues). There was a study in North Carolina that asserted increased paraprofessional staffing translated to elementary literacy and math gains, but it failed to control for that fact test scores were increasing in general in North Carolina at that time.
Without really any evidence in support or to the contrary, Boston and many school districts have just decided having more paraprofessionals is good. This thinking tempts what Warren Buffet once called the “institutional imperative,” the tendency for companies in the same industry to do the same thing because, well, that’s what you do.
More adults, more help in classrooms - makes sense!
The varied nature of the paraprofessional role in classrooms makes assessment very difficult. In one classroom, an aide may be leveraging a shared home language to assist a group of English learners. In a different classroom, a para could be providing one-on-one supports to a student with significant physical disabilities. Walk down the hall, and you may find another paraprofessional running a small reading group.
These all sound like good things, and that will have to be enough for now.
Because no one seems to be asking if this is actually resulting in improved student learning and development.
Schools
Sad, but important data and context for fatal school bus accidents in Boston.
Tuesday’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meeting yielded two big policy headlines: new lottery requirements for vocational schools and new graduation requirements. Each comes with an asterisk, as the former may be pulled into the annual budget debate and the latter still has a task force in place and perhaps legislation to follow.
A case for the use of cell phones in schools.
If college-level skills are the new labor standard, shouldn’t there be a new GED? Fascinating summary of bad higher education trends and a possible solution here.
There was a flurry of federal education news in the past 18 hours. A Boston judge has temporarily halted the closure of the US Department of Education and a consequential Supreme Court ruling denies the creation of religious charter school. After a week of continued threats and barbs, last evening President Trump put Harvard’s international students on double secret probation in an unlawful attempt to ban their enrollment.
Other Matters
Perhaps more consequential, the One Big Beautiful Bill is one-third of the way to becoming law after its passage in the House. There are provisions supporting vouchers and charter schools, but those are very small dollars compared to the significant revenue cuts states could expect.
This would create direct tension between Massachusetts’ two biggest budget items: health care (funded substantially through Medicaid) and schools (funded through Title III, local aid, etc).
This dynamic and extra millionaire’s tax revenue are shaping a different and potentially confounding budget cycle. The closing of emergency shelters may save money now, but also hint at a longer term economic cost: Massachusetts recent population increase was likely fueled by newcomers, which we will see less of through January 20, 2029.
One thing is clear: the state should not be banking on more sales tax collections from downtown Boston. Boston’s financial and corporate district have had the second lowest return to offices/foot traffic of major American cities.
Having spent time as both primary teacher and auxiliary support, can confirm it will turn into a snake eating its tail situation. Teacher would have a full plate with standardized testing, IEP meetings, curriculum development, group lessons, parent communication, and documentation. Support would come in to take some day-to-day load off such as behavioral management, lesson prep, materials inventory, filing. Administration would see teacher's room came to place of equilibrium and dump MORE on teachers plate requiring MORE auxiliary support. On and on it would go.
I have worked as a para in a public middle school and high school in Massachusetts. I felt as if the school did not value or use the paras (school resources) in the most effective manner. Many of my colleagues who were paras had masters degrees. But they were typically mothers who liked the hours since it aligned with when their child would be out of school. However it was shocking that so many paras had masters degrees or lengthy careers in other fields prior.
As for data tracking it is non existent. I sat in the classes and learning centers “gathering data” but it was as basic as it gets. The nominal scale seemed random and it was used to say that we did it rather than implementing it. But I will say that paras are one of the least valued class of workers in the country. Young paras who are curious to see if teaching is for them realize that shit pay and not gaining any teaching experience is not worth it. So this pipeline that is not being utilized, it is stifling young talent rather than cultivating it.