The School Committee of the 1980s was more harmonious than that of the 1970s, even though it continued to make difficult, unpopular decisions about building closures and staff reductions. Despite financial pressure, it moved the school system towards a more international, technological world by expanding the computer program into elementary schools.
Prop 2 ½
“Property taxes are just too damn high,” stated a Newton Graphic editorial supporting Proposition 2 ½. In the November 1980 election, 50.5% of Newton voters were against Prop 2 ½, but only 30% Statewide. The new law:
- Limited state and local taxes on property to 2.5% of the property’s full value
- Limited the annual increase in the property tax base to 2.5%, excluding new growth, without a two-thirds vote at a general election
- “Prohibited unfunded mandates on local governments, requiring the state to cover the costs of any new law or regulation that increases local government expenses or expands tax exemptions”
- Moved control of the school budget from the School Committee to the executive branch of the City.
A Harvard University survey found that government corruption was the issue that most divided voters. Nearly all voters believed the government was inefficient and corrupt, but 80% of voters for Prop 2 ½ and only 40% of those against it thought Prop 2 ½ would “reduce inefficiency and corruption in Massachusetts government. This finding helps explain how ‘yes’ voters were able to reconcile expected reductions in spending and taxes with expectations of minimal service cutbacks.”
Newton sought ways to soften the budget blow before the law took effect on January 1, 1982. A Home Rule petition was filed with the State to exempt Newton from Proposition 2 ½. The State rejected it. Mayor Mann appealed to the State to allow an increase in property assessments, which the City had been “dodging since 1972.” After a lot of back-and-forth, the State agreed to Newton’s property reevaluation, and the Mayor approved a level-funded budget for the schools. (Shiman, 32)
Despite the property revaluation being the major issue of the 1981 Mayor’s race, the higher tax bills sent out in February of 1982 surprised many residents. Thousands of disgruntled homeowners and businesses poured into the Aldermanic meetings. Tensions rose between the “city side” and “school side,” and pressure grew to reduce the school budget, which the Mayor withstood until the next election cycle.
Even though the student population was declining, school expenses continued to rise.
Superintendent Strand listed some of the reasons in the February 1987 Newton Public Schools Report:
“Schooling costs for youngsters with mild to severe physical, emotional or learning problems have doubled. Tuition costs, ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 per student, some at residential facilities, have increased five times.
Bilingual education costs have also increased five times. ….
School employee benefits, like workmen’s compensation and health insurance have more than tripled.”
He added that, during this time, the Boston Consumer Price Index increased by 119%.
Work to Rule and School Closures
The Newton School Committee continued to seek economizing measures. Thermostats were set to 68 degrees in elementary schools and to 65 degrees in secondary schools. Staff were instructed to turn off the lights and remind students to wear warm clothes. User fees were added or increased for elective programs, such as ice hockey and driver’s ed, with funding available on request for families unable to afford them. Other programs, such as riflery and sailing, were cut. Maintenance was reduced from 4% to 2% of the budget, and the Newton Education Foundation (NEF) was established to raise tax-deductible donations for the schools.
The School Committee struggled with other privately raised funds. Booster club donations to the ski team could be seen as parents buying “an opportunity for their children” (SC Minutes 12-12-88), and the Coca-Cola Company’s offer of a scoreboard for South High School (the only high school in the State without a scoreboard) as a product endorsement. After determining that the quantity of Coca-Cola sold did not confer an unfair advantage, the donation was accepted (SC Minutes 6-22-87), as was the booster club’s donation to the ski team.
Budget hearings and contract negotiations remained long and contentious. The Newton Teachers’ Association instituted a work-to-rule in 1980 and 1984, staying only 20 minutes before and after the school day and curtailing “voluntary unpaid services” such as parent-teacher conferences and supervision of student clubs. Newton Public Schools (NPS) reduced staffing by over 400 full-time employees.
Superintendent Strand “said four criteria as stipulated in the teachers’ contract were used for deciding on those pegged for lay-offs: the needs of the system as dictated by declining enrollment and affirmative action staffing; certification and training; experience in the discipline; and evaluation of the teacher’s performance.”
However, there was no agreed-upon evaluation system, so layoffs were determined by seniority, certification, and affirmative action.
Affirmative action was signed into State law by Governor Dukakis in 1983. “Affirmative action shall include efforts required to remedy the effects of present and past discriminatory patterns and practices, and any action necessary to guarantee equal employment opportunity for all people.” School districts had to create an affirmative action plan and report on their hiring and promotion goals. The NPS plan did not have a quota; its goal was “to make the best effort possible.” (SC Minutes 11/14/88)
By 1986, nine elementary schools and three junior high schools – Weeks (1981), Warren (1983), and Bigelow (1986) – had been closed. Ninth grade was moved into the high schools, and junior high school became grades 7 and 8. Students were balanced between the remaining two schools, Brown and Day, based on class size and family income to “increase socio-economic heterogeneity” (Final Option, 34). Students from Angier, Mason-Rice, Ward, Williams, and Zervas elementary schools were redistricted to Brown Middle School. Underwood, Lincoln-Eliot, and Cabot students were sent to Day Middle School.
In 1985, the City approved a $3,000-per-year stipend for the School Committee. “Given the flak the School Committee has been catching during recent crises involving teachers protesting their contract and parents resisting school closings, it might be argued that its members deserve what the aldermen receive, plus “hazardous duty” pay,” stated a Newton Graphic editorial. Newton Public Schools were still ranked among the best in the nation.
Technology
“If the introduction of computers is not tied to well-defined educational goals, we run the risk of repeating the mistake that was made in the 1950s with televisions and in the 1960s with audio-visual equipment. Much of this equipment sits unused in closets.” (Massachusetts Committee on Education, January 1984)
After World War II, NPS began purchasing audiovisual equipment, film projectors, phonographs, radios, and other technology, with financial help from the Parent Teacher Association, for lessons patterned on the successful use of wartime audiovisual instruction for the troops.
Local radio station WCRB set up a studio at Newton High School for students to create “School radio programs that grow directly out of regular classroom experiences and employ pupil narrators, script writers, ‘sound effects’ men, and performers.” The weekly broadcasts included student musical performances, speeches by 6th-grade candidates for school office, interviews with science fair winners, and dramatizations of original stories by high school pupils.
In 1958, the Ford Foundation funded a pilot program with WGBH for the educational use of TVs. The instructional television program was named the 21” Classroom. It began with eight weekly, 30-minute science programs for sixth graders and a 15-minute “French through Television” show for fourth graders. The 21” Classroom was optional for Newton teachers, and many opted out. Outside of the occasional dramatic play shown in English classes, instructional television was rarely used. Similar to radio, it became a creative elective.
During the 1970s, Newton North High School and several junior high schools established television studios. In 1976, Warren Junior High School had four electives in television, each creating a production such as “a documentary on Warren for the orientation of incoming sixth graders, {and} a documentary on Warren’s ‘76 stage production Camelot.” (Inside View) Warren’s television electives fell victim to budget cuts in 1977. Hope for a revolutionary educational technology shifted to computers.
Newton’s high schools had computer labs and clubs beginning with a computer loaned from MIT in 1958. During the 1970s, roughly 200 high school students took elective computer science and data processing courses each year. In 1980, 38 minicomputers were purchased for BASIC programming instruction in the junior high schools. Businesses, educational organizations, and parents began advocating for computer education in elementary school.
Apple began its Kids Can’t Wait campaign to get an Apple II computer in every K-12 school. The company gave over 9,000 computers to schools in California, which “created a market for classroom-focused software” for Apple’s products. The National Council of Mathematics Teachers recommended that “All students should have access to calculators and increasingly to computers throughout their school mathematics program.” At the March 21, 1983, School Committee Budget meeting, representatives from the Newton Council of PTAs, the League of Women Voters, and individual PTAs spoke in support of funding the elementary school computer pilot. “The computer program for our kids for the future is going to be a basic need. Things like that are vital.” Buzz Birnbaum, Cabot PTA Co-President. That fall, Apple II computers running Logo software were piloted in five elementary schools, with each school given five computers.
Logo was the first software designed to teach children the basics of programming. It was created in the Bolt Beranek and Newman research lab in Cambridge (MA) and was beta-tested by second- and third-graders at Emerson Elementary School in Newton in 1968. The Administration expected elementary and junior high school teachers to learn programming to support their students. Some School Committee members questioned expanding the computer program into the elementary schools, wondering if it was a fad, and opposed replacing an English specialist with a computer specialist. (SC Minutes 3-24-86) The majority, however, believed it was necessary to start early. By 1988, all grade K-8 classrooms had an Apple II GS computer and printer. Goals, beyond expansion, were vague: “experiences with the computer” or “computer instruction” (Elementary School Profiles, 1989). There was no assessment of the elementary school computer program in the School Committee Minutes of the 1980s.
Next: Part 15 – The achievement gap and the first US-China Student Exchange
Works Cited
- Anit Chakraborty, Randy Graebner, and Tom Stocky. Logo: A Project History. Cambridge, 1999. MIT Media Lab, https://web.media.mit.edu/~lieber/Publications/History-of-Logo.pdf. Accessed 25 May 2026.
- City of Newton. Annual Report. City of Newton, 1980-90.
- Hansen, Joseph E. Historical Highlights: Newton Teachers Association. Newton?, NTA?, 1989.
- Ladd, Helen F., and Julia Boatright Wilson. “Why Voters Support Tax Limitations: Evidence from Massachusetts’ Proposition 2-1/2.” National Tax Journal, vol. 35, no. 2, 1982, pp. 121-48. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41862431. Accessed 22 March 2026.
- Newton Public Schools. Annual Report 1957-58. Newton Public Schools, 1958.
- Newton Public Schools. “Computer Used in Many Courses.” Inside View, vol. 10, no. 2, 1976, pp. 1-4.
- Newton Public Schools. “Noteworthy: Warren T.V.” Inside View, vol. 10, no. 5, 1976, p. 3.
- Newton Public Schools. “Why Costs Increase Despite Declining Enrollment: Superintendent Strand Responds.” Newton Public Schools Report, vol. 5, no. 2, 1987, p. 1.
- Newton Public Schools. “Wyandotte Exchange.” Newton School Age, vol. 4, no. 3, 1949, p. 1.
- Newton School Committee. Minutes. Newton Public Schools, 1980-1990.
- Strand, Superintendent, John M., and Melvin Hines. Elementary School Profiles. Newton, Newton Public Schools, 1985, 1987, and 1989.
- Strand, Superintendent, John M., and Vincent Silluzio, Assistant Superintendent. Final Options for School Reorganization in Newton. Newton, Newton Public Schools, 1985.