In November 2019, An Act Relative to Educational Opportunity for Students (Chapter 132 of the Acts of 2019) was signed into law by Governor Charlie Baker. Better known as the Student Opportunity Act (SOA), the new law represented the largest reform to education financing in Massachusetts in nearly 25 years.  

The goals of the Student Opportunity Act were expansive, and the final bill included a range of education policy initiatives; from improving access to financial literacy curriculum to studying the unique financial challenges of rural school districts. But above all else, the SOA aimed to dramatically increase the resources available for the highest need school districts across the state and create a data-driven structure to accurately assess how those resources were being used to close persistent disparities in student achievement. At full implementation, the SOA was projected to increase funding for public school districts across the state by over $1.5 billion.