It’s Back to School at the MA State House. Here’s How You Can Support Public Education.

Earlier this month was back to school season. The backpacks big and small. The school buses. The returning college students. The proud parents taking photos.

Back-to-school season is always a reminder of how critical a reminder of is how critical our investments in public education are. Schools open doors to students for skills, experiences, and pathways to their future lives. Our public schools are anchors of communities. They are engines of democracy and economic opportunity. And they are essential vehicles for reducing economic and racial disparities.

That’s why we’re fighting for legislation this session to improve the full spectrum of education, from child care and pre-K to K-12 schools to public higher ed. Here’s what’s happening–and how you can help.

This Past Monday: Cherish Act Hearing

On Monday, more than a hundred people were in Gardner Auditorium at the State House to support the Cherish Act.

The Cherish Act lays out a comprehensive blueprint for supporting public higher education:

  • debt-free public higher education
  • increased student supports
  • better wages and working conditions
  • green & healthy buildings

Over the course of the hearing, the Joint Committee on Higher Education heard powerful testimony from students struggling to make ends meet, graduates facing mountains of debt, and adjunct faculty lacking basic benefits on the job, underscoring the importance of investing in public higher ed.

If you weren’t able to attend on Monday, here are two things you can still do:

  1. Action Network: Urge the Higher Education Committee to report the Cherish Act favorably out of committee: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/urge-your-legislators-to-support-the-cherish-act/.
  2. Follow the Higher Ed for All coalition on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mahigheredforall

Wednesday, October 4: Thrive Act Hearing

Sign up to share that you’re joining us for the Thrive Act hearing on October 4th!

Location: Gardner Auditorium

Time: 2pm – 8pm

The Thrive Act would end the state’s ineffective approach to educational assessment and improvement by:

  • Replacing the undemocratic and ineffective state takeover of local public schools with actual improvement plans and processes
  • Replacing the (mis)use of MCAS as a graduation requirement with graduation based on successful completion of coursework that meets state standards and frameworks
  • Establishing a commission to create an authentic, whole-child system for assessment and accountability.

The state has a responsibility to help all students and schools succeed, but, even by their own measures, the state’s interventions have not worked. It’s time to replace top-down ineffective punitive approaches with approaches that build local capacity, address root causes, and truly help students thrive.

In addition to showing up, here’s how you can help:

  • Testify in person or virtually! Share your story about why this is important to you. Sign up to testify here! (deadline: October 3rd at 3 pm)
  • Join a Testimony workshop: If you’d like support with your testimony, attend a testimony writing workshop hosted by the Thrive Act Coalition.
  • Help us spread the message about the hearing!


Tuesday, October 17: Common Start Hearing

Massachusetts families need affordable and accessible child care and early education. Instead, our state has some of the highest costs in the country, while at the same time many providers are at risk of closure and early educators are not compensated enough for their work. It’s clear: we need a new system.

The Common Start bills would strengthen our commonwealth’s child care and early education infrastructure through a combination of direct-to-provider operational funding and family financial assistance to reduce costs to families while compensating providers for the true cost of providing quality care.

The legislative hearing for the Common Start bills will be on October 17th at 1:00 PM. While the room is yet to be announced, we know that it’s critical for Common Start to show up in full force and pack the hearing room so the Legislature and the Joint Committee on Education know how much support there is for affordable, accessible, early education and care!

The coalition will be organizing buses from various parts of the state and wants to gauge interest. If you can join on October 17 at the State House and would be interested in organized transportation, please fill out this form.

If you would like to write testimony in support of H.489 / S.301, feel free to reference our written testimony guidelines and written testimony template, and if you have any questions about writing testimony, please reach out to James at james@field-first.com.

Join us to rally for early ed & child care!

Common-Start-Coalition

This week is a big week for me and my family–my 2.5 year old son just began a day-care program for the first time! I feel excited, proud, and very lucky.

I want every parent in our state to feel the excitement and security that I feel right now in being able to send my child to a high-quality and affordable day care, yet we currently face a crisis in high-quality, affordable, and accessible early education and care in Massachusetts.

Please join me and the Common Start Coalition for a family-friendly rally at the State House on July 13th.

Date and Time: Thursday, July 13 at 11:00 AM

Location: Grand Staircase, Massachusetts State House, Boston

Travel: Common Start is providing bus service from several locations across the state. Indicate if you need transportation when you RSVP

Interpretation: Spanish interpretation will be available

CLICK HERE TO RSVP!

This is our opportunity to remind the legislature about the importance of the Common Start vision, thank them for funding early education and child care in this year’s state budget, and urge them to build on those investments by passing H.489 and S.301 to establish a system of affordable, high-quality early education and child care for Massachusetts families!

Following a brief speaking program, children and their families will lead a march through the State House to demonstrate the power of our coalition and to highlight solutions to the child care crisis. Art and other activities for children will be a part of the event. I hope you will join us!

This Sunday: Join us for a re-launch of Activist Afternoons

Join Progressive Mass for an Activist Afternoons series!

We’ll be reaching out to voters across the state to contact their legislators about key issues at the State House.

For our kickoff on Sunday, Jun 11, at 3:30 pm, we’ll be focusing on the Access to Counsel bill, which would ensure that tenants facing eviction have legal representation.

Can you join us on Sunday?

This series will be both on Zoom and in person in Jamaica Plain (link and address information upon confirmation).

PM Activist Afternoons: Sunday, June 11, 2023

Next Week at the State House

See you at the State House? Next week, a number of our coalitions are hosting advocacy days at the State House, a great opportunity to connect with other activists across the state and add momentum to key bills.

Mark Your Calendars! 📅

Tuesday, June 6 @ 11 am at the State House: Transfer Fee Coalition Lobby Day —RSVP here

Join the Local Option for Housing Affordability (LOHA) Coalition on Tuesday, June 6, 11-12 PM for a briefing and day of action in support of Rep. Connolly and Sen. Comerford’s bills H.2747/S.1771 establishing a local option transfer fee to fund affordable housing. Speakers will include advocates, municipal officials, impacted people and housing experts from across the Commonwealth.

LOHA Day of Action

Tuesday, June 6 @ 1 pm at the State House (House Members Lounge) — Polluters Pay & Put Gas in the Past Legislative Briefing

This event will be a presentation for legislators on bills at the center of two Mass Power Forward priority campaigns:

  • For the Make Polluters Pay campaign, (H.872 /S.481), An Act Establishing a Climate Change Superfund Promoting Polluter Responsibility – which we call, for short, the “Polluter Responsibility Superfund Bill”.
  • For the Put Gas in the Past campaign, (S.2135/H.3237), An Act Establishing a Moratorium on New Gas System Expansion. – which we call, for short, the “Gas Expansion Moratorium Bill”

Invite your legislators to the briefing with this toolkit.

Legislative Briefing - Tuesday, June 6

Wednesday, June 7 @ 2 pm at the State House — Youth Justice Lobby Day —RSVP here

Join activists across the state to advocate for bills that would end the school-to-prison pipeline and ensure better outcomes for our youth. The lobby day will focus on bills to keep 18-to 20-year-olds out of the adult criminal justice system, expand opportunities to expunge criminal records, create opportunities for diversion, and more.

Youth Justice Lobby Day 2023

In solidarity,
Jonathan Cohn
Policy Director
Progressive Massachusetts

It’s Time to Make Polluters Pay

Tomorrow, the Massachusetts Legislature is hosting a hearing on a new bill to address the climate crisis: the Polluters Pay bill.

This bill, modeled on legislation filed in other states and nationally, embodies a core principle: those who created the climate crisis should have to pay for cleaning up the resulting damages.

At the same time that communities across the Commonwealth are facing the growing costs of climate adaptation — costs that will grow significantly in the coming decades — fossil fuel companies are making record profits.

The Polluters Pay bill would require companies that have contributed significantly to the buildup of climate-warming greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere to bear a share of the costs of needed infrastructure investment. By doing so, it would would raise an estimated $75 billion over 25 years from the 20 largest polluting companies to provide funding for climate resiliency efforts such as restoring coastal wetlands; upgrading roads, bridges, subways, and transit systems; preparing for and recovering from hurricanes and other extreme weather events; installing energy efficient cooling systems; upgrading the electrical grid; and expanding green spaces and urban forestry.

Moreover, the bill understands that our sustainability transition must be a just one, with key provisions to ensure that sufficient funds go to environmental justice populations and that the funding goes to the creation of good-paying jobs.

Can you email your state legislators today in support of this bill?

You can find out if your legislators are already co-sponsors here.

Already emailed? Then call!

Make Polluters Pay

Details for tomorrow’s hearing:

  • 12 pm: Rally on the State House steps with 350 Mass / Better Future Project and allies
  • 1 pm: Hearing
  • Sign up for either here.

Mark Your Calendars: What’s Coming Up

Thursday, May 18 @ 11 am at the State House: No Cost Calls Lobby Day — RSVP here

The Keeping Families Connected / No Costs Calls coalition will be having a Senate advocacy action day to ask Senators to co-sponsor budget amendment #941, which will create a stronger guarantee of no cost calls in the state’s budget. The coalition will be meeting at the fourth floor cafe.

Keep Families Connect: Senate Advocacy Day at the State House

Wednesday, May 24 @ 9:30 am at the State House: Thrive Act Lobby Day —RSVP here

This is an exciting opportunity for students, families, educators, staff, and community activists to come together and connect with legislators about the Thrive Act, new legislation that would create a system of school assessment and improvement that considers the whole child, and focuses on giving students and educators the tools and resources they need to succeed.

Thrive Act Advocacy Day

Tuesday, May 30 @ 10 am at the State House: Healthy Youth Act Lobby Day –RSVP here

An Act relative to healthy youth (S.268/H.544) is a common sense bill that reflects the consensus of the vast majority of MA residents. The bill’s core provision is simple: it will require any public school that already chooses to teach sex ed to provide a medically accurate, age-appropriate, comprehensive sexual health education.

Healthy Youth Act Lobby Day 2023

Wednesday, June 7 @ 2 pm at the State House — Youth Justice Lobby Day — RSVP here

Join activists across the state to advocate for bills that would end the school-to-prison pipeline and ensure better outcomes for our youth. The lobby day will focus on bills to keep 18-to 20-year-olds out of the adult criminal justice system, expand opportunities to expunge criminal records, create opportunities for diversion, and more.

Countdown to Youth Justice Lobby Day 2023

A #FlashbackFriday about Disenfranchisement in MA and What You Can Do Today

Although we often think of the history of voting rights in the US as one of ever-forward motion, Massachusetts stands as an outlier. In the late 1990s, after incarcerated individuals in MCI-Norfolk started organizing for better conditions, Republican Governor Bill Cellucci and the MA Legislature responded with retaliation: a multi-step process of disenfranchisement. In 2000, Massachusetts voters approved a constitutional amendment to prohibit people incarcerated for felonies in state prison from voting in state elections; the subsequent year, Cellucci signed a law to extend this prohibition to federal and municipal elections. Our commonwealth did something rare in recent history: it took away the right to vote from a category of people who were formerly enfranchised.

But the tide is turning. On Wednesday, the Joint Committee on Election Laws took the significant step of giving a favorable report to S.8/H.26, constitutional amendments filed by Sen. Liz Miranda and Adam Gomez and Rep. Erika Uyterhoeven that would ensure that incarceration never leads to a loss of voting rights.

Urge your legislators to support the bill and advocate for its advancement in an upcoming constitutional convention.

And in upcoming events….

Wednesday, May 3: Higher Ed for All Speakout

Celebrate graduates and ensure that debt-free public higher ed is an option for future generations!

The Massachusetts State House will soon be considering the Cherish Act (S.816 / H.1260) and Debt-Free Bill (S.823 / H.1265). Collectively, these bills call for debt-free public higher education, increased student supports, better wages and working conditions, and green/healthy buildings.

Join the Higher Ed for All coalition on the State House steps and share your testimony alongside graduates, students, faculty, librarians, staff, and community from across the commonwealth!

  • 12:00-12:55 PM: Speak Out
  • 12:55 PM: Group Photo
Higher Ed for All

Thursday, May 4: Medicare for All Lobby Day

The Medicare for All Lobby Day will take place on Thursday, May 4, from 10AM to 3PM at the State House. RSVP here to let Mass-Care know you can join!

Action: Here’s How You Can Help Protect the Fair Share Win

Earlier this year, Governor Healey proposed a plan to cut state taxes by a billion dollars each year, including nearly $400 million in tax cuts for the very wealthy. This proposed billion-dollar permanent tax cut would directly undermine the goals of the Fair Share Amendment while placing the state at risk for catastrophic budget cuts in future years.

It’s important that legislators hear loud and clear that this is directly against the will of the voters.

(1) Write to your state legislators: Let them know that it’s not okay to undermine Fair Share by giving big tax cuts to the rich. Massachusetts voters were clear: we want the rich to pay their fair share so that we can invest in public education and infrastructure.

(2) Show up to the State House tomorrow: The Joint Committee on Revenue will be holding a hearing tomorrow (Tuesday, March 28) on the Governor’s tax proposal and related bills. Join us and other allies from Raise Up Mass at the hearing.

Revenue Hearing, Tuesday, March 28, 11 am, Room A-1, State House

(3) Share the message: Raise Up has a handy set of infographics here to illuminate what’s at stake.

Parents Roundtable on Early Education and Care

Progressive Mass and the Common Start Coalition are hosting a roundtable discussion where parents will share their experiences, we will discuss policy solutions to our current crisis in affordability and access with an opportunity to speak directly to legislators.

Date: Wednesday, March 29th
Time: 6:00 pm
Location: Zoom (link upon registration)
Click here to RSVP

Equitable access to affordable high-quality childcare and early education is necessary to reduce racial, gender, and economic inequality in the Commonwealth. Let’s unite our voices for a common start!

If you have a question, please email Melanie O’Malley at: melanie@progressivemass.com.

Announcing Our 2023 State House Lobby Day!

If you’re like me, then you’re excited to see the return of in-person actions at the State House.

So I’m delighted to announce that we’ll be back at the State House with our 2023 Progressive Mass Lobby Day on Thursday, April 13, at 10 am in Room 428 at the State House.

We’ll hear from inspiring speakers and meet with our legislators about important bills.

More details will be coming soon, but for now, let us know you can come and mark your calendars!

Progressive Mass Lobby Day 2023

And Join Upcoming Coalition Lobby Days

  • Common Start Lobby Day: Wednesday, March 22, from 11am to 1pm, Room 511B in the State House, RSVP to james@field-first.com
  • Immigrants Day at the State House: Wednesday, March 29, 10 am to 1 pm, RSVP at https://miracoalition.org/news/idsh2023/