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Thrive Act

About the Bill
Bill Highlights
Contact Your Legislators
Talking Points & Sample Tweets
Write a Letter to the Editor
Read More
About the Bill
Contact Your Legislators
Social Media
Write a Letter
Read More
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About the Bill

Full title: An Act to Empower Students and Schools to Thrive (HD.4328 / S.374)

Lead sponsors: Rep. Sam Montaño, Sen. Adam Gomez 

The Issue

Massachusetts has a legal responsibility to ensure quality education in our state’s public schools. But, state takeovers are a 2010 failed state policy prompted by a 2009 failed national policy. State takeovers have not improved outcomes for students; to the contrary, takeovers have made decision-making more remote and less democratic, imposed a stigma on districts, disempowered parents, educators, school leaders, and elected school committee members, and increased teacher turnover. State takeovers disrupt whole communities’ educational programming and school-to-community connections. Takeovers are a political strategy and a lever towards privatization, not an educational strategy, and the 2010 law included no clear path out.

Historical inequities and the pandemic’s disruption have deprived many students of the resources and funds that enable all to thrive. Cities with higher populations of Black, Brown and immigrant community members are the only places that have been targeted with state takeovers, despite low scores in predominantly white districts as well. So state takeovers perpetuate systemic inequities. It’s time to end them.

A majority of voters in 2024 voted to pass a ballot initiative to end the practice of using standardized tests as the sole graduation requirement. But, the replacement requirements are not yet determined, and should be based on the same values—equity, quality public education, and democratic control.

Similarly, voters were clear in 2016 that they opposed lifting the cap on charter schools and  siphoning funds away from public school districts. However, MA currently uses high-stakes testing as a punitive tool to increase the charter school caps in struggling school districts. Rather than helping school districts get the funding and support they need, the state penalizes public school districts and students. 

The Solution

The Thrive Act would help ensure that our public school students all get high-quality educational experiences by

  • Ending the current state takeovers of Lawrence, Holyoke, and Southbridge, with transition plans and resources to support student achievement, and restore democratic oversight and collective bargaining
  • Ending the state takeover system permanently and replacing it with comprehensive support and improvement plans that address root causes of achievement problems and strengthen local leadership, rather than undermine it
  • Establishing a commission to shape the future of student assessment
  • Eliminating the punitive use of high-stakes testing as a tool to increase the percentage of a school district’s budget that can be siphoned off to charter schools
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Contact Your Legislators

Find your legislators’ contact information here. 

Please support the Thrive Act (HD.4328 / S.347) to improve schools and student outcomes, and end state takeovers of districts. School improvement comes from responding to the root causes of achievement gaps, implementing evidence-based approaches, strengthening school-to-community connections, building leadership capacity, and supporting districts with resources to implement improvement steps. Those factors provide for long-term continuous improvement. State takeovers, in contrast, make decision-making distant and unresponsive, have been levers for privatization rather than community ownership, have prompted out-migration of families and educators, and have not improved student outcomes.

Also, the Thrive Act would establish a commission to shape the future of student assessment. Voters across Massachusetts voiced their opinion that a bubble test is not the sole accurate measure of a students’ ability to learn. There are school districts in our state using more comprehensive approaches, and there are assessment experts, educators, parents, students, and others who should have the opportunity for input. A commission should be structured for thoughtful deliberation.

[Talk about how this bill could positively impact your own school or district.]

It’s time to fully support community voice, constructive engagement, and true democracy in our public school oversight.

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Talking Points & Sample Tweets

  • People closest to the pain must be closest to the solution. The #ThriveAct supports local stakeholders, families, and community – who care the most – to improve local schools, rather than outsourcing to distant authorities. 

  • Effective educational improvement strategies deepen engagement of families and community, they don’t disengage from stakeholders as state takeovers do. #ThriveAct builds up, not tears down.

  • #ThriveAct will lead to improvement plans addressing root causes with a #wholechild approach, not narrowing education to what’s on a bubble test.

  • State takeovers lead to privatizing municipal resources and undermining #democracy, not to school improvement. Pass the #ThriveAct.

  • In the 12 years since Massachusetts enacted receivership, no system taken over has been returned to local elected control; there is no path out in the law. Where’s the improvement? Where’s #democracy? Pass the #ThriveAct

  • Schools are centers of community and activity in cities and towns. When schools thrive, the communities around them can thrive as well. But schools in receivership are not thriving and their students, families, educators, and communities are suffering the impacts. Pass the #ThriveAct.

  • Real school improvement & accountability: plans that address root causes, on tight timelines with annual reviews, local capacity-building for long-term continuous improvement. Not outsourcing, no improvement, with no end point. Pass the #ThriveAct

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Write a Letter to the Editor

Adapt the template below! Or email us at issues@progressivemass.com for help!

Our public schools are anchors for communities and play a critical role in the development of well-rounded children. We have a responsibility to ensure that all children are given the best education we can provide and have the resources they need to thrive. However, the state has used a strategy of state takeovers of schools and districts that works against these foundational goals. State takeovers of public schools, often done under the guise of improvement, have exacerbated segregation, forced out experienced educators and educators of color, narrowed the curriculum to focus on standardized test content, and broken school-to-community connections. Even state leaders admit takeovers have not worked to improve outcomes.

The Thrive Act (HD.4328 / S.347) offers a vital alternative vision focused on supporting the whole child and school-to-community connection. The Act proposes replacing takeovers with comprehensive support and improvement plans that respond to the root causes of achievement gaps, implement evidence-based approaches, strengthen school-to-community connections, build leadership capacity, and support districts with resources to implement improvement steps. Those factors provide for long-term continuous improvement.

The Thrive Act also proposes having a commission to shape the future of assessment in the state, now that voters spoke loudly in 2024 that one bubble test is not the sole accurate measure of a student’s ability to learn. A commission should be structured for thoughtful deliberation.

At this moment in our state and our country, we should take every opportunity to strengthen democracy, protect against privatization, and support whole-child and evidence-based approaches. Let’s push to pass the Thrive Act!

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