The following testimony was submitted to the Joint Committee on Higher Education.
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Chairwoman Gobi, Chairman Roy, and Members of the Joint Higher Education Committee,
My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the chair of the Issues Committee of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide multi-issue grassroots organization committed to fighting for social justice and progressive policy. Since our founding, treating education as a public good and funding it as such has been central to our mission.
As such, we strongly support S.744 / H.1221, An Act to guarantee debt-free public higher education, and S.741, An Act committing to higher education the resources to Insure a strong and healthy public higher education system (or CHERISH), and urge you to report them out favorably.
Since 2001, Massachusetts has cut funding for public higher education by 14 percent. However, at the same time that our state was retrenching from investing in our future, enrollment was going up. As a result, per student funding has fallen by 32 percent, almost a third.
When the state pulls back, the cost burden falls onto students. Massachusetts saw some of the highest tuition and fee increases in the country from 2001 to 2016, particularly during the recession. The share of costs borne by students and their families doubled, putting a degree out of reach for more and more students, especially those of disadvantaged backgrounds.
Today, the average graduate from our state universities and the UMass system leaves with over $30,000 in student debt—the tenth highest in the country. The average debt for graduates of public, four-year postsecondary schools grew faster in Massachusetts than in all but one other state from 2004 to 2016.
A postsecondary degree provides a proven premium in lifetime wages for graduates and countless other opportunities. Cost should not be a barrier. By preventing young people from living independently, buying a home, or pursuing their career of choice, college debt is a drag on our economy. Even when students drop out due to cost, they can be saddled with debt for years after.
It is far past time for us to stop shortchanging our students. Investing more in public higher education, as the CHERISH Act would require, and making public higher education debt-free would benefit not only students. When financial concerns are no longer a hindrance for people seeking to realize their full potential, we all benefit.
The following testimony was delivered to the Joint Committee on Education on Friday, March 22, 2019.
We are writing in support of the Promise Act. As retired special educators who also consulted with districts and families, we strongly support an end to the tiered educational system that exists in Massachusetts.
During five years of consulting to and in approximately 60 school districts, we found that all it took was a look at the playground to know what the educational quality would exist inside the school. Districts with fewer funds consistently needed to serve a wider range of student needs: for instance, higher rates of poverty and larger numbers of immigrants, which results in a greater number of traumatized students and a greater number of languages spoken. These districts are footing the bill for higher-income cities and towns that are unaffordable to immigrants and low income families. A culture of “not in my backyard“ has resulted in increasingly large educational gaps between the haves and have not‘s in Massachusetts.
The affluent cities and towns in our state, such as Needham, are able to raise additional funds through the educational foundation’s that have developed. This private funding is able to enrich the curriculum, provide playgrounds, and add back non-mandated services that may be lost by any reductions in state funds.
It is critical that more affluent communities acknowledge the burden taken on by other cities and towns that allow them more privilege and educational quality. It is time to level the playing field.
The following testimony was submitted to the Joint Committee on Education on Friday, March 22, 2019.
Chairman Lewis, Chairwoman Peisch, and all the members of the Committee,
My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I chair the Issues Committee at Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide, member-driven grassroots organization built from the ground up by organizers and activists from across the state to advocate for progressive policy. Other states routinely look to Massachusetts for direction, and it’s important for us to get things right.
Quality public education for all is a central component of our platform, and no bill before the legislature better delivers on this promise than the PROMISE Act (S.238/H.586).
Massachusetts is the birthplace of public education in the US, and our public schools routinely rank first in the nation because of high standardized test scores and postsecondary degree attainment rates. However, such high overall scores mask persistent inequities that continue to pose an obstacle to children’s ability to realize their full potential. The achievement gap between low-income and better-off students is one of the highest in the nation, as are disparities in per-pupil spending.
A major source of this inequality lies in an outdated funding formula. The Foundation Budget, established in 1993 by the Education Reform Act, was intended as a starting point for funding school districts across the Commonwealth, based on the circumstances and needs of each student. Just like the hair styles and fashion of the early 1990s are out of date, so too are cost assumptions.
The Foundation Budget is substantially lower than what all districts need, but only wealthy districts are able to make up for the funding shortfall. When the funding isn’t there, cuts to essential services and programs continue year after year. Communities are hamstrung by Proposition 2½ in their desire to fully provide for students’ education.
The Legislature knows what needs to be done. The 2015 Foundation Budget Reform Commission outlined the path forward, issuing five co-equal recommendations related to transparency and tracking and four cost areas: special education, health care, English Language Learner education, and closing income-based achievement gaps. The PROMISE Act is the only bill before the Legislature that would fully implement all five recommendations, and it builds on such progress with important adjustments to make sure low-income students are properly counted and districts aren’t disproportionately impacted by the costs of charter school reimbursements.
The other two bills under consideration fail to include adequate funding for low-income students. For example, whereas the PROMISE Act commits approximately $4,600/pupil per year in new achievement-gap-closure funding for our neediest students, the Governor’s bill promises only $473 when adjusted for inflation. These bills also fail to address the proper counting of low-income students and charter reimbursements. Now is not the time for partial solutions.
It has taken the Legislature more than two decades to revise this formula. We owe it to students to stop punting and take bold and comprehensive action as quickly as possible.
“A resolution for Legislature: Finish last year’s work” — Jonathan Cohn, CommonWealth
DATE: 12/29/2018
IN A FEW short days, the next legislative session in the Massachusetts State House will begin. New legislators will be sworn in. The governor will give his State of the State address. The mad dash to file bills and secure co-sponsorships will start—and end—in the blink of an eye.
But we’re not there yet. Now is the time for reflections on the past and aspirations for the new. And in that spirit, I’d like to propose a New Year’s resolution for the Massachusetts Legislature: finish last year’s business.
The Legislature will have a lot on its table soon, and indeed, new issues arise all the time. But if they want to avoid the chaotic spectacle that the final days of a legislative session too often are, then it’s good to start early.
In January of 2017, Progressive Massachusetts unveiled our legislative agenda for the 190th legislative session — 17 items for 2017 (and 2018). As we near the end of the year — and the start of the next legislative session, it’s the perfect time to take stock of how the various bills fared.
Clear Victories
Reproductive Rights
The ACCESS bill, which updates MA’s contraceptive coverage equity law to require insurance carriers to provide all contraceptive methods without a copay, passed overwhelmingly in the Legislature and was signed by the Governor.
Democracy
Massachusetts became the 13th state to adopt Automatic Voter Registration. In this reform pioneered by Oregon in 2015, eligible voters who interface with select government agencies (here, the RMV or MassHealth) are automatically registered to vote unless they decline. With more than 700,000 eligible citizens in MA unregistered, AVR will increase the accuracy, security, and comprehensiveness of voter rolls.
The bill also enrolls Massachusetts in Electronic Registration Information Center, a coalition of states founded by the Pew Research Center that enable states to synchronize their voter rolls. ERIC has increased the comprehensiveness and accuracy of the voter rolls in participating states.
[Note: The original bill included smaller social services government agencies as well. The final bill allows for their later inclusion but focuses on the two largest sources of possible new registrants.]
Steps Forward
Criminal Justice Reform
The comprehensive criminal justice reform bill passed by the Legislature in April incorporated some elements from our priority bills (Read our write-up here):
Eliminating most mandatory minimums for retail drug selling and drug paraphernalia and limiting mandatory minimums in school zones to cases involving guns or minors. [Note: PM and advocates had sought the elimination of all mandatory minimums. The bill, however, left in place mandatory minimums for Class A drugs (like heroin), expanded this definition to include opioids like fentanyl and carfentanil, and created a new mandatory minimum for assaulting a police officer, an overused charge wielded as a threat against protesters.]
Raising the felony-larceny threshold from $250 to $1,200 [Note: PM and other advocates had sought $1,500.]
Reducing fines and fees [Note: PM and other advocates wanted probation and parole fees fully eliminated.]
Establishing a process for expunging records, especially for juveniles convicted of minor offenses
There is still work to be done–from raising the age of criminal majority to severely curtailing (or outright abolishing) solitary confinement. That said, the bill, despite its shortcomings, was a step in the right direction.
Fight for $15
At the start of the session, we supported legislation to raise the minimum wage from $11 to to $15 by 2021, raise the tipped minimum wage from $3.75 to $15.75 by 2025, and require the minimum wage to increase with inflation starting in 2022.
The Raise Up Massachusetts coalition’s ballot initiative was slightly more modest in its ambition, extending the full phase-in date one year (due to a later start) and raising the minimum wage for tipped employees to only $9 (60% of the minimum wage) by 2022.
What passed in the ultimate “Grand Bargain,” an effort of the Legislature and the Governor to avoid three ballot initiatives ($15 minimum wage, paid family and medical leave, sales tax reduction) was more modest still. It raised the minimum wage to $15 by 2023, raised the tipped minimum wage to only $6.75, and dropped indexing. Unfortunately, the Legislature included a further concession to the business lobby, agreeing to phase-out time-and-a-half on Sundays and holidays. Although the bill is a net win for workers in Massachusetts, it’s possible that, due to the phase-out of time-and-a-half, some workers will be left worse off.
Paid Family and Medical Leave
The version of paid family and medical leave passed in the aforementioned “Grand Bargain” was less robust than the original legislation and the ballot initiative text, but still more robust than the programs that exist in other states.
Senate Victory, House Opposition
Several of our priority bills succeeded, or made partial progress, in the Senate, only to flounder in the House amidst fierce opposition from the conservative House leadership.
Fully Funding Our Schools
Massachusetts’s 25-year-old education funding formula is short-changing our schools $1-2 billion per year due to outdated assumptions about the costs of health care, special education, ELL (English Language Learners) education, and closing racial and economic achievement gaps.
The 2015 Foundation Budget Review Commission recommended a path forward for fixing it. The Senate unanimously adopted a bill to implement them. The House, however, insisted on leaving English Language Learners, Black and Brown students, and poor students (not mutually exclusive categories) behind.
Protecting Our Immigrant Friends and Neighbors
Despite Massachusetts’s liberal reputation, our Legislature has been historically hostile to strengthening protections for our immigrant community.
The Senate included four provisions from the Safe Communities Act, a bill that our members fought strongly for, in its FY 2019 budget: (1) a prohibition on police inquiries about immigration status, a prohibition on certain collaboration agreements between local law enforcement and ICE, (3) a guarantee of basic due process protections, and (4) a prohibition on participation in a Muslim registry. The amendment was a win-win for both rights and safety, but House Leadership opposed its inclusion in the final budget.
Bold Action on Climate Change
Many elements from our priority environmental legislation were incorporated in the Senate’s impressive omnibus bill:
Building on the Global Warming Solutions Act by setting intermediate emissions targets for 2030 and 2040
Establishing a 3% annual increase in the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to accelerate our commitment to renewable energy
Prohibiting a “pipeline tax” on energy consumers
Instructing the governor’s office to develop carbon pricing for the transportation sector by the end of 2020, for commercial buildings and industrial processes by 2021, and for residential buildings by the end of 2022 (not as strong as a revenue-positive carbon pricing scheme, but still in the right direction)
However, the House proved a roadblock yet again. The ultimate compromise energy legislation included only a 2% increase from 2020 to 2030, after which it would fall back to the current 1%. This would take us to only 56% renewable energy by 2050 instead of 100%.
Loss…But a Battle Not Over
Revenue & Reinvestment
Progressive Mass members played a major role in the signature collection for the Fair Share amendment (or “millionaires tax”), which would have created a 4% surtax on income above $1 million (inflation-adjusted) to fund education and transportation investment.
As a citizen-originated ballot initiative for a constitutional amendment, the Fair Share amendment had to receive the support of at least 25% of the Legislature in two constitutional conventions. It secured well more than double this amount, but the Supreme Judicial Court struck it from the ballot this June.
Inaction
Medicare for All
Although the Senate took modest steps in the direction of single payer, passing legislation to create a public option (a MassHealth buy-in) and require a study of whether a single payer system would save money relative to the current system, the House took no such action.
Housing Production
Although the Senate passed a comprehensive zoning reform bill to increase housing production in the suburbs last session, no such action was taken in either house this session.
Debt/tuition-free Higher Education
The cost of higher education has grown a lot in Massachusetts, and the Legislature continues to punt.
In Conclusion: We won some, we lost some, and we’ll keep on fighting.
The world has changed a lot since 1993. But one thing has remained the same: the funding formula that Massachusetts uses for local aid to schools.
A 2015 Commission from the Legislature (“Foundation Budget Review Commission,” or FBRC) found that we are shortchanging local aid to schools by $1 to $2 billion a year due to outdated assumptions about the costs of health care, special education, English Language Learners, and closing income-based achievement gaps. In May, the MA Senate unanimously passed legislation to update the funding formula for these four categories. However, when the House took up an education bill earlier this month, they left out English Language Learners and low-income students. Massachusetts should not be leaving the most vulnerable students behind. The bills are now in Conference Committee. Urge your state representative to fight for the inclusion of English Language Learners and low-income students in the final bill.
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Leading on Climate Change
Last month, the MA Senate unanimously passed the most comprehensive climate change legislation in the country. However, as Andrew Gordon from 350 Mass explains here, the House dropped the ball, passing a much weaker bill that does not rise to the level of the climate crisis at hand. In these last two weeks of the legislative session, a Conference Committee will be working out the final details of a consensus bill. Urge your state representative to lobby the Conference Committee to support the following:
Increasing the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to 3% so that we can reach 50% renewable energy by 2030 and be 100% renewable by 2050.
Fair access to solar (incorporated as Amendment 43 to the Senate energy bill), to require MA to ensure access for low-income communities, renters, and residents of environmental justice communities.
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MA Needs to Stand up for Immigrant Families
Last week, the House and Senate passed a Conference Committee budget that LEFT OUT vital protections for immigrant families.
In May, the MA Senate passed four key immigrant protections (taken from the Safe Communities Act) as part of their FY2019 budget:
Bar police from asking about people’s immigration status unless required by law;
End 287(g) contracts that deputize state and local law enforcement as ICE agents;
Require that immigrants be notified of their due-process rights; and
Ensure that Massachusetts does not contribute to any registry based on religion, ethnicity, citizenship, or other protected categories.
But the House let us down. Urge your state legislators to pass vital Safe Communities Act protections before the session ends next week. (Need your senator’s #? You can find that here.
The world has changed a lot since 1993. But one thing has remained the same: the funding formula that Massachusetts uses for local aid to schools.
A 2015 Commission from the Legislature (“Foundation Budget Review Commission,” or FBRC) found that we are shortchanging local aid to schools by $1 to $2 billion a year due to outdated assumptions about the costs of health care, special education, English Language Learners, and closing income-based achievement gaps. In May, the MA Senate unanimously passed legislation to update the funding formula for these four categories. However, when the House took up an education bill earlier this month, they left out English Language Learners and low-income students. Massachusetts should not be leaving the most vulnerable students behind. The bills are now in Conference Committee. Urge your state representative to fight for the inclusion of English Language Learners and low-income students in the final bill.
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Leading on Climate Change
Last month, the MA Senate unanimously passed the most comprehensive climate change legislation in the country. However, as Andrew Gordon from 350 Mass explains here, the House dropped the ball, passing a much weaker bill that does not rise to the level of the climate crisis at hand. In these last two weeks of the legislative session, a Conference Committee will be working out the final details of a consensus bill. Urge your state representative to lobby the Conference Committee to support the following:
Increasing the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to 3% so that we can reach 50% renewable energy by 2030 and be 100% renewable by 2050.
Fair access to solar (incorporated as Amendment 43 to the Senate energy bill), to require MA to ensure access for low-income communities, renters, and residents of environmental justice communities.
🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎
MA Needs to Stand up for Immigrant Families
Last week, the House and Senate passed a Conference Committee budget that LEFT OUT vital protections for immigrant families.
In May, the MA Senate passed four key immigrant protections (taken from the Safe Communities Act) as part of their FY2019 budget:
Bar police from asking about people’s immigration status unless required by law;
End 287(g) contracts that deputize state and local law enforcement as ICE agents;
Require that immigrants be notified of their due-process rights; and
Ensure that Massachusetts does not contribute to any registry based on religion, ethnicity, citizenship, or other protected categories.
But the House let us down. Urge your state legislators to pass vital Safe Communities Act protections before the session ends next week. (Need your senator’s #? You can find that here.)
“House’s Trump working group hasn’t done much” — Jonathan Cohn, CommonWealth (7/6/2018)
LAST MARCH, a self-described “deeply worried” Speaker Robert DeLeo created a nine-member working group to guide responses to the “unprecedented actions” of the Trump administration.
The group, led by House Majority Leader Ron Mariano of Quincy and House Speaker Pro Tempore Pat Haddad of Somerset, consisted of Assistant Majority Leader Byron Rushing of Boston, Ways and Means Chair (and then Health Care Financing Chair) Jeffrey Sanchez of Boston, and an assortment of other chairs and vice chairs. Its mandate? Zeroing in on “impacts on economic stability, health care, higher education, and the state’s most vulnerable residents.”
The end of the legislative session is just a few weeks away. Setting aside the catch-all of “economic stability” for now, what has the House been up to on these key areas?
Saturday’s convention was exciting, as we saw all three of our endorsed candidates–Jay Gonzalez, Quentin Palfrey, and Josh Zakim–win the party’s endorsement.
But the convention also reminded us of all the work we still have cut out for ourselves this legislative session. The speakers highlighted how Massachusetts needs to do more to set a good example for other states and to fight back against Trump.
And that can’t wait.
Here are a few things that you can do this week.
Funding Our Schools
Two weeks ago, the State Senate unanimously passing the Foundation Budget Modernization Bill, which would update the school funding formula and help provide high-quality education for every child across Massachusetts.
It’s now time for the House to act and pass the bill (S.2525: An Act to Modernizing the Foundation Budget for the 21st Century). More than 120 members of the House have expressed support. It just needs a vote.
Three years ago, the Foundation Budget Review Commission found that the state was shortchanging public education by $1-2 billion each year because of an outdated funding formula. We can’t let another school year pass without action.
Standing Up for Gun Safety
Two weeks ago, the House passed Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) legislation (H.4539) authored by Rep. Marjorie Decker, which creates a kind of court order that family members and law enforcement can request to temporarily restrict a person’s access to guns because they pose a significant danger to themselves or others.
When family members are empowered to act, they can prevent warning signs from turning into a mass shooting or gun suicide. A recent study found that Connecticut’s suicide rate fell by almost 14% after local authorities started enforcing the law.
The bill now goes to the Senate, which will be voting this Thursday morning.
Can you call your senator today in support of common sense gun safety legislation?
Standing Up to Trump’s Hate
Do you want Massachusetts to make clear that we don’t stand for the xenophobic policies and rhetoric coming out of the Trump white House?
Last month, the State Senate passed four key provisions of the Safe Communities Act in the budget:
No Police Inquiries about Immigration Status
Stop Collaborating with ICE
Provide Basic Due Process Protections
Refusal to participate in any discriminatory registry
This is a great step forward, but we can’t claim victory just yet.
Did you know that almost 700,000 eligible voters in Massachusetts aren’t registered? Well, that’s a problem.
Fortunately, Automatic Voter Registration is part of the solution. It’s a simple and important reform designed to increase political participation and strengthen voting rights by shifting our voter registration system from an opt-in to an opt-out one, making elections more free, fair, and accessible for all.
The State Senate will be voting on amendments to its FY 2019 budget next week. The budget makes some modest improvements to education and transit funding, but without new revenue sources, it remains in the same paradigm of underinvestment that has dominated for the past decade and a half.
Passing the Fair Share amendment on the ballot this fall will be a first step toward changing that.
But back to the budget…..
If you have only five minutes this week:
Call your state senator, as well as Senate President Harriette Chandler (617-722-1500) and Senate Ways & Means Chairwoman Karen Spilka (617-722-1640), in support of Amendment 1147 (Eldridge): Civil Rights and Safety.
The Legislature has so far punted and stalled when it comes to their responsibility to protect MA’s immigrant families from Trump’s xenophobic mass deportation agenda. The Safe Communities Act, which Progressive Mass and allies around the state have been fighting for over the past year, has remained stuck in committee.
This amendment contains key provisions of the Safe Communities Act:
The amendment process is an opportunity to further the important causes of…
Housing for All
Quality Education for All
A Clean Environment for All
Justice for All
The following amendments will help Massachusetts tackle our affordable housing crisis:
Amendment 3 (Creem): Community Preservation Act, which creates a surcharge for documentation at the Registries of Deeds to create a stronger and more stable funding source for the Community Preservation Act
Amendment 683 (Eldridge): Alternative Housing Voucher Program, which increases the line item by $2.7m to $7.7m
Amendment 686 (Eldridge): Homeless Individuals Assistance, which increases the line item from $46.18 million to $50 million
The following amendments will help Massachusetts deliver on the promise of quality education for all:
Amendment 176 (Eldridge): Adult Basic Education, which increases the line item for adult basic education, which is of great importance to new citizens, by $3.5m to $34.5m
Amendment 205 & 262 (Jehlen): Fiscal Impact of Charters, which address the important issue of the cost of charter expansion in school districts by ensuring that the state fulfills its obligation to fund charter expansion and to fully analyze charter funding impacts prior to expanding into a community
Amendment 260 (Rush): Recess, which would which would mandate at least 20 minutes of recess for elementary school students
The following amendments will help guarantee our constitutional right to a clean environment in Massachusetts:
Amendment 936 (Barrett): Minimum Monthly Reliability Contribution, which mitigates the negative impacts of a tax Charlie Baker imposed on MA homeowners who install solar panels on their houses
Amendment 968 (Cyr): EnvironmentalJustice, which strengthens the line item for environmental justice coordination by underscoring the importance of public health
Amendment 991 (Eldridge): Plastic Bag Reduction, which bans single-use plastic carryout bags
The following amendments will help deliver on the promise of justice for all:
Amendment 776 (Barrett): Workforce Training for Ex-Offenders, which increases the line item from $150,000 to $500,000
Amendment 992 (Creem): MLAC, which increases the line item from $19 million to $23 million
Amendment 997 (Creem): Data Reporting, which adds juvenile and adult reporting requirements, and requires that all the data (the old and the new) be disaggregated by race/ethnicity, gender, age, etc.
Amendment 1015 (Brownsberger): Prison Re-entry, which increases the funding for community based residential re-entry
Amendment 1042 (Eldridge): Resolve to Stop the Violence Program, which appropriates $300,000 for a restorative justice program in the Department of Corrections with proven benefits for reducing recidivism
Amendment 1125 (Friedman): Criminal Justice and Community Support Trust Fund, which would help boost funding for jail diversion programs for people experiencing behavioral health crises
Amendment 1147 (Eldridge): Civil Rights and Safety, which upholds the constitutional rights of immigrant communities and makes sure that local law enforcement isn’t deputized to ICE
Can you call or email your Senator today in support of these amendments?
