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Governor And New UMass Boss Agree: Online Education Must Be A Top Priority
The incoming president of the University of Massachusetts, Marty Meehan, met Tuesday with Governor Charlie Baker for the first time since Meehan was chosen to lead the five-campus system. Both men stressed that online education will be a top priority.
Baker praised Meehan’s commitment to web-based learning as chancellor at the Lowell campus.
“One of the things that impressed me about UMass Lowell is that they’re doing $40 million a year worth of online education,” the governor said at a State House press conference.
Meehan said that 53 percent of the graduates last year at Lowell took at least one online course.
“Online provides an opportunity to provide access to people who work, people who are raising families and we need to expand that,” Meehan said.
Meehan, who begins his new position July 1, would not say if he thinks tuition or fee increases are necessary this year. But he did say academic programs need to have a business plan — and bring in revenue.
Constitutional Hurdle and Referendum Competition Await Olympic Ballot Question
Boston 2024 says it wants to collect signatures to put a referendum on the ballot, asking Massachusetts residents if they want to host the Olympics.
But Secretary of State Bill Galvin’s office is raising a red flag. A spokesperson for Galvin says the state Constitution allows outside groups or individuals to only sponsor ballot questions that enact or repeal laws. So, a referendum that simply gauges public support for the Olympics wouldn’t appear to meet that standard.
Galvin’s office says the legislature can initiate a ballot question like that, which might actually be good news for Boston 2024. It would spare Olympic boosters the time-consuming — and often expensive — process of collecting the tens of thousands of signatures necessary to get a referendum on the ballot.
The devil’s in the wording
Meanwhile, a group of Olympic opponents fear the language of the Boston 2024 ballot question could be too broad.
Chris Dempsey of No Boston Olympics said the challenge going forward is the phrasing of the ballot question, which he said could be a complex one to craft.
“We like to say this,” Dempsey said Tuesday. “It’s one question to say, ‘Do you want some cotton candy?’ And a very different question to say, ‘Do you want to buy some cotton candy?’ And even different to say, ‘Do you want to buy some cotton candy, and by the way, dentists say you’re not supposed to eat cotton candy.’”
Both Dempsey and Boston 2024 said they will sit down and try to come up with language that works for both sides.
Competing referendums
There could be at least two different referendums about the Boston Olympic bid on the 2016 Massachusetts ballot.
Former gubernatorial candidate Evan Falchuk said Boston 2024’s effort won’t stop him from pushing ahead with his own ballot question.
“We think it’s important that there’s a question that protects taxpayers and says no taxpayer money can be used and that there be no guarantees from taxpayers for the Olympics,” Falchuk said.
Falchuk said the move by Olympic boosters looks like an effort to stave off what he’s doing.
Boston 2024 leader Rich Davey denied that and suggested it’s Falchuk who has an ulterior motive.
“Obviously he was a statewide candidate for office a few years ago,” Davey said in an interview Tuesday. “Are we on the record?”
Mass. Towns Say ‘Yes, Please’ To State Funding For Pothole Repair
Massachusetts is making $30 million available to cities and towns to help fill potholes and make other repairs to roads after a brutal winter.
You’ve probably noticed that driving around Massachusetts is a nightmare. So this money is quite welcome, says Geoff Beckwith with the Massachusetts Municipal Association.
“Local roads have really taken a beating during this harsh winter. Not just in terms of the massive amounts of snow and ice,” Beckwith says. “But also it’s been very cold. So the freeze-thaw, freeze-thaw breaks up the roads. So as the snow is disappearing, potholes are going to be breaking out in record numbers on municipal roads all across the state.”
The money will come from the sale of state bonds, and it will be distributed according to a formula based on a community’s population, road miles and employment.
Mass. AG Healey Looks To Ban E-Cigarette Sales To Minors
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey wants to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to anyone younger than 18.
Healey introduced the proposed regulations at a State House press conference on Tuesday.
“This is about young people,” the Democrat — now in her third month as attorney general — said. “This is about the safety and well being and public health of young people.”
Right now, there’s no state law prohibiting the sale of e-cigarettes to minors, though several cities and towns have their own age restrictions.
The new regulations would also require sellers of nicotine liquid or gel — which is what’s inside e-cigarettes — to use child-resistant packaging. It would also ban free giveaways and require the devices to be stored behind the register.
Jon Hurst if the Retailers Association of Massachusetts says he supports Healey’s plan.
“Frankly, we would prefer a good moderate statewide law, then a crazy quilt of local ordinances,” he said.
E-cigarettes are not regulated by the FDA — yet. Many health experts say they contain dangerous chemicals and lure teens with flavors like chocolate and bubblegum. And they say smoking e-cigarettes could lead to smoking real cigarettes in the future.
Some complain the regulations don’t go far enough. Tami Gouveia of Tobacco Free Mass wants to add e-cigarettes to the state’s indoor smoking ban, and ban flavors that make e-cigarettes more palatable to kids.
Supporters of e-cigarettes say they are a safer alternative to smoking and could help wean current smokers off of smoking – like Nicorette gum.
A public hearing on the regulations is scheduled for the end of April.
Baker Not First Governor To Tackle Homelessness, But Will He Be The First To Succeed?
During his campaign for Massachusetts governor — and after — Charlie Baker made homelessness a cornerstone issue.
“Some of our toughest challenges have been ignored and lost amid the successes,” Baker said in his inaugural address. “Or have become the equivalent of kicking a can down the road because they’re not politically convenient or easy to fix.”
Among the challenges: hundreds of families housed by the state in hotels and motels. This week, Baker proposed in his budget a $20 million fund to keep low-income families off the streets. And he announced an overall shift in policy.
At his budget press conference, Baker laid out the seemingly intractable problem.
“Simple truth of the matter is at a point in time when family homelessness has been falling nationally, it’s been increasing in Massachusetts,” the governor said. “To the point where the amount family homelessness in Massachusetts is a human tragedy that clearly must be rethought and reconsidered with respect to how these families are served.”
The Baker administration estimates there are 5,000 families living in Massachusetts hotels, motels and shelters, with much of the cost falling to taxpayers. A recent report from the federal government says Massachusetts ranks third most – just behind New York and California – in the number of people in homeless families.
Baker’s Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders describes the administration’s new approach.
“Working with expert providers, we will invest in family homeless prevention strategies that provide flexible, wraparound services to families at risk,” Sudders says.
Here’s what that means: Baker wants to send out teams to help each family develop a plan before they become homeless. The caseworkers would help the families access services like child care, job training, rental assistance and substance abuse treatments.
UMass Boston Public Policy professor Donna Friedman says it could work.
“If part of their plan is to ease the eligibility and ease the application process and coordinate across programs so there’s one application and also the resources don’t drop off too fast,” Friedman says. “That probably will make a big difference for many, many families.”
It should be said, Baker is not proposing a hike in funding. The governor hopes that by keeping families in their homes he can save the state money on shelters, hotels and motels.
“These reforms will not only cut down on the cost to the state, but cut down on the terrible toll that homelessness takes on parents and their kids,” Baker says.
It’s a promise we’ve heard before. In 2008, Gov. Deval Patrick promised to eliminate family homelessness in five years. He wanted to set up an early warning system to catch households on the brink of homelessness — and then intervene quickly with services. In other words – pretty much what Baker is proposing. So what happened?
“It was at the same time the great recession hit,” says Kelly Turley of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless.
Turley says it was just bad timing. She says the number of families needing shelter jumped.
“And so even just to provide those basic services took a lot more resources than they had anticipated,” she says.
And at the same time, the state’s tax revenues took a hit. And that meant less money for prevention.
Playing a key part in all of this is Massachusetts’ right to shelter law. The state must provide emergency shelter for any family that’s eligible.
As the number of families needing it went up, the cost also went up and up and up. Soon the system was maxed out and the Patrick administration put families in hotels and motels. Peter Galliardi of Springfield-based HAP Housing testified at a State House hearing last year.
“There have been three massive waves of effort in the last several years,” Galliardi said. “And each time we have succeeded in reducing the number and each time they’ve refilled and then some. It’s worse than the myth of Sisyphus. Not only do we go back up the hill but the hill gets higher.”
The Patrick administration in 2012 tightened restrictions for who could get shelter. Families needed to show they were homeless. By sleeping on a beach, for instance, or in a train station – and snapping pictures, in some cases, to prove it.
“Over multiple administrations there has been a deep interest in homeless and a deep concern,” Turley says. “But there hasn’t been a deep enough political will to tackle homelessness.”
It is a lot to tackle, according to a recent report from the Citizen’s Housing and Planning Association. More than 60,000 Massachusetts families are at risk for homelessness.