Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Mass ballot questions before the Joint Committee next week

The Joint Committee on Education has announced a hearing next Monday on H3929 (reversing the Common Core) and H3928 (lifting the charter cap) which are the two education-related ballot questions.
The Joint Committee on Education will be holding a public hearing on Monday, February 8 at10:00 am in Gardner Auditorium on several bills that have recently been referred to the Committee
Note that they are taking public testimony on both bills, that it is limited to three minutes each, and that you must sign up that morning beforehand in order to be heard. If you cannot attend, you can send your written testimony directly to the Committee, via jennie.williamson@mahouse.gov by February 12.
Relatedly, the Boston Herald published who is funding some of the initiatives; they had this on the charter cap lift:
The committee pushing to expand the charter school cap, aptly named Charter Schools for Mass., took in more than $493,000 over a four-month span to finish 2015. 
Officials emphasized that no corporations directly contributed to the effort, but its filing is littered with individuals from major Boston companies, including $40,000 each from two Bain Capital directors: Seth Klarman, founder of the Baupost Group, and Abigail Johnson, CEO at Fidelity Investments. 
Jonathan Kraft, president of the Kraft Group, also gave $5,000. But the largest donation came from the Strong Economy Massachusetts Independent Expenditure PAC, which contributed $70,000 and backed Gov. Charlie Baker during his 2014 campaign with a pair of $3,000 online ad buys, according to records.

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