Will Brownsberger — State Senator, Democrat, 2d Suffolk and Middlesex District

Hi Will, This is my fault for not taking the time over the years to ask you about your position in person. You certainly are always available. I know others who feel the same way that I do so I thought I would ask on this snowy morning to get some clarification on this issue. [...]

The present House Education Chair, Rep. Alice Peisch, and her predecessor, Rep. Marty Walz, have taken a strong leadership role in shaping an approach to expanding virtual education in Massachusetts.

One special thing about special education is that it is extremely expensive. State auditor Suzanne Bump has released  scathing critiques of three special education collaboratives in Massachusetts, detailing misuse of millions of dollars of funds. I first heard the story reported on WBUR. Now I fear that more shoes may drop. My question to Will: [...]

The final budget comes in at the high side of expectations as to local aid.

On Tuesday, June 21, at 10AM in Room A-2 in the State House, the Education Committee will hear testimony on two pieces of legislation related to the membership of the board of education. Both bills — House 1088 (sponsored by Rep. Walz) and House 1917 (sponsored by Rep. Garballey) — are designed to assure that [...]

Rep. Marty Walz and I have sponsored legislation (House 1090) to create virtual charter schools. This legislation is coming up for a hearing before the legislature’s education committee next Tuesday, June 21. Your thoughts on the legislation would be much appreciated.

Hi Will … I am curious if you know much about the services provided to educators by the DOE.  I am talking about licensure, MTEL, etc. The level of service for licensure particularly has steadily dropped over the years due to budget cuts.  At the moment a teacher with questions about their license can only [...]

My education agenda for 2011-2 is about action but also about continued discussion and reflection.

There is little to suggest any course is relevant to job success  (history, literature, social studies,…). The requirement for job success is communication (language proficiency, and writing), abstract reasoning (often thought to be taught via mathematics), critical reasoning (this and writing are assumed to be taught in all the other courses via seminar-like discussion of [...]

The special education circuit breaker is a possible source of additional funds for local school budgets in Fiscal 2012 budget cycle.

Will, Seeing the budget situation is fluid I had a few questions related to Belmont and State funds. The Belmont Schools have budgeted approximately $1.1m for increases in the SPED budget. About $530,000 of that is lost stimulus funding and the balance is a projected 11% increase in y/y SPED costs based on historical data [...]

We had a good meeting on education technology directions last night in Belmont. For me, the strongest take away was that we need to think mainly about liberating creative energy.

The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is not only failing to lead, but affirmatively inhibiting progress in online learning.

These funds are flowing directly from the federal government through state executive branch agencies to schools. They are apparently not subject to legislative action at either the state or local level.

Massachusetts is moving forward to allow the creation of virtual schools. The progress is good news, although we may still be moving too cautiously.

Hi Representative Brownsberger, With all of the news coverage on bullying, and calls for new legislation, I’d like to put my 2 cents out there.  I see a lot of angry people calling for the heads of school officials and teachers who supposedly allowed the bullying to go on under their noses. In several instances [...]

Hi Will, I haven’t read the entire anti-bullying bill yet but am looking for consequences that will be put into effect for the bullies and their parents.  If parents and bullies do not experience serious consequences,  bullying will continue no matter how much punishment is dealt to teachers. Mary Cummings

Groups from diverse perspectives — the Boston Foundation, Stand for Children, the Massachusetts Municipal Association, the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation — are pushing for change in municipal health insurance. I think that the legislature is really beginning to focus on making something happen and I am starting to be hopeful that we’ll have a bill this spring.

Early Thursday evening the House completed final approval of the Education Reform bill. It is “on the Governor’s Desk” and a signing is scheduled for Monday morning at 11AM at the Children’s Museum, 300 Congress St., Boston.

The House moved forward a version of the education reform bill last night. There is plenty of coverage of the issue in the newspapers, but here is a perspective from the floor.