House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo ruled out Thursday the possibility of the House tapping into future gambling license fees to balance next year’s state budget, saying it is still too uncertain when the potential pot of $280 million will become available. .....so he is quoted in this Boston Globe article

And of course he is right, says the Chair of new Gaming Commission Steve Crosby  in this article from Dan Ring in the Republican....it's going to take a least a year apparently to get things started in the most transparent way possible. Be fun to watch.

BOSTON—The head of the state's new Massachusetts Gaming Commission said the panel is "ready to go" after a retired state appeals court justice and a municipal development official were appointed to the final two posts on the five-person board. The commission can now begin addressing the thorny issues of how best to oversee the creation of a casino gambling industry in the state.

Here's the new website with pictures and bios of all the Commissioners.   

Studies have shown school disciplinary exclusion to be one of the strongest predictors of dropping out, and one dropout is too many.  That is why we’re asking you to contact your Massachusetts legislators and the Joint Education Committee about the need for changes in school discipline policies and procedures and more comprehensive school discipline and exclusion data collection, analysis and benchmarked plan of action.

Please support legislation to help combat the school dropout crisis:

H. 177 – An Act to Respond to School Exclusion Data and Reduce School Dropouts, and
H. 178 – An Act Relative to Students’ Access to Educational Services and Exclusion from School

What you can do NOW:  Please call or E-mail members of the Joint Education Committee and also your state Senator and Representative and ask them to support H.177 and H.178.  Please reach out to any legislators you know and, if possible, arrange to discuss these issues in person.  Share any personal experience you may have.  To identify your State Senator and Representative, get their phone number and/or email address, visit www.wheredoIvotema.com or contact the State House at 617-722-2000.  Your legislators need to hear from you.

We need to get these bills reported out of the Joint Education Committee as soon as possible.

Click on Joint Committee on Education  to find the Senate and House Committee members and contact information (including district).  Please contact legislators you know and encourage them to ask members of the Education Committee to report out these bills with a favorable recommendation.

Harvard's Mark Warren is a  guest blogger in the Washington Post's Political Bookworm and reports on his project studying education reform through community action. He comes to the surprising (?) conclusion that community organizing works like a Match on Dry Grass. Very cool.

 Among the many strategies for improving America’s schools, Mark R. Warren offers a promising approach: community organizing, particularly in public schools in low-income neighborhoods.

In a new book, “A Match on Dry Grass: Community Organizing as a Catalyst for School Reform,” Warren, an associate professor of education at Harvard, serves as lead author in a series of case studies in New York, Los Angeles, Denver and elsewhere in which parents and students became participants in reform. Here, he describes the efforts of community organizing in education in Chicago.

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Following community organizing principles, the association approached these parents as potential leaders. With participation from local school principals, the association brought Latina mothers together as a group in a “parent mentor” program where they could learn how to become involved in schools in a supportive environment and build their knowledge and confidence.

The program placed these parent mentors in classrooms two hours a day, where they helped teachers by preparing materials, giving students individual attention, and organizing classroom activities.

At first, teachers were skeptical and worried that parent mentors would be “spying” on them. But the mentors showed they could provide real help and they built relationships with the teachers; today, there are not enough mentors for all the teachers who want one.

With the support of the association, the parents became mentors for other parents, helping them to get involved as well. Over the past 15 years, parent mentors have spearheaded efforts to open community learning centers and libraries, and launched a tutoring project and a home visitation program, among other initiatives.

So.... organizing works!!

From the Brockton Enterprise                                                             


Advocates for a dam safety bill are calling for action from state lawmakers who represent 62 Bay State towns and cities that own 100 dams rated in unsafe or poor condition, including in Brockton, Easton, Norton and Pembroke.

A coalition of environmental, local government and engineering groups recently sent letters to every state representative with such a dam in his or her district, warning of “the potential to cause loss of life or significant property damage in the event of dam failure.”

The letter asked legislators to tell House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Brian Dempsey and Speaker Robert DeLeo they support the dam safety bill. The Senate passed a version of the legislation in July.

Some of the dams date back more than a century – with Easton’s historic Long Pond Dam completed in 1850 and Brockton’s Thirty Acre Pond Dam in 1900.