THERE WAS A BIT of a push recently for Mass General Brigham to buy the partially rebuilt Norwood Hospital and get the project back on schedule.  What’s unclear is where the push came from since Mass General Brigham made very clear it has no interest in buying the facility.

The hospital closed for good in June 2020 due to heavy rains that flooded much of the facility. Construction work on a new $375 million hospital began in 2021, but questions about the insurance coverage and ongoing financial problems at Steward Health Care, the operator of the hospital, and Medical Properties Trust, the real estate investment trust that owns the property, prompted construction work to halt earlier this year.

Amid all the uncertainty, the hospital’s hometown state rep, John Rogers, filed an amendment to the House budget (which is coming up for debate next week) authorizing the state to approve the sale or lease of the Norwood Hospital property to Mass General Brigham or some other “high-quality healthcare provider.”

Rogers apparently never talked to officials at Mass General Brigham, but he said in a Facebook post on April 11 that he did talk to Gov. Maura Healey, Medical Properties Trust, and “members of the MGB board of directors who love the Norwood project and want the deal done.”

Rogers didn’t get back to CommonWealth Beacon. He did talk to Boston Globe columnist Larry Edelman, but wouldn’t tell him which directors were pushing the deal.

One director would seem to have a strong interest in getting construction of the hospital back on track. John Fish, who serves on the executive committee of the Mass General Brigham board, is CEO of Suffolk Construction, the general contractor on the now-stalled Norwood Hospital project.

Fish didn’t return a call to his company and Mass General Brigham wouldn’t go beyond a previously issued statement saying it “is not seeking to purchase Norwood Hospital.” All these no comments leave a lot of room for speculation about who started this nonstory and why.

Renewed swipe at civic education funds

A six-year-old civic education project, expanded over the years, is back in the budget-cut firing line under proposed fiscal year 2025 plans released by Gov. Maura Healey and the House of Representatives. 

The Civics Project Trust Fund, dedicated to expanding civics education in the state, not only dodged a $1 million reduction in funding through gubernatorial veto last year, but saw its funding increased to $2.5 million by the Legislature after a concerted push from nonprofits and educators.

Healey’s proposed $58 billion budget slashes the civics fund back down to $1.5 million, with a line item note indicating that the governor “decreased funding to meet projected need.” The House, now considering amendments to its proposed budget, carved down the civics fund by the same amount.  

Still early in the budget process with the state facing a grim revenue and spending picture, the cut sets up a repeat of last year’s face off, with the Massachusetts Civic Learning Coalition now backing an amendment to the House budget that would bump the funding level back up to $2.5 million. The coalition touts the fund’s success, providing more than $7 million for the state and local school districts to develop civic education programs. 

Now is not the time to cut, advocates argue, with comprehensive civics education still lacking for younger grades and funding particularly needed for under-resourced communities. In a fact sheet, the coalition said that even at the current level, the fund “still struggles to provide adequate resources for school systems to develop and implement their civic education curriculum. Over the past four years, less than 50 percent of submitted grant proposals were funded.”

State charter school ranking falls 

Massachusetts has long been regarded as having a strong charter school sector, with Boston charters in particular singled out in the past for being among the highest-performing cohorts of charters in the country. 

But the shine is apparently off. The Center for Education Reform, a pro-charter Washington-based policy organization that ranks states annually on their charter school laws, has downgraded Massachusetts by 10 spots in its 2024 rankings. The state is now ranked as having the 24th strongest charter school law in the country. 

The state has not made any recent changes that would seem to explain the shift. Instead, it seems to reflect the cumulative impact of the retreat charter schools have been in since a crushing 2016 defeat at the polls, when voters overwhelmingly rejected a statewide ballot question to raise the cap on charters. 

“Massachusetts was once one of the highest-ranking states for providing the environment for expansive education opportunities through charter schooling, but it has stagnated by failing to lift caps, approve new schools, and encourage expansion,” said Jeanne Allen, CEO of the Center for Education Reform, in a press release on the new rankings. 

The Worcester Cultural Academy, which opened its doors in September, was the first new charter school to open in the state in five years. State education officials said at the time that they planned to use part of a federal grant to help organizations develop charter school proposals.