Former governor William Weld, always a political wild card, offers an interesting take on the Education Reform Act he signed into law 20 years ago. He says most of the law’s focus was on the infusion of state resources into underfunded school systems and new accountability measures. But he says the creation of charter public schools, largely an afterthought at the time, has become the real legacy of the measure. He calls for lifting the state cap on charters.
Charter schools educate just 3.3 percent of the state’s public school population, but Weld says they are having an impact on far more students by driving a larger education reform debate about longer school days and individual school autonomy. He notes charters are also playing an active role in school turnaround efforts in Lawrence and Boston.
Weld’s thinking is mirrored by a group calling itself Boston:Forward, a broad coalition of education leaders that is trying to convince Boston mayoral candidates to embrace the charter school philosophy of autonomy and accountability at district schools and to support lifting the charter school cap.
Weld moved back to Boston last year from New York City and started working at at the powerhouse law firm Mintz Levin, prompting all sorts of speculation about his political future. He shied away from a run for US Senate, but, as his charter school op-ed in the Telegram & Gazette demonstrates, he hasn’t lost interest in politics and policy.
–BRUCE MOHL
BEACON HILL
Martha Coakley for governor? Possibly so, some little birdies tell Frank Phillips and Jim O’Sullivan.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo pushes back on transportation funding, calling himself “surprised” that Gov. Deval Patrick is objecting to the Legislature’s tax bill.
MARATHON BOMBINGS
Dzokhar Tsarnaev is indicted on 30 counts, most of which carry the death penalty.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
Six Peabody city councilors skip a meeting, forcing its cancellation, the Salem News reports.
Cambridge pushes for zero-net energy buildings.
The Pioneer Institute’s Gregory Sullivan tells the Herald that the permits on a South Boston development projects that Michael Kineavy, a top aide to Mayor Tom Menino, helped push through the city, may be invalid.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
The Senate passes an immigration reform bill, which now goes to the House, where its future is very uncertain, the Huffington Post reports.
The top Democrat and Republican senators on the Senate Finance Committee have sent a letter to their colleagues giving them a month to explain why any tax breaks, including charitable deductions, should be maintained in an updated tax code.
The Atlantic runs down a dozen voter suppression tactics it says could stem from this week’s Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act. The New York Times rounds up efforts by Chief Justice John Roberts to push the court, slowly but solidly, to the right.
ELECTION
CommonWealth’s Michael Jonas says in this Globe column that education may become the top issue in the Boston mayor’s race — with a bold plan for school-level autonomy at the center of it. He first reported on a new coalition pushing the autonomy vision in this CommonWealth piece earlier in the week.
Has Scott Brown just been biding his time, laying plans to run against Sen. Ed Markey next year? CommonWealth asks.
Democratic political activist George Bachrach, in a CommonWealth Voices piece, urges reporters to stop covering politics as if it’s a game.
Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse is facing at least five challengers in his bid for reelection, MassLive reports.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
A new report says Massachusetts is not adding jobs fast enough for those still out of work or underemployed.
Federal regulators sue former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine over the meltdown of his brokerage firm.
EDUCATION
The Brockton Enterprise exposes a little-known clause in the contract between the Brockton schools and its custodian union that allows janitors to act as crossing guards before and after school at overtime rates, an agreement that has cost the city millions more than neighboring communities to perform the same part-time job.
After learning that a second close relative of a top Lowell schools officials was promoted, a city councilor is drafting an anti-nepotism ordinance, the Sun reports.
A Lawrence charter school receives a $10,000 grant to launch a garden education program, the Eagle-Tribune reports.
HEALTH CARE
A study in the Journal of Adolescent Health finds that 37 percent of children have tasted alcohol at the age of 8 and most have sipped booze by the time they are 14, exposure that experts say can lead to adult problem-drinking.
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
A new, more remote route is proposed for the Northern Pass project designed to carry hydroelectricity from Quebec through New Hampshire into New England, CommonWealth reports.
Swansea officials and residents are trying to figure out a plan to cap the town’s old landfill which was closed down 30 years ago but never properly capped and is now leaching contaminants into surrounding groundwater and soil.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
It was corrupt former G-man John Morris’s turn on the stand yesterday, and his appearance apparently hit a raw nerve with the defendant, as Whitey Bulger came a tad unhinged, unleashing a profanity at him that drew a rebuke from the judge and a promise from Bulger’s lawyers that they would keep him quiet. Kevin Cullen says yesterday’s mini-outburst showed the true Bulger — the murderous, evil one.
Police are now looking into Aaron Hernandez’s possible involvement in a 2012 double murder in Boston’s South End.
A project manager at the Registry of Motor Vehicles has been charged along with two others with extorting money from service stations seeking licenses to perform emissions tests and issue safety inspection stickers.
MEDIA
The bids are in for the Boston Globe, with at least six groups believed to have submitted offers to the New York Times Co. Bloomberg reports that the Times Co. is likely to settle on an offer in the $100 million range.
The Patriot Ledger and Taunton Gazette, along with their parent company GateHouse Media, have filed motions to unseal the search warrants in the Aaron Hernandez murder investigation.
