If you’re keeping score at home, Gov. Charlie Baker lost another battle on Wednesday in his long-running war with the state’s teachers unions.
Baker for months had resisted the call by the unions to speed up the COVID-19 vaccination of their members. The governor insisted schools were already safe and teachers could wait their turn along with other essential workers, even after he moved those 65 and older ahead of them in the vaccination line.
But the teacher unions kept at it. They didn’t want to be perceived as jumping the line, so they initially argued that Baker needed to give them more clarity about when they would be vaccinated. But as Baker pressed schools to resume in-person learning, the unions said the vaccination of educators was needed to make that happen.
Baker initially balked at that claim, saying existing safety measures and a new pooled testing program were enough. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention seemed to be on his side.
But then the political dominoes began to fall.
First, House Speaker Ron Mariano jumped on the teachers union bandwagon, followed by Senate President Karen Spilka, and President Biden himself. They all argued vaccination of educators was crucial to safely returning teachers and kids to classrooms, and Biden backed that claim on Tuesday by allowing teachers to sign up for vaccinations at pharmacies participating in a federal distribution program.
“The governor has no excuses anymore,” Massachusetts Teachers Association president Merrie Najimy told the Boston Herald. “It’s time for Charlie Baker to get with the program. Everybody else is on board. He can make it happen and he can make it happen starting tomorrow.”
The governor threw in the towel on Wednesday, saying he was allowing teachers to start booking vaccination appointments on March 11 to avoid confusion between state and federal eligibility standards. “This is a huge victory for our students, our school employees, and our entire school community,” said Najimy.
It wasn’t the first victory the unions have won over Baker. In 2016, the governor got behind a referendum question to lift the cap on the number of charter schools in Massachusetts. Baker, a major proponent of charters, tried to frame the debate along social justice lines.
“The fact that we have 37,000 kids on a waiting list to get into a school of their dreams here in the Commonwealth is a disgrace,” Baker said. “We have a great opportunity to do something about that.”
But opponents, led by teacher unions, pushed back against the governor’s narrative, arguing that expansion of charter schools would only undermine traditional district public schools that were struggling under an outdated funding formula. The teachers unions turned the ballot question into a referendum on support for public schools and the question was crushed by a 2-1 margin.
Looking ahead, the next major battleground between the teacher unions and the governor is likely to come on the state’s standardized tests. The Baker administration and much of the education establishment have championed the tests as a way of measuring student progress, but teachers unions say the tests are a waste of money and time.
Baker canceled the tests in 2020 when COVID first hit, but he has indicated a lower-stakes version of the test will go on this spring. Andrew King, a board member of Citizens for Public Schools, which is funded primarily by teachers unions, previewed the upcoming debate in a recent CommonWealth op-ed.
“Students are not the ones who need to be held accountable right now,” he said. “We must hold the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education accountable for providing the help and resources that our schools need: safer school buildings, contact tracing, vaccinations for teachers, improved remote learning opportunities for students, and full funding for the Student Opportunity Act. That is, we need a just recovery in education that halts the damaging high-stakes standardized tests, and puts the health, happiness, and well-being of every child at the center of learning now and in the post-pandemic era.”
BRUCE MOHL
FROM COMMONWEALTH
After weeks of pressure from teachers and their political allies — and a day after President Biden weighed in — Gov. Charlie Baker gives in and says teachers can start signing up for vaccinations March 11 along with those 65 and over those with two or more underlying conditions.
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FROM AROUND THE WEB
BEACON HILL
The Baker administration is pushing for a fix that would exempt federal Paycheck Protection Program grants from state taxes; currently only some firms would be free of the tax obligation. (Boston Globe)
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
The Hampden County Regional Retirement Board came under heavy fire from municipal leaders and members at a “chaotic” phone meeting, its first public meeting since the release of a brutal state audit questioning a range of apparent financial missteps. (MassLive)
HEALTH/HEALTH CARE
Primary care doctors are seeking access to the COVID vaccine, to distribute it to their patients. (Eagle-Tribune)
Only 12,000 new appointments for COVID vaccines will become available Thursday morning, because there is limited supply coming from the federal government and so many people need to return for their second doses. (MassLive) Gov. Charlie Baker said the recent distribution to civilians of unused vaccines meant for first responders is something that shouldn’t be done again. (Boston Globe)
COVID-19 testing rates in the state are down, and public health experts say that’s not good. (Boston Globe)
WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL
Senate Democrats and the White House agree to tighter income limits for recipients of stimulus checks. (NPR)
The House passed a major expansion of federal voting rights, but it faces an uphill climb in the Senate. (New York Times)
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo apologizes for acting “in a way that made people feel uncomfortable,” but said he won’t step down after allegations of sexual harassment surface against him. (NPR)
In its probe of former president Donald Trump’s finances, the Manhattan district attorney’s office is putting the squeeze on Trump’s longtime chief financial officer. (Washington Post)
ELECTIONS
John Barros, the chief of economic development for Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, prepares to jump into the race to succeed his boss. (WGBH) The mayoral race is proving to be a bonanza for political consultants. (Boston Herald)
Boston’s chief equity officer, Karilyn Crockett, is resigning and said to be weighing a run for mayor. (WGBH)
Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham says the Democratic Party’s big tent shouldn’t extend so far that it includes Jeff Turco, the pro-life, Trump-voting Winthrop resident who won Tuesday’s special election Democratic primary for state rep. Activists renew their call for ranked-choice voting, which was rejected on the statewide ballot last fall, arguing that it might have led to a different outcome in the race. (Boston Herald, Boston Globe)
The Globe’s James Pindell says New Hampshire’s Maggie Hassan could be the vulnerable US Senate Democrat in next year’s midterm election.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
The Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, a longtime civil rights group, and Associated Industries of Massachusetts are teaming up to oppose any Beacon Hill efforts that would limit the flexibility enjoyed by gig workers, putting them at odds with groups that say the gig economy exploits low-wage workers. (Boston Globe)
Peterson Oil of Worcester is fined $450,000 for knowingly delivering the wrong mix of heating oil to state agencies. (Telegram & Gazette)
EDUCATION
Now that they will become eligible for COVID shots, teachers are thinking about how to implement the vaccination process and what precautions will continue to be necessary. (Salem News)
On Friday, Education Commissioner Jeff Riley will seek authority from the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to decide when remote learning will no longer count toward instructional time. (State House News Service)
A federal judge will let a coalition of civil rights groups offer arguments against a lawsuit challenging Boston’s decision to change admission criteria for its three selective-entry 6-12 grade schools. (Boston Globe)
The Telegram & Gazette examines the implications for students if Becker College closes permanently.
A former Smith College employee, who is white, files a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, the first step toward filing a lawsuit, alleging a racially hostile environment. Her resignation letter, making similar claims, has gotten national attention, including from the New York Times. (MassLive)
Mount Holyoke College reverses course and says it will not shut down its on-campus child care center open and will keep it open for at least another year. (Daily Hampshire Gazette)
Bridgewater State University apologizes after issuing a survey as part of a psychology class research experiment that described the Black Lives Matter movement in a hypothetical vignette as “a wild beast preying on your local community.” The survey was designed with two versions – one intended to elicit positive responses and one intended to elicit negative responses. (Patriot Ledger)
The Hull and Weymouth school districts turned to a PR firm, John Guilfoil Public Relations, to conduct outside investigations, raising questions about the firm’s dual role. (Patriot Ledger)
ARTS/CULTURE
The Robert Gould Shaw memorial to a regiment of Black Civil War soldiers returns to downtown Boston after a restoration. (Associated Press)
CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS
More trouble for the scandal-plagued Massachusetts State Police as three supervisors sue the head of the department, who Gov. Charlie Baker brought on to clean up the mess there, alleging that he improperly oversaw a promotional exam and worked to favor allies for new positions. (Boston Globe)
The federal prison system is expected to release Carlos Rafael, the disgraced fishing mogul nicknamed the Codfather, today. (South Coast Today)
