This November, Massachusetts voters will have the chance to vote on the Fair Share Amendment on the statewide general election ballot. This critically important ballot question would allow Massachusetts to improve our transportation and public education systems by making the very rich pay their fair share.

The ballot question would create a 4 percent tax on annual income above $1 million and dedicate the funds raised to transportation and public education. Only people who earn more than $1 million annually will pay this additional income tax; 99% of us won’t pay a penny more. And we’ll all

As a new report reveals that Massachusetts students are being priced out of public college by rising tuition and fees, members of the UMass Dartmouth Faculty Federation are advocating for greater state investment in Massachusetts’ public colleges in order to make them affordable to the middle class again.

“Earning a degree from a state college – which was once heralded as a pathway of opportunity – has become completely unfeasible for most middle-class families and students across Massachusetts,” says Dr. Grant O’Rielly, President of the UMass Dartmouth Faculty Federation.

The new study from the

The state should hit the pause button on its deeply flawed school and district accountability system, AFT MA President Beth Kontos tells state education officials in a May 12 letter. “The current ‘test, rank, label, and punish’ approach to accountability is causing serious and demonstrable harm,” Kontos writes. “Until that harm can be stopped, all accountability measures and DESE interventions should be suspended – not just for 2021-22 but indefinitely.”

The letter was written in response to a proposal by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to give DESE commissioner Jeff

AFT Massachusetts President Beth Kontos and Secretary-Treasurer Brant Duncan are thrilled to announce the winners of the union’s 2022 Distinguished Service Awards.

The Distinguished Service Awards are presented annually to AFT Massachusetts members who have demonstrated an outstanding level of service and dedication to their local union. Here are this year’s winners:

PreK-12 Educator

Sharon Nash, AFT Amesbury. A member of AFT Amesbury since 2001, Sharon has taught as a kindergarten and first grade teacher at the Amesbury Elementary School. She has served as a building representative, a member of

At their April 2022 meeting, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) voted to solicit public comment on a proposal by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to raise the passing standard on the high school English language arts (ELA), mathematics, and science and technology/engineering (STE) MCAS exams.

Under this proposal, students starting with the class of 2026 (this year’s 8th graders) would be required to meet the higher passing standard (or cut score) to earn the competency determination (CD) and graduate from high school.

BESE is expected to vote on the

In public comment submitted on February 23, AFT MA President Beth Kontos sharply criticizes a proposal by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to continue its ranking of schools based on biased and inaccurate MCAS-derived measures.

DESE has proposed suspending certain school accountability measures for School Year 2021-22, citing unreliable MCAS data from School Year 2020-21, when MCAS was administered during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, DESE plans to continue in 2022 with the heart of its accountability regime: the calculation of the school percentile metric, which is