Massachusetts
‘Applying a wrecking ball': Mass. teachers, leaders react to Trump's order on education
President Donald Trump’s executive order calling for the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education has been met with condemnation from Massachusetts leaders and the state’s largest teachers union.
Trump promised on the campaign trail to do away with the agency. Its official dismantling would require an act of Congress.
“We’re going to shut it down, and shut it down as quickly as possible,” Trump said. “It’s doing us no good.”
Educators expressed concern that the move would impact class sizes while taking resources away from students. Democratic elected officials, including Gov. Maura Healey, sounded off on the measure, while Republicans who spoke with NBC10 Boston Thursday applauded it.
“What they’re doing is applying a wrecking ball to the Department of Education that’s going to affect 50 million public school students and college students across the country,” said Max Page, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association.
Gov. Maura Healey is expressing concern about how some of President Donald Trump’s moves will affect Massachusetts.
“To me, this is really distressing,” Healey told NBC10 Boston in an interview Thursday. “I think it’s a dumb idea. It seems to me we should be doing everything we can to make America more competitive, continue to invest in education, and I can tell you as governor, I’m going to continue to support and invest in education in our state.”
Healey was not alone among Massachusetts Democrats to criticize Trump’s move, with some also calling out billionaire advisor Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.
“Before Linda McMahon was sworn in, Donald Trump and Elon Musk were already working to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education,” Massachusetts Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler said in a statement shared by Healey’s office. “Today’s executive order does nothing to improve opportunities and outcomes for students but instead will negatively impact our most vulnerable student populations and exacerbate longstanding challenges around wealth inequality. As a former history teacher, I know how important public education is to a functioning democracy. The fight to protect students’ civil rights is urgent and here.”
“This is a code red for every public school student, parent, and teacher in this country. Trump is telling public school kids in America that their futures don’t matter,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a statement. “Billionaires like Trump and Musk won’t feel the difference when after school programs are slashed, class sizes go up, and help for families to pay for school gets cut. But working families, students, and teachers will pay a heavy price.”
“President Trump, Elon Musk, and Secretary McMahon have a clear education agenda: stealing from public schools to fund tax breaks for billionaires,” added Sen. Ed Markey in his own statement. “Dismantling the Department of Education is just code for cuts to public schools, educators, students, and parents. Their anti-student, anti-family, anti-educator plan to dismantle the Department will harm every community across the country. They are attempting to privatize education, locking the promise of opportunity in an ivory tower accessible only to those born into the right circumstances.”
Rep. Ayanna Pressley reacted to President Donald Trump’s forthcoming executive order calling for the U.S. Department of Education to be shut down.
“Every child will feel the impact, and we will feel it for generations,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley told NBC10 Boston Wednesday after learning Trump planned to sign the order the next day. “To defund Head Start? I have 2,600 low-income families in my district that rely upon that early education and care.”
Republicans, meanwhile, defended the move.
“Not one child is educated by the Department of Education, not one school is run by the Department of Education. This is a great day for students,” said Massachusetts Republican strategist Wendy Wakeman.
In Massachusetts, about 9.7% percent of school funding comes from the federal government, totaling about $2.1 billion. School districts are now afraid to lose millions.
“The community is very upset and disturbed by the actions that the federal government is taking,” said Margaret Foley, a reading teacher in Framingham — a district that receives about $9 million in federal funding.
With President Trump signing an executive order calling for the U.S. Department of Education to be dismantled, we’re looking into whether he actually can get rid of a federal department, what the department actually does and why it was founded.
Established in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter’s administration, the Department of Education distributes financial aid for FAFSA applications, oversees federal government grant funding, and is responsible for overseeing policies enacted by Congress.
“Those old ways are failing our children,” Wakeman argued. “We need new ideas. We need new life, and one of the ways to do it is to get rid of this bureaucratic bloat.”
For now, cities throughout the state are still scrambling to figure out exactly how their schools will be affected.
“We haven’t really fully understood what it is going to mean when it gets down to the ground in Massachusetts, so we’re going to talk with our team, figure out what impacts it may have,” said Revere Mayor Patrick Keefe Jr.
BOSTON (WWLP) – The Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI) announced Wednesday that it is distributing 5,063 internet-enabled devices to 45 organizations across the state.
The statewide effort, administered through the Connected and Online program, aims to expand economic opportunity by increasing digital access. This program is a $31.6 million initiative funded through the U.S. Treasury’s Capital Projects Fund that provides Massachusetts-based organizations with laptops, tablets, and desktop computers to help residents access the internet.
Equipment provided through the program also includes supportive items, such as braille keyboards, intended to assist vulnerable populations.
Both Gateway Cities and rural communities are supported by the Connected and Online program, as residents are provided with direct access to devices through lending programs or resources at publicly accessible locations.
“The Connected and Online program opens doors for communities to access critical services and build relationships with their neighbors,” said Governor Maura Healey. “By partnering with trusted local organizations, we’re helping more people get online, access essential services, and connect to new educational and economic opportunities.”
To date, the program has provided nearly 32,000 devices and more than 13,000 pieces of supportive equipment. These devices have been distributed to hospitals, municipalities, nonprofits, public libraries, elder and youth aid groups, and workforce training organizations across the Commonwealth.
This latest award announcement follows a prior distribution launched by MBI on April 2, which included nearly 27,000 devices to over 200 organizations across the state.
“MBI is leveraging strong relationships with local and regional organizations to deliver digital devices for Massachusetts residents,” said MBI Program Executive Jody Jones. “The Connected and Online program is a statewide effort to expand access, increase digital skills training, and, at its core, expand the ability to connect to the internet.”
For a full list of awardees, visit broadband.mass.tech.org.
Local News Headlines
WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Download the 22News Plus app on your TV to watch live-streaming newscasts and video on demand.
All facts in this report were gathered by journalists employed by WWLP. Artificial intelligence tools were used to reformat information into a news article for our website. This report was edited and fact-checked by WWLP staff before being published.
If you want to help people in poverty, don’t drive the wealthy out of state.
That might be something the state senators in the Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities should keep in mind after they advanced a sweeping bill going full bore at reducing the state’s poverty rate.
Sen. Sal DiDomenico told the State House News his proposal (S 3095) “is a compilation of many bills that have already been filed.” According to his office, the bill, as originally filed, included provisions that would increase the Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children cash benefits for pregnant people, families and caregivers; increase Emergency Aid to the Elderly, Disabled and Children cash benefits; codify related benefits and allowances; and bar the government from taking any amount of child support payments from low-income parents.
His office also said the bill would direct the state to replace Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program cash benefits “stolen by criminal rings through skimming or phishing”; ensure access to free menstrual products in public schools, homeless shelters, prisons and county jails; raise farmworker wages to at least the state’s minimum wage; establish a “baby bonds program”; and “enhance” the attorney general’s ability to “ensure companies pay their employees the wages they deserve and hold employers accountable when they steal workers’ wages.”
It’s a tall order, and an impressive one. But the hurdle isn’t just getting it on the Senate’s agenda before the July 31 deadline, it’s how to pay for it.
The idea of front-loading assistance appears sound: helping people escape poverty means they won’t need to rely on social services down the line. But it will still take a sustainable revenue source to keep it all going.
And Massachusetts has been shooting itself in the foot when it comes to keeping revenue inside state borders.
According to Moneywise, Massachusetts millionaires took $4.2 billion in income out of the state in 2023, new Internal Revenue Service data revealed.
As reported by Bloomberg, that’s an 8% increase from the year before, and it comes just as the state began enforcing a new 4% surtax on incomes above $1 million. Higher-income households are now accounting for a larger share of total departures from the state. In 2023, top earners accounted for roughly 70% of total income outflow. That doubles their share from just a few years earlier.
We need to keep them, and their tax payments, here.
But that won’t happen if efforts to lower taxes are met with derision, and the notion that tax breaks only benefit the very rich. The deep-pocketed set that’s heading to tax-friendlier states are gifting their new home turf with a cumulative windfall, even if the individual tax amount is lower than the Bay State.
The same goes for companies who see better opportunities elsewhere.
The senators working on anti-poverty measures have some great ideas, and they should have a budget to implement them. Lifting people up from poverty uplifts the state.
But we can’t pay the bill if we keep driving out high-earning taxpayers. To help the poor, we must keep the rich.
Trombetta’s Farm, at 655 Farm Rd., is listed as a Central Massachusetts stop on the Massachusetts Ice Cream Trail, a state-backed guide launched in 2024 to promote ice cream shops, farm stands, and dairy farms that use Massachusetts dairy products, according to GBH.
The trail features more than 100 destinations across Massachusetts and is managed by the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources. The map includes dairy farms with ice cream stands, farms selling packaged ice cream, and shops selling Massachusetts ice cream products, according to the tourism office.
-
Minneapolis, MN5 minutes agoBWCA wildfires continue to escalate, peacetime emergency extended
-
Indianapolis, IN11 minutes agoNFL Trade Rumor: Indianapolis Colts and Tampa Bay Buccaneers emerge as top landing spots for $4M Cleveland Browns’ QB
-
Pittsburg, PA17 minutes agoPostponed: Waiting on Parkway East bridge to be demolished in explosion
-
Augusta, GA23 minutes agoAugusta youth program feels state budget cut heading into new school year
-
Washington, D.C29 minutes agoNational Guard continuing DC deployment through Inauguration ’29
-
Cleveland, OH35 minutes agoCleveland Advances Housing Manufacturing Strategy with MMY US Selection and Historic Tax Credit Award for Wellman-Seaver-Morgan Building
-
Austin, TX41 minutes agoAustin Pets Alive! activates emergency response to assist shelters affected by flooding
-
Alabama47 minutes agoGovernor Ivey Taps Glenda Allred as New Tourism Director, Announces Lee Sentell’s Retirement –
