List of Newly Filed MA Legislation of Concern to Educators, Immigrants, & Language Minorities

Would do away with English Only rules in workplaces throughout the state except where such policies are justified by business necessity.

Lead Sponsors: William Lantigua (Lawrence); Jeffrey Sanchez (Boston)

Committee: Labor & Workforce Development

Would provide $100 million for workforce development training for a variety of worker categories including those with limited English proficiency.

Lead Sponsor: Mark Montigny

Requires Acupuncturists be fluent in English. Current law requires that Acupuncturists be fluent in English or have a translator. This bill would abolish a translator as a way to qualify as an acupuncturist and would demand English language fluency to be able to qualify as an acupuncturist. This bill (and the underlying law) are probably unconstitutional.

Lead Sponsor: Richard Moore

Refile of the 2002 Antonioni-Larkin Bilingual Ed Reform Bill. A comprehensive English Language Learners bill allowing local district control of ELL programs. More parental involvement. This was the bill that was trumped by Question 2 (the Unz Initiative).

Lead Sponsor: Jeffrey Sanchez (Boston)
Committee: Education

Establishes 3 hours of mandatory ESL per day for ELL students grades 9-12

Lead Sponsor: Tom Sannicandro

Allows cities to choose to confer voting rights to non-citizen immigrants for local elections only. Probably will see difficulty in the House in that it does not distinguish between documented and undocumented immigrants.

Lead Sponsor: Byron Rushing

Would grant state-funded cash benefits (including food stamp eligibility) to immigrant permanent residents of Massachusetts who are here lawfully.

Lead Sponsor: Mark Montigny

Prohibits information on restraining orders from being transmitted to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.

Lead Sponsor: Michael Morrissey

A wide-reaching MCAS reform bill that guarantees needed accomodations to English language learners; it also limits the ability of the Board of Ed to raise cut scores on the MCAS; it features a battery of reporting on at risk children's educational performance

Lead Sponsor: Alice Peisch

Simple, though potentially flawed multiple measures and anti-MCAS bill.

Lead Sponsor: Frank Smizik

A flawed MCAS bill which seeks to create separate SPED and VocEd MCAS tests with absolutely no legislative language surrounding the content or nature of said exams, so that the current exams could have the "serial numbers filed off" and new titles put on them with no substantive change in outcome.

Lead Sponsor: Demetrius Atsalis

Requires the creation of a committee to oversee the competency requirements for SPED, VocEd, and regular ed students (no mention made of ELL students). The committee is to draft and submit multiple measures assessment language to the legislature. Further provision that the no school system may use the competency determination as a means to limit high school graduation until the students in such district have had all their schooling in that district under the curriculum frameworks established by Ed Reform. The last provision is potentially flawed (perhaps intentionally) in that in-migration of out of state or foreign students into a district will automatically mean that not all the system's students have been educated under ed reform's curriculum frameworks. The limitations on application of the competency determination should have been logically limited on a student-by-student basis as opposed to on a district-by-district basis. If this is what was intended then immigrant students arriving after kindergarten would not be held responsible for the competency determination.

Lead Sponsor: Antonio Cabral

Requires the Department of Education to refund monies to school district for expenses incurred as a result to any change to the MCAS or the curriculum frameworks (the bill implies that this applies only to future changes).

Lead Sponsor: Geoffrey Hall

Simple, direct bill effectively creating a localized appeals process whereby a student who has failed a portion of the MCAS may have a portfolio of work in that area reviewed by a panel of local educators in the student's district to determine whether the student has met or exceeded the standards required for competency determination.

Lead Sponsor: Frank Hynes

Mandates that special needs kids get accomodations on the MCAS equal to the accomodations they have for regular school work throughout the year.

Lead Sponsor: Frank Hynes

Requires that MCAS results for 10th graders be made available by September. The law doesn't quite potentially work for retests, etc. But it is a good idea overall.

Lead Sponsor: Frank Hynes

Would guarantee a high school diploma to SPED kids who have completed their IEP, local graduation requirements, and have been accepted into an accredited post-secondary educational institution.

Lead Sponsor: Alice Peisch

Would banhigh stakes tests as a component of competency determination

Lead Sponsor: Tom Sannicandro

Would create the Massachusetts High School Graduation Requirement Committee, which would be empowered to develop a system of multiple authentic measures of performance to act as a surrogate for the MCAS for students who cannot pass the MCAS but have otherwise met all other high school graduation requirements.

Lead Sponsor: Carl Sciortino

Makes all questions and answers to the MCAS public knowledge after each testing administration, requires the Board of Ed to inform all parents about Scoring and Performance Appeals processes, and allows parents to file for either kind of appeal.

Lead Sponsor: Frank Smizik

Removes competency determination altogether as a determinant of fitness of high school graduation, and removes competency determination as a prerequisite to receive a certificate of occupational proficiency.

Lead Sponsor: Frank Smizik

Would do away with the MCAS as a component of high school graduation.

Lead Sponsor: Theodore Spelotis

Eliminates the use of the MCAS as a high school graduation requirement.

Lead Sponsor: Benjamin Swan

Would remove passing the MCAS as a requirement for high school graduation. Would establish some measure of local authority over the types of assessments used for competency determination. Would establish a new panel to review state educational standards.

Lead Sponsor: Cynthia Creem

Allows students to answer MCAS essay questions using a computer.

Lead Sponsor: Robert O'Leary

Would abolish the MCAS as a high school graduation requirement.

Lead Sponsor: Tisei

Would let completion of an IEP be a replacement for the MCAS for SPED kids.

Lead Sponsor: Steven Tolman

Would wipe out the current Board of Ed structure and replace it with a much more diverse and representative membership; it would also establish advisory groups for civics and lifelong learning.

Lead Sponsor: Jay Kaufman

Bill seeks to reconstitute and diversify the Board of Education.

Lead Sponsor: Alice Wolf

Would establish drop-out provention grants. It includes no specific language about the size or scope of such funding for such grants, rendering the bill somewhat toothless. The bill is VERY broad about the types of things that may be considered "drop out prevention".

Lead Sponsor: Antonio Cabral

Establishes funding for dropout prevention programs.

Lead Sponsor: Stephen Canessa

Requires the DOE to develop a dropout prevention strategy.

Lead Sponsor: Marie St. Fleur