Month: March 2019

Today was MASSCreative’s Arts Advocacy Day. The day began at the beautiful Paramount Theatre. The Paramount, opened in 1932 as a single-screen 1,700-seat theater was one of the first movie houses in Boston to play talkies. It closed in 1976, but was renovated by Emerson College into a performing arts center, re-opened in 2010. Hundreds of artists, students, art patrons, activists and those who work for non-profit arts organizations gathered in the theater to rally and train for coming to the State House to advocate for additional arts funding. Below are the comments Senator Kennedy made to the group:

Tourism, arts & culture are big business in Massachusetts – with the tourism industry bringing $20 billion in direct spending into the state and employing 150,000 people across the Commonwealth and the arts and culture sector contributing a stunning $1 billion into the local economy annually, supporting more than 73,000 jobs.

Despite the robust nature of these industries and the vibrance and increased quality of life they bring to our communities, dedicated funding sources remain scarce.  While California spends $120 million annual on destination marketing efforts, Massachusetts allocates only $10 million – less than half the national average. This is an area where you need to spend money to make money and I believe we are missing out on significant revenue streams.

My hometown of Lowell began marketing itself as a home to artists decades ago. Arts and culture have been a key to the city’s rebirth the hundreds of artists and creators who have moved to Lowell from the Boston area and other parts of the state and nation since that time have brought color, fun, insight and awareness to Lowell. Their presence and work have been an economic engine and marketing hook for the city; their enthusiasm and willingness to get involved in civic life and local causes has increased the quality of life for all Lowellians.

I see the difference grant funding from the Massachusetts Cultural Council makes in Lowell every day. This year, the Lowell Cultural Council granted $75,000 in grants to 28 artists, non-profit organizations, events, and institutions.

The LCC has made a variety of programs possible this year including Salsa in the Park, which provides free salsa dancing lessons in Lowell’s North Common, bringing life to a public park in the heart of the city’s lowest-income neighborhood – providing entertainment and building community; the Lowell Kinetic Sculpture Race – which brings STEM activities to life for children and adults of all ages, as well as spectators and participants from around the region and across the country; bringing poetry and arts programming to Lowell Public School students, programs which are often the first victims of budget cuts; funding Cambodian, African, and Bhutanese cultural programs, helping these groups celebrate their heritage and keep it alive, while introducing their customs and culture to those of us from other backgrounds; and even funding the interpretation of cultural programming throughout the city in American Sign Language. All of these programs and the dozens of others funded through the cultural council help make Lowell a vibrant city, attracting visitors with money to spend and boosting the quality of life for residents of the city.

Statewide, grant funding provided to local cultural councils by the Mass Cultural Council provides support to more than 6,000 artists, community groups and organizations annual, many of whom would not be able to secure foundation or private funding.

Lowell has also been greatly transformed by the installation of public art, including many works by prolific sculptor, the late Mico Kaufman. These works are just as important to the aesthetic of our downtown as the historic architecture. They make it a more inviting and interesting place and draw people to spaces that otherwise would be under-utilized. Drawing people out to public spaces builds community and pride in the neighborhood, as well as reduces crime.

As the Senate Chair of Tourism, Arts, and Cultural Development, I look forward to helping MASSCreative advocate for their policy platform this session – including allocating $18 million in funding for the Mass Cultural Council and establishing the Massachusetts Public Arts Program.

Friday afternoon, Sen. Kennedy testified before the Joint Committee on Education in support of the PROMISE Act, a bill seeking to reforming the Commonwealth’s education funding formula and provide more equitable funding for all of the state’s public school districts. Below is his testimony:

As the Joint Committee on Education convenes to consider various legislative proposals to restructure the Commonwealth’s education funding formula, I would like to take the opportunity to express my support of An Act providing rightful opportunities and meaningful investment for successful and equitable education (S.238/H.586) and to urge the committee to report favorably on this critical legislation.

My experience as the Mayor of Lowell provided me with an in-depth perspective of the fiscal challenges posed to districts by the state’s chronic underfunding of public education. In that capacity, I had the dual responsibility of presiding over City Council meetings on Tuesday evenings, and serving as chair of the School Committee on Wednesday evenings. At council meetings, I would hear concerns of increasing school spending eating away at the city’s budget and the next evening, I would hear from the School Committee that the school district was not receiving adequate funding to meet the unique demands of providing a high quality education to our students. The daunting reality in Lowell, and for communities around Massachusetts, is both sides are correct. That will remain the case until we succeed in enacting reform that implements each of the recommendations of the Foundation Budget Review Commission.

The detriments of the foundation budget in its current form, while impacting every school district in the Commonwealth, are particularly pronounced in Lowell and in other similar Gateway Cities. In Lowell, the foundation budget formula underestimates the actual health insurance costs to the district by more than 50 percent which, given the size of the district, translates to an $18 million annual shortfall that must be made up at the local level. The district’s obligations in this area leave no other option but to make difficult cuts that directly impact education quality. Increasing class sizes cannot be mitigated, spending on technology and other instructional material does not approach adequate levels, and the district struggles to keep up with building maintenance.

It must be emphasized any proposed reform to public education funding cannot be considered sufficient if it fails to address the funding needs of districts serving a high percentage of low-income students. The Foundation Budget Review Commission clearly identified the necessity of providing additional funding to meet the district needs of such districts. Lowell’s 26 schools serve 14,668 students, of which more than 52 percent, over 7,500 students, are considered economically disadvantaged by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. In order to ensure these students succeed, critical investments must be made to improve instruction quality and to implement best practices known to enhance student achievement. The PROMISE Act is the only legislation before this committee that fulfills this critical recommendation, and is thereby the only proposal that truly achieves our shared goal of providing a high quality education to every student within the Commonwealth.

While the situation in my hometown starkly illustrates what is at stake as we consider reforming education funding, calls for reform have been pervasive across my district – from Lowell, one of the Commonwealth’s largest school districts, to suburban communities including Westford and Tyngsboro, and rural communities served by regional school districts. To reflect the support this legislation has garnered in my district, I am submitting for the review of the committee resolutions adopted by the following municipal boards: the Lowell City Council, the Groton Select Board, the Dunstable Board of Selectmen, the Pepperell Board of Selectmen, and the Groton-Dunstable Regional School Committee.

The broad consensus around the need to enact reform to the foundation budget during this legislative session within the legislature and the executive branch provides us with the rare opportunity to finally correct major shortcomings that have jeopardized the futures of Massachusetts students for too long. This is a moment we cannot afford to squander by passing legislation that misses the mark on reforms determined necessary by the FBRC. Once again, on behalf of the thousands of students in my district who could not be guaranteed a high quality education if a partial approach to reform is taken, I urge this committee to support the only legislation that fully implements critical changes required for education low-income students, and to report favorably on Senate Bill 238 and House Bill 586.

Four years ago Joanna Rojas was pregnant with her son, Elliott, caring for her 6-year-old son, and homeless, living in a shelter in Lowell.  

She secured a job working with Aramark at UMass Lowell, but needed child care. Through Acre Family Child Care, Joanna was connected to child care provider Maria Manrique. Maria opened early, so Joanna could drop her kids off at 5:30 a.m. and then walk to work in time for her 6 a.m. shift; she stayed open late on the days Joanna had to attend training classes. She even gave Joanna a car.

Today, thanks to the support of Maria, Joanna and her children have a better life. She has advanced in her job and has become an engaged, vibrant member of the community.

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Thursday night, Acre Family Child Care honored Maria, who has continually gone above and beyond in her humanity and her care of the families she serves, at their annual meeting, along with former long-time board member and Acre champion Pat Goldstein, of Concord.

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Goldstein was a good friend of former Acre Executive Director Kathy Reticker, who passed away in 2016. Since that time, she has been working on The Kathy Reticker Forum for Children and Families, a group that awards scholarships to Lowell students pursuing a career in childhood education and advocates for affordable, high quality child care and education for all children and families.

“Lowell has always been a welcoming community where people step up to help each other. There is no better story that exemplifies that spirit than that of Maria and Joanna,” said Senator Kennedy. “It is the spirit on which Acre Family Child Care was built in 1988 and the spirit that continues between so many of the agency’s providers, parents and supporters.”

“Acre Family Child Care was built on neighbors helping neighbors, lifting each other up socially and economically,” he added. “We hear a lot of bad news stories today, but we can hold onto the knowledge that there are always people like Maria ready to go above and beyond to step up to help others in the community, like Joanna working incredibly hard to make a better life for their families, and supporters like Pat who sustain these programs.”

Kennedy joked that he and Lowell Mayor Bill Samaras deserve a pat on the back themselves as child care providers, both caring for their grandchildren at various times during the week.

Acre Family Child Care was created in 1988. At the time there was not one single licensed child care provider in the city’s densely-populated, heavily immigrant Acre neighborhood.

Anita Moeller, then a UMass Lowell student interning for the Coalition for a Better Acre, realized the need both for child care that would allow women to enter the workforce, as well as an avenue to empower immigrant and other women to start their own small businesses.

She launched Acre Family Child Care with 10 women. Today, the organization boasts more than 50 home-based family child care providers caring for nearly 400 children every day, including weekend and overnight care to cater to parents working 2^nd and 3^rd shift.

Child care providers and clients are a microcosm of the city, displaying the richness of ethnic diversity on which the city prides itself, including those from the city’s newest immigrant groups from Burma and Iraq, as well as women from Cambodia, the Dominican Republic and the United States.