UNDER CONSTRUCTION - MOVED TO MIDDLEBORO REVIEW AND SO ON
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maandag 22 december 2025
‘In every difficulty, there’s an opportunity,’ Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler says about developing a post-MCAS high school graduation requirement
BUILDING CHARGE: Bay State officials announced Friday they are entering contract negotiations with four companies to procure nearly 1,300 megawatts of battery storage. More than half of the storage would come from the largest bidder, the Trimount project in Everett. Jordan Wolman has the details.
excerpt: The Trimount battery storage project in Everett would be built on an old Exxon oil storage field, with the Boston skyline in the distance. (Photo by Jordan Wolman/CommonWealth Beacon)
A FORMER EXXON OIL storage facility on an industrial plot of land just four miles from downtown Boston could be Massachusetts’s ticket to a green energy future — and lower utility bills.
Bay State officials announced Friday they are entering contract negotiations with four companies to procure nearly 1,300 megawatts of battery storage. More than half of the storage would come from the largest bidder, the Trimount project in Everett.
There, project developers have already begun remediation work and removed 21 of 22 old oil storage tankers that have been idling for years on the site, from which the Encore casino and Boston’s skyline are in view. It’s part of a larger effort to reshape the 100-acre property in Everett, including apartment complexes and an entertainment district.
TRANSPORTATION FUNDING:
HARD TALK: State Sen. Brendan Crighton is not shying away from the revenue third rail, talking openly about his interest in at least exploring or weighing almost anything to produce more money for transportation systems. Chris Lisinski and Jennifer Smith have more.
MUST READ! GREAT HISTORIC EXPLANATION!
OPINION: Poverty is once again being weaponized, writes Imari Paris Jeffries. the president and CEO of Embrace Boston. And poor people, particularly Black and brown families, are once again the target.
Patrick Tutwiler, Gov. Maura Healey’s secretary of education, is a forward-looking guy.
While he and Healey both opposed the 2024 ballot question that did away with the requirement that students pass the 10th grade MCAS exam in math and English to graduate from high school, Tutwiler says the council he now co-chairs to figure out what to put in its place has a chance to rethink high school in ways that will enrich the experience and help set students up for success after it.
“Gov. Healey really saw this as an opportunity, as did I, and the former history teacher in me would sort of lift up the well-known saying that in every difficulty there's an opportunity. And so we've wrapped our arms around that,” Tutwiler told CommonWealth Beacon’s Michael Jonas on a new episode of The Codcast. That reimaging of the high school experience, he said, was already underway before the MCAS ballot question emerged.
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Earlier this month, the 32-member council that Tutwiler co-chairs issued an interim report that begins to outline what a new graduation requirement will look like. It starts with embracing a course sequence that students will have to follow – something Massachusetts has not required of all districts. The council is considering requiring that students follow MassCore, the state’s recommended – but currently not mandated – high school course sequence, which includes four years of math, four years of English, three years of lab science, three years of social studies, and two years of a world language.
In terms of an assessment of student performance, the report anticipates a hybrid system of standardized tests required at the end of certain courses along with portfolios that show a range of a student’s work or a capstone project they complete at the end of high school. The report also anticipates having all students map out their post-high school plans and requiring them to complete the federal or state applications for financial aid in higher ed.
Lots of details remain to be spelled out. The report has not homed in on exactly how the end-of-course assessments would figure into meeting a new graduation requirement.
The council has been clear, Tutwiler said, that “no single assessment will prevent a student from graduating.” At the same time, he said, “They do need to matter.” Whether based on the 15 years he spent as an educator in Massachusetts high schools or as the parent of a 16-year-old, Tutwiler said, “I'll tell you definitively, if it doesn't matter or it doesn't count in some way, [there’s] a strong unlikelihood that the students are going take it seriously.”
He said we saw that clearly with the dip in last spring’s 10th grade MCAS results, the first time the assessment was given since the ballot question removed passing as a requirement to graduate.
Unlike research on MCAS scores, there is no clear evidence that performance on end-of-course assessments or portfolio or capstone projects predicts longer-term outcomes like degree completion in higher ed or earnings in the labor market. Tutwiler said there is evidence, however, that the MassCore course sequence is associated with higher rates of matriculation in higher education and persistence once there.
The state’s commitment to student success in high school and beyond, Tutwiler said, starts with the administration’s focus on universal access to pre-K seats across the Commonwealth, starting in Gateway Cities. (He said they’ve hit that mark in 19 of 26 Gateway communities so far.) He also voiced strong support for ensuring that schools are employing evidence-based approaches to reading instruction in early grades, a contentious issue that has drawn pushback from those who question whether the research on the issue is fully settled.
“We really know what to do,” said Tutwiler, arguing that research going back decades has shown that “the most impactful strategy is anchored in phonics-based instruction.”
As for the rethinking of high school, the graduation council has “heard substantively from students. They want more relevance, they want more engagement, they want a stronger connection between what they're learning and whatever it is they want to pursue when they leave high school,” said Tutwiler. “So when I say this is an opportunity, this is a grand opportunity, part and parcel of an existing effort to reimagine high school.”
ZONING: The long-running fight over the MBTA Communities Act is once again heading back to the state’s high court, which is weighing an argument from reticent municipalities that the requirement to zone for more multifamily housing represents an unfunded mandate. Jennifer Smith combs through the filings.
FAIR PLAN: The state’s FAIR Plan last year saw the largest annual jump in home insurance policies issued in two decades. But how exactly does the insurer of last resort work? Jordan Wolman explains.
What We're Reading
HEALTH CARE: Officials say a controversial plan to redevelop the Shattuck Hospital campus in Boston that was put on pause in 2023 has now been entirely scrapped. Boston Medical Center leaders said that they worked to refine their proposal based on community feedback and funding availability but couldn’t make it work. (Dorchester Reporter)
CAFFEINE JOLT:Tariffs are hitting the morning coffee. Boston already has one of the highest prices in the country for a cup of coffee — and it's been rising. Local coffee businesses are trying things like swapping blends or increasing the costs of other cafe goods. (WBUR)
IMMIGRATION: After reports that suspected Brown University shooter Claudio Neves Valente was granted a diversity visa through a lottery, President Trump has suspended a green card lottery program that allocates around 50,000 immigrant visas annually. (GBH News)
NATIONAL POLITICS: US Rep. Jim McGovern is heated after colleagues narrowly rejected his War Powers Resolution that would have directed President Trump to cease all hostilities within or against Venezuela. (Daily Hampshire Gazette)
HOUSING: Small rental property owner groups are bristling at a proposed rent control ballot measure, saying it would be detrimental to small landlords operating on tight margins. (The New Bedford Light)
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