Citizens Anticipate Consequential Transformation

Boston mayor Thomas Menino and Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick recently gave their State of the City and State of the State addresses, respectively. Both leaders stressed the importance of improving education, the economy, and healthcare, as well as cutting crime.

Menino's speech focused on education, as he announced his plans to change the Boston Public Schools student assignment process within the next year and that he has plans to overhaul Madison Park Vocational Technical School. The mayor's plans to change the student assignment process would affect families all over Boston. Currently, students are transported by bus all over the city to schools nowhere near where they live, and Menino wishes to change this so that more money can be put directly into the schools and not wasted on transporting students.

This plan drew positive responses from many city and state officials. State Senator Jack Hart (D-South Boston) said, "I could not be happier to hear the mayor say that."

City councilor at-large John Connolly said he's pleased that the overhaul of the school assignment policy is a top priority for 2012, but added that he will be focused on the follow-through from Boston Public Schools (BPS) officials.

Menino's plans for Madison Park Vocational High School drew strong support, as well. Carol Johnson, a superintendent of BPS, said, "We know that the programs around the Commonwealth that are working the best have strong career pathways that lead from the vocational program, so we're very excited about this opportunity to partner with the business community to create these authentic experiences."

Menino hopes that the improvements to Madison Park will also attack persistent unemployment in the neighborhood.

City Councilor At-Large Felix Arroyo was pleased with the mayor's plans to expand neighborhood crime watch groups by 100 this year, stating, "That's important to me."

The Charlestown Patriot-Bridge's Joshua Resnek reported, "The speech evoked a strong and enthusiastic response from a largely adoring crowd."

Mayor Menino's speech hit hard on unemployment through education, a topic that Governor Patrick also discussed. The governor proposed the development of Massachusetts's 15 preexisting community colleges into academic institutions with emphasis in specific job skill education.

Patrick declared that Massachusetts has a "skills gap." With an economy recovering from the effects of a global recession, the governor made it clear that the state could not afford the 120,000 job openings left unfilled due to a lack of skilled workers.

"I believe community colleges are uniquely positioned to help close our skills gap and get people back to work," Patrick said.

The proposed changes to the Massachusetts community college system would bring greater integration among the community colleges themselves as far as similar core curriculums, easily transferable credits to other colleges or universities, and improved coordination among the needs of local business industries and course offerings. In order to fund such a change, Patrick proposed an overall increase of $10 million to the state's community college budget and challenged the business community to match the state's increase.

"…[C]onsider what it would mean if those 120,000 open positions were filled. It would mean the Commonwealth's unemployment rate would be cut in half, to its lowest in a decade. It would mean 120,000 people would go from being unemployed, at a cost to the state of $800 million, to being earners, contributing more than $500 million in new tax revenue, a revenue wthat we can invest in further growth. And most important of all, it would offer a way forward to those who are wondering tonight whether there is a place for them in tomorrow's economy," Patrick said.

The governor also addressed his hopes for lowering the state's health care costs, which contribute to the fact that 98 percent of Massachusetts state citizens are insured by some type of health care coverage. Patrick declared that through government intervention beginning two years ago, the state's average premium has dropped by 14 percent, from 16.3 percent to 2.3 percent. By employing new methods as to how the state pays for care, Patrick stated that Massachusetts would avoid a billion dollars in increasing health care costs for this fiscal year and several hundred million more the following year.

"I believe that with these tools and the right oversight, we can slow the growth in health care costs significantly," stated Patrick, "And knowing we can count on the creativity, civic responsibility, and partnership of those who work in and lead our health care industry, just as we have to make the progress to this point, I am confident we can do this the right way."

In the governor's final segment of his state of the state address, the focus was on a twofold improvement to the state's justice system. At one end of the spectrum was the readjustment of the state's Habitual Offender law and at the other were the state's minimum sentencing laws for nonviolent drug offenders. Patrick openly recognized that "simply warehousing non-violent offenders is a costly policy failure." The governor noted that due to the undiscriminating sentencing of first time and nonviolent drug offenders, the spending on state prisons has grown 30 percent in the past 10 years.