Minutes of MassCARE Steering Committee meeting- February 26, 2004

Minutes of MassCARE Steering Committee meeting (Thursday February 26, METCO).
Attending: John Bookston (Boston) , Lisa Guisbond (Brookline), Mary Jo Hetzel (Boston), Jonathan King (Cambridge), Jean McGuire (METCO), Monty Neill (Fairtest), Clint Richmond (Brookline), Tim Plenk (Cambridge).

1.Regularizing Steering Committee/Council Meetings:
Future meetings will be Monthly, 4th Tuesdays:
March 23rd (at METCO);
April 27th(site TBA);
May 25th (site TBA)

2. Changing NCLB: Lisa and Clint reported on very successful Brookline Forum (see. www.caremass.org for descriptions).
Given that the Democratic nominee for President is likely to be from Mass., the development of a public movement calling for change in the NCLB is of national import.
Among initiatives emerging:
a) Meeting with Kerry staff;
b) Petition campaign - already begun with signature collection at forum; "Change NCLB" petition, and circulate it in Massachusetts, as well as outside Massachusetts. Monty has been in discussion with national groups in support of developing such a national petition, using the Brookline version as a model.
c) Try to seed additional NCLB educational forums - Tim and Jonathan discussing Cambridge forum later in the spring.
d) Inform contacts of Rep. Spilka's bill to assess true costs of implementing NCLB in Massachusetts. (To be discussed further at Alliance meeting, Monday morning, 1030AM, JALSA offices).

3. Report from Fairtest:
Monty Neill reported that Foundation support for Fairtest's and CARE's work in opposition to high-stakes testing has come to an end. As a result, there are no longer paid staff to carry out the former level of work. Lisa, Larry, Jackie still engaged with issues, but burdened with need to make a living by other means. This means that labor-intensive aspects of our work - direct organizing, traveling to outlying communities, attending other meetings, mailings, organizing large events, are going to be curtailed, and we have to return to activities that can be carried out by volunteers.
Jean emphasized the importance of maintaining the organization, through the ups and downs, given the continuing intensification of struggles around public education. We agreed that the forms of communication we have in place, website, newsletter, e-newsletter, membership database, needed to be maintained.

4. Boston report: Mary Jo reported on continuing struggles in Boston, including Chuck Turner's loss of Education Committee chairmanship on Boston City Council, and struggles around neighborhood schools, resegregation and related issues. We decided to have a joint BostonCare/MassCARE meeting to discuss how to address NCLB attack on public schools witin Boston context.

5. Parents CARE newsletter and e-newsletter: Lisa and Jackie will edit/produce an issue of Parents CARE newsletter for mailing to members and contacts in the late spring (circulation about 8,000 families). This will provide a basis for reactivating MassCARE network with additional focus on impact of NCLB.
A number of Parents CARE e-newsletters will also be produced this spring (circulation about 2,000).

6.Website: Website is being updated with assistance of Bill Bumpus (Somerville CARE) proprietor of Union Web Services, which does AFL-CIO website. When Fairtest difficulties sort out, and location of MassCARE office is clarified, we will revisit website maintenance.

In order to increase the ability of parents to find our website, or to understand more clearly who we represent if they reach site, we will add domain www.parentscare.org. Website, newsletter and e-newsletter will then be aligned, and we expect traffic to significantly increase. A website content committee including Steve Backman, Lisa Guisbond, Myanna O'Brien-Myers, Michael Hussin, Mary Jo H., Jonathan K., Tim Plenk, Larry Ward has been formed.

7. Charter school issue: Tim Plenk proposed that CARE take a position on the Charter School issue, which has been a central concern in Cambridge and other districts. The group agreed that the issue  was important, and given  the  potential range of views, we need  a substnative  discussion/debate at one  of the upcoming meetings.

Respectfully submitted: Lisa Guisbond and Jonathan King