We need your help on House budget amendments

We need your advocacy to ensure that the interests of MTA members - from preK to higher education, active and retired - are represented in the House budget, which will be voted on this week. Three amendments are particularly important:

- Repealing the mandated use of test scores and District-Determined Measures to create "student impact ratings" for educators. 
- Protecting municipal retirees from unreasonable health insurance cost increases.

- Increasing funding to honor higher education contract agreements.

Please go HERE to let your state representative know of your support for these amendments. More details about these amendments are below.

District-Determined Measures (DDMs)

#696 - Relative to District Determined Measures, filed by Rep. Marjorie Decker (D-Cambridge). This amendment would repeal the state's mandate that districts judge educators based on DDMs and standardized test scores. Such measures have proven to be invalid, unreliable and a poor use of educators' time. With passage of the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act, these measures are no longer required by the federal government. This amendment would enable administrators and educators who value common assessments to continue using them while relieving them of the obligation to create "student impact ratings" under the educator evaluation system. No appropriation is required. (For more information on this issue, click here.)

Municipal Retiree Health Insurance Premiums

#705 - Relative to Municipal Retiree Fairness, filed by Rep. Marjorie Decker (D-Cambridge). For the past five years, retired teachers and municipal workers in communities that have joined the GIC or instituted plan design changes have been protected from health insurance premium split increases. State retirees have had this protection since 1994. The proposed moratorium would ensure that teachers and municipal retirees are treated fairly and are not subjected to paying higher out-of-pocket costs and a larger share of their health insurance premiums at the same time.

Higher Education Funding

#1306 - Collective Bargaining Agreement, filed by Rep. Paul Mark (D-Peru) and more than a dozen co-sponsors. This amendment would provide additional funding to support the collectively bargained salary increases at the state's colleges and universities.