Boston student walkout about cuts — and more
By 
For the second time this year, Boston Public Schools students walked out of classes to protest budget cuts they say imperil their ability to get a quality education.
Tuesday’s walkout was much smaller than a demonstration in March, when several thousand students arrived in front of the State House and then marched to City Hall. Several hundred students gathered on City Hall Plaza yesterday afternoon before some of them went inside and testified at a City Council hearing.
On its face, the issue appears to be funding for Boston Public Schools, but other agendas may also be at play.
The March walkout prompted Mayor Marty Walsh to reverse planned cuts at Boston high schools. The proposed school budget for next year — more than $1 billion — is an increase of $13.5 million but may nonetheless result in cuts in some areas because the increase is not enough to keep pace with rising personnel costs. City Councilor Tito Jackson, who has been leading the charge against the cuts, tells the Globe the city has the money to provide more funding and he wants the Walsh administration to increase the school budget by $30 million.
Jackson waves off such talk, saying his focus is the schools. But he doesn’t seem to mind the attention and the media would desperately love a mayoral challenge, so look for the speculation to continue.
Another agenda at play in the protests is opposition to charter schools. Today’s Globe quotes Sean Hargrove, a student at City on a Hill Charter Public School, who said he came to City Hall to support the protest, even though its focus was on Boston’s district schools.
“I came because I have friends, and my little sisters, who in the future will be going to Boston Public Schools,” he tells the paper. “I feel like this is a teachable moment, because this is a time when teenagers came together and stood up.”
Hargrove’s one-for-all attitude is touching. But it doesn’t seem like the protest organizers share the view that Boston students should come together to support all forms of public schools in the city. A press advisory on the walkout said students would be protesting budget cuts to the Boston Public Schools — and also calling on Walsh to “change his stance on lifting the charter cap and to instead focus on ensuring a world-class public education for all Boston students.”
Walsh does not support a looming ballot question that would allow up to 12 new charter schools a year beyond the current state cap, but he has long voiced support for charter schools and says he favors a gradual increase in the cap, accompanied by changes to the system for reimbursing district schools when students to go charters.
The Globe reported that the March walkout was promoted by two groups with extensive ties to unions, including to teachers unions that oppose charter school growth. The press advisory on yesterday’s student walkout came from a Washington, DC, public relations firm that said it was working for the Boston Education Justice Alliance, which the Boston Teachers Union is a member of.
–MICHAEL JONAS
BEACON HILL
The Supreme Judicial Court orders the state to head back to the drawing board and create regulations limiting emissions from multiple sources of carbon. Many analysts said the decision may mean state officials will finally get serious about reducing emissions in the transportation sector. (State House News)
Eitan Hersh, in an op-ed, fires back at Secretary of State William Galvin over comments the secretary made about Hersh on the Globe’s website. (CommonWealth)
The Senate Ways and Means budget proposal limits spending growth and boosts reserves. (State House News)
Evan Horowitz has a primer on the “millionaires’ tax” that is the focus of today’s Constitutional Convention of the Legislature.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
Brockton officials released salary records that showed 11 city employees earned more than $200,000 last year, including nine police officers. The police chief ranked 23d citywide, earning less than 15 of his police officers. (The Enterprise)
Milton officials are standing by their rule that only people buried in the cemetery can have their names engraved on headstones, a burgeoning problem for cemetery officials everywhere because of the dramatic increase in the number of people who are cremated. (Patriot Ledger)
The Lowell City Council lends its voice in support of transgender rights legislation on Beacon Hill after hearing emotional testimony. (The Sun)
ELECTIONS
The Globe reports that a good chunk of Bernie Sanders voters would abandon a Democratic ticket headed by Hillary Clinton and vote for Donald Trump in November, but the story also points to polling showing that’s unlikely to occur to any significant degree.
Clinton declares victory in a tight Kentucky primary while Sanders takes the mail-in vote in Oregon. (U.S. News & World Report)
Forget vice president; the National Review wants to see Trump’s short list for the Supreme Court.
A WBUR/MassINC Polling Group survey of New Hampshire voters finds Clinton and Trump are not well liked and indicates Sanders would beat Trump. (WBUR)
Former governor William Weld is reportedly being considered for the vice president slot on the Libertarian Party ticket with former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, but not all are viewing the scuttlebutt too seriously. (Boston Globe)
The New Yorker adds up the pros and cons on Sen. Elizabeth Warren running as Clinton’s running mate.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
A surge in well-paid tech jobs in the state is mostly benefitting male workers, according to a new report. (Boston Globe)
The White House is set to unveil new regulations requiring overtime to be paid to millions of salaried workers earning up to $47,476, more than double the previous cap. (New York Times)
The Southfield mixed-use development at the former naval air base in South Weymouth signed its first commercial tenant, a landmark for the sputtering project that has struggled to attract business occupants. (Patriot Ledger)
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. keeps expanding at Devens. (Telegram & Gazette)
A 28-story residential tower may be rising over Boston’s Fenway neighborhood (Boston Herald)
China continues to butt its way into the American economy, with Chinese investors dropping a record $15.7 billion into the country last year and a new report showing 83 percent of congressional districts are home to some form of Chinese investment. (U.S. News & World Report)
EDUCATION
Officials from Salem, Newton, and Somerville joined representatives from Providence, Louisville, and Oakland at Harvard to launch a program aimed at closing the achievement gap in schools. (Salem News)
HEALTH/HEALTH CARE
Boston Medical Center will become the first hospital in the state — and among a handful in the country — to offer gender reassignment surgery. (Boston Globe)
Business and insurance groups raise concerns about the deals being talked about to head off a ballot question regulating hospital prices. (CommonWealth)
TRANSPORTATION
A Globe editorial bemoans the slow pace of state efforts to bring highway-speed tolling to the Massachusetts Turnpike.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS
A 48-year-old Brockton man died after Fall River police used a Taser gun to subdue him. (The Enterprise)
Joseph Buffis, the former police chief in Lee, is sentenced to 27 months in prison for dropping criminal charges against a couple after they agreed to give $4,000 to a charity he ran. After the court decision, Buffis told reporters: “Thank you, God bless America, and vote for Donald Trump.” (Berkshire Eagle)
Rev. Arnold Kelley, a former priest at All Saint’s Church in Haverhill who now lives in a nursing home, is accused in court papers of sexually abusing a boy for several years in the 1970s. (Eagle-Tribune)
A Spencer man is accused of using his cellphone to take pictures of a naked woman inside a tanning booth at an exercise facility. (Telegram & Gazette)
MEDIA
A photo taken by a passerby of an unsuspecting state trooper sharing a meal with a homeless woman in Fall River has gone viral. (Herald News) WBZ-TV tracked down the woman, a mother of four who thought the trooper was going to give her a hard time for panhandling.
Elizabeth Spayd, the editor and publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review, is named the public editor of the New York Times.