Maura has deep roots in Massachusetts. Her parents both grew up in Newburyport. Her maternal grandparents met in Gloucester, where her grandfather worked on the fishing docks and her grandmother, whose ancestors settled on the Parker River in Newbury in 1636, went to nursing school. Her paternal grandparents came from Ireland and worked as a domestic worker and a janitor.
Maura was born at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in 1971 while her father served as a captain in the U.S. Public Health Service, and later as a civil engineer in the Environmental Protection Agency. Her maternal grandmother was determined that her grandchild be born on Massachusetts soil. She traveled through a snowstorm down Route 1, flew to Maryland, snuck into the delivery room wearing her nursing outfit, and placed a bag of soil from a family woodlot in Byfield below the delivery bed so that Maura could be “born” over Massachusetts. What mothers and grandmothers will do!
Maura comes from a family of educators. Her mom, Tracy, is a middle school nurse and her stepdad, Edward, was Maura’s basketball coach and the president of their local teacher’s union. As a middle school basketball coach herself, Maura believes strongly in the importance of a well-rounded, quality education for every child in Massachusetts.
Massachusetts is home to globally-recognized public schools and educators. But this achievement masks the persistent reality that Massachusetts is also home to wide opportunity gaps that plague our students of color, English language learners, students with disabilities, and low-income students. The past two years have been especially hard on our students, educators, and parents. Our entire education system has been upended by COVID-19. Every child has had their education and development disrupted at some level and the disparities that existed before the pandemic have only widened. As we emerge from the pandemic, we need to rebuild our education system so it works better for everyone and to ensure that all children have equal access to a quality education.
As Governor, Maura would be laser-focused on closing these opportunity gaps, from early childhood, to K-12, to higher education.
Our early childhood education and care system – which is essential to the basic functioning of our economy – is in desperate need of investment. We saw what happened during this pandemic to our child care system – children suffered, parents couldn’t go to work, and businesses and the economy struggled. Now, two years later, we still have 10 percent fewer child care slots than we had before the pandemic and families are struggling to afford the cost. Massachusetts ranks second in the country for infant care costs, higher than what most would pay to attend a public university. It’s not surprising that the percentage of women in the workforce has dropped significantly. And our early education and care workforce – 40 percent of whom are women of color – is depleted by burnout and low wages.
Maura has been a strong advocate for greater investment in early education and care. She called on Congress to invest billions in the industry, pass federal child care legislation, and make the child tax credit permanent.
As Governor, she will continue to advocate for federal funding for early education and care, as well as explore state solutions to the child care crisis. Maura supports the Common Start proposal, which would make child care free for the lowest-income families, limit child care costs for most families to no more than 7 percent of their income, and significantly increase pay for early educators to address the workforce crisis in the early education field.
Maura will also support early education and care providers. As Governor, she will partner with educational institutions to create an early education and care workforce pipeline – including expanded access to career development opportunities – and implement strategies focused on workforce retention. Maura also supports efforts in the Legislature to increase salaries of early education providers and the effective implementation of the Early Education and Care Public Private Trust Fund.
Maura is a longtime advocate for equitable funding for our public schools and improved behavioral health services for our students. She supported the Student Opportunity Act, which provides more equitable funding for our school districts. She opposed the 2016 ballot measure that would have drained millions from our public schools by expanding the number of charter schools in the state. And she’s funded groundbreaking programming across the state to prevent substance use disorder, combat sexual assault, stop gun violence and bullying, and help young people build healthy relationships in school. Her partnership with Sandy Hook Promise has helped deploy their violence prevention program in 50 school districts throughout the state.
As Governor, Maura would continue her focus on closing achievement gaps and better supporting students and their families, including:
Massachusetts’ colleges and universities are some of our greatest resources. They drive economic growth and higher wages, and foster an environment of curiosity and innovation for which our state is renowned. But underneath these achievements are persistent disparities. In 2001, our public university graduates had one of the lowest student debt in the nation. By 2016, debt levels climbed to 10th. One important driver of this change is cuts to state spending on higher education – Massachusetts spends 31 percent less on higher education per student than it did 20 years ago, and instead places that burden on our students in the form of increased tuition and fees. Higher education can be an important pathway to economic mobility, and our public university graduates are much more likely to stay in Massachusetts after graduation, starting their families, contributing to our economy, and forming the fabric of our communities. The jobs are here – a 2016 report predicted that many good-paying jobs in our thriving tech and health care industries would go unfilled. Today, that’s truer than ever.
Maura knows all too well how student debt holds back our residents. She is the first and only Attorney General in the country to create a Student Loan Assistance Unit, and she’s helped thousands of borrowers navigate our broken student debt system. She sued the Department of Education and brokered huge settlements with Navient and FedLoan that will help borrowers pay down their debt and receive loan forgiveness. She led the call with Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley for President Bident to cancel up $50,000 in federal debt per borrower. For Maura, tackling our student debt crisis is a matter of basic economics and racial justice. Too many borrowers can’t buy a home, start a family, or get ahead because of their debt. And Black and brown borrowers bear a disproportionate debt burden. As Governor, Maura would continue her focus on improving access to affordable public higher education and reducing student debt, including: