MTA President Max Page

Max Page

Max Page, president of the 115,000-member Massachusetts Teachers Association, is a longtime public education activist who believes that the quality of life in our communities depends on having public schools and colleges that meet the needs of every student and family.

Page was elected president of the MTA in May 2022 after serving two terms as vice president. He is on leave from UMass Amherst, where he has been a professor of architecture since 2001. He also has served as the director of the Master of Design in Historic Preservation Program. As an MTA leader, Page helped organize members to ensure passage of the Student Opportunity Act. As president, he is continuing to fight for similar legislation to increase funding for public higher education, with the goal of making it debt-free for students.

Page has long championed progressive tax policies for Massachusetts, including the Fair Share Amendment, which will generate billions of dollars for public education and transportation by requiring the very rich to pay an additional 4 percent on income over $1 million a year.

Page will maintain the MTA’s focus on ways to create a more diverse educator workforce, from prekindergarten through higher education. Under Page’s leadership, the MTA will also continue to oppose the use of high-stakes standardized tests such as the MCAS exams. He is also dedicated to promoting “Green New Deal” policies and practices at schools and on college campuses to combat climate change.

Page believes strongly in the power of coalitions, both within the MTA and between our union and partners across the state. Page is a member of the Steering Committee of Raise Up Massachusetts and has devoted efforts to creating regional bargaining councils and action networks among MTA locals.

Page notes that MTA members across the state are making their locals more powerful and winning the working conditions that educators deserve and the learning conditions that students need to succeed and thrive. He vows that as the state’s largest labor union, the MTA is poised to fight for the common good and defend public institutions from right-wing assaults.

Page was president of his local association, the Massachusetts Society of Professors, from 2006 to 2009. Before becoming MTA vice president, he served on the MTA Executive Committee and Board of Directors and as vice chair of the Government Relations Committee. Page is a resident of Amherst. He lives in his childhood home with his wife, Eve Weinbaum, an associate professor at UMass Amherst, who is the current president of the MSP. They have three children.