Support the HEROES Act

On May 15, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a $3 trillion funding bill called the HEROES Act that would provide major new resources for public services, including to public education from preK through college, to states, to municipalities and to students burdened by heavy debt. The entire delegation from Massachusetts voted in favor of the bill. The measure is now before the U.S. Senate and may come back to the House with changes. We need the strongest possible bill passed in both branches.

Please send a message to your U.S. senators urging them to support the HEROES Act and improve on it, and to your House members thanking them for their support and urging them to stand firm for a powerful relief bill.

We are also asking our preK-12 locals to go back to all of the school committees that supported the Student Opportunity Act and its predecessor, the Promise Act, and urge them to pass a new resolution calling on the Legislature to keep its commitment to funding the first year of the SOA and additional resources needed in response to COVID-19. The process can take several weeks, so please confer with your local leadership about getting that going as soon as possible.

At the same time, we have several initiatives to Take Action for Public Higher Education, which has already been hit hard by new coronavirus-related costs, furloughs, layoffs and uncertainties about enrollment in the fall. We need federal and state support for public higher ed — now more than ever.