Education & Workforce:
Preparing People for a Changing Economy
Whether Massachusetts' education and workforce systems can evolve quickly enough to keep pace with a changing economy will shape who gets to share in the state's growth. The state already has some of the best schools and universities in the country, but AI, automation, and shifting industries are changing what a good job requires faster than most institutions are built to adapt. We need a strong and flexible education system and a workforce system that prepares and supports the transition to future jobs.
At a Glance
Azeem centers school funding formula reform (Prop 2.5 and UGGA) and AI-era upskilling. Barber points to a specific legislative record — the Early Education Workforce Council, MCPAP for Schools funding, career-technical seats — and argues retraining money should come before layoffs, not after. McLaughlin proposes expanding social programs (universal preschool, childcare) and socializing workforce-training costs. Uyterhoeven ties education funding to the Student Opportunity Act's Chapter 70 inflation cap and to expanding Early College and free community college.
The Question Candidates Answered: "I support policies that build an education and workforce system that prepares people for a rapidly changing economy."
Burhan Azeem: I support this principle
How would you advance this principle if elected? It's important to make sure we're maintaining the best schools in the country. We need to address municipalities' funding shortages and ensure that school education is funded without compromises by reconciling Prop 2.5 with the UGGA formula, which hasn't changed since 1992. With the advent of AI making a lot of job outlooks certain, we should make sure we have training and programs to help people upskill and find new jobs.
What would success look like? Success would be students getting back to pre-COVID performance levels in testing. We should maintain having the best K-12 schools in the country. We should also ensure we don't have unemployment due to AI but instead people find better opportunities because we're investing in finding better jobs.
Christine P. Barber: I support this principle
How would you advance this principle if elected? I sat on the Early Education Workforce Council and passed the OSD waiver so EEC-licensed programs can offer scholarships to families and staff just over the income cutoff, and I secured $2.5 million for YMCAs providing early education and out-of-school programming. In K-12, I would fully fund and protect the work we have done in the SOA, defend universal meals, and expand behavioral health capacity. I secured $500k for MCPAP for Schools, the behavioral health partnership that serves Somerville schools, and it should be available district by district across the Commonwealth.
Expand early college and innovation career pathways. Grow vocational-technical seats and fix the admissions practices that screen out the students who need those seats most. Fund registered apprenticeships with employers who commit to hiring at the end. Micro-credentials are useful when they stack toward something and articulate into degree programs, and they are a dead end when they do not. I would tie state support to that test. I secured funding for Medford's career technical education, and we need to continue to invest in options to give students the greatest opportunities. For adults already working, MassReconnect and debt-free public higher education have to be sustained through budget cycles, not celebrated once. And retraining money belongs at the front end of automation-driven job loss, not after the plant or the office closes.
What would success look like? Child care for all. Career technical education waitlists gone. A worker displaced by automation has a funded path to the next job. And a young person from Medford, Somerville, Winchester, or Cambridge can build a life here without a four-year degree and without leaving to afford their rent.
Matt McLaughlin: I support this principle
How would you advance this principle if elected? I would advance these goals through expanded social programs like universal preschool and childcare, and career pathways like community college funding, paid apprenticeships, and workforce training programs. These services and these kinds of programs exist in many different iterations and at many different price levels. The cost of childcare is exploding and parents are having to make hard choices about where they can live and where they send their children. We can socialize these costs and develop public models that ensure universal access, high quality care, and fair wages for the educators and caregivers who work there. Similarly, we can socialize the costs of workforce training, because, like access to childcare, we know these kinds of investments reap dividends down the road, getting more people into the economy and growing more working class families from the bottom-up.
What would success look like? At some point, this country decided that it was in the essential good of our families, our workforce, and our society at large to invest in the education of children from age 5 to 18. We need to recognize that we have a responsibility and an opportunity to expand this social safety net downwards and upwards. Down, to support working families with childcare and preschool, and up, to support young adults working through community and public colleges, workforce training programs, and trade apprenticeships. Lack of access to affordable childcare cripples families, harms our workforce.
Erika Uyterhoeven: I support this principle
How would you advance this principle if elected? I have fought for public education funding throughout my time in the House, from the Student Opportunity Act coalition to filing legislation on educator pay, and I will bring that record to the Senate with a focus on the pathways that connect education to economic opportunity. The Chapter 70 inflation cap is shortchanging the Student Opportunity Act's promise to our highest-need districts, and I will fight to fix it, because workforce development starts with fully funded public schools. Early College now serves over 12,000 high school students and free community college through MassEducate and MassReconnect is expanding access for adults, and I will work to grow both so that cost is never the barrier to a credential or a career. Employer partnerships must drive this work: I will fight to grow registered apprenticeship programs in the sectors our economy needs most, from health care to clean energy to advanced manufacturing, and to build those partnerships directly into community college program design. As AI and automation reshape the labor market, I will champion educational programs that workers can retrain throughout their careers without starting over. Massachusetts should be the state where every pathway leads to a career that can support a family.
What would success look like? Success looks like a Massachusetts where a laid-off or underemployed worker can retrain at a community college without paying tuition, and an apprentice in clean energy or health care walks into a career that supports a family with good paying union jobs. It looks like public schools funded at what the Student Opportunity Act actually promised and qualifications that travel with workers throughout their lives.