The following summary includes education-related proposals from the 2005 state of the state addresses. To assure that this information reaches you in a timely manner, minimal attention has been paid to style (capitalization, punctuation) or format. To view the documents, click on the blue triangle next to the state.
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| Governor Haley Barbour's State of the State Address
Three principles: Momentum, UpGrade and Streamline. Momentum: Job creation and economic growth, UpGrade education in this tough budget period and Streamline that budget back into structural balance.
Seize the opportunity to attract growing service industries and to build on research and development efforts at our universities by competing with other states for high-technology enterprises.
Upgrade Education Reform Act of 2005 is the product of a very participatory policy development process -- one that involved more than 1000 educators and community leaders and a number of nationally recognized education experts, such as former North Carolina Democratic Governor Jim Hunt (200 teachers serve on Governor's Teachers Advisory Council).
Focus on the classroom and puts teaching first. Fully fund the final 8% pay raise due our school teachers for the next school year.
Increase funding for classroom supplies and textbooks as part of focusing on the classroom.
Discipline
Stress discipline: more and better training in classroom management and discipline from our colleges of education where our school teachers are taught themselves. If necessary, use the courts to make parents accountable for their children's bad behavior, we must do it.
Teacher Mentoring
The Teachers Advisory Council stressed the benefits of mentoring—of younger teachers learning from more experienced, successful teachers—especially in the areas of discipline and classroom management.
Teacher Compensation, Teacher Recruitment/Retention
Prepare to pay our better teachers more in the future. Pay for performance plan must be fair, not subject to favoritism and broad enough to make every teacher eligible.
Accountability
Liberate successful schools from the process and bureaucratic requirements of the State Department of Education. Communities whose students score at Level 4 and 5 don't need somebody in Jackson telling them how to run their schools. The people in Jackson County know how to run the schools in Jackson County better than people in Jackson know how to run the schools in Jackson County.
Furthermore, by liberating our best performing schools, we will allow the State Department of Education to give more attention to those schools that aren't yet successful. Liberating successful schools and Home Rule for successful districts will mean more innovation and efficiency in our schools and give taxpayers more for their money.
High School
Redesign high school to allow every student to choose to earn at least a semester's worth of college credit in his or her senior year. Whether through dual enrollment or Advanced Placement courses, this would be a financial Godsend for parents, who'd save on college expenses, and it would make high school more rigorous.
Early Childhood Education
Because 60% of Mississippi's 3 and 4 year olds are already enrolled in some form of preschool, we can work through Head Start and private child care to get these kids ready to learn by age 5. Programs like Excel by 5 and others offer enormous capacity to get our pre-kindergarteners ready for school without diverting funds from K-12 and higher education
Drugs/Safety
Target the manufacture and sale of crystal methamphetamine.
Finance
Fund the non-instruction portions of K-12 like the rest of state government, requiring a 5% savings. This also applies to universities and community colleges. I worry universities and community colleges are receiving $103 Million less in state support now than five years ago. The community colleges will get some relief if they adopt the unemployment tax plan, and, given flexibility, they and the universities can absorb the savings, but both need and deserve relief soon.
http://www.governorbarbour.com/StateoftheState.htm
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