The following summary includes education-related proposals from the 2008 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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 | Pennsylvania |
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| Governor Edward G. Rendell's Budget Address 2008-2009
Accountability
-- Call for the Department of Education to serve a special watchdog function for fifty-five school districts identified statewide as needing improvement. For these districts, the Department must approve all individual school district plans for investing new taxpayer dollars, so that we can be confident that the resources are being targeted in the most effective manner for the children of these schools.
-- Live up to the commitment that by 2014 every student in our schools will be able to read, write and do math at grade level.
Dual Enrollment
-- Continue to support dual enrollment programs that offer high school students the chance to earn college credit.
Early Learning
-- Continue to support Pre-K Counts, which together with other early childhood resources means that next year 35% of our eligible children will be enrolled in a quality pre-K program.
Finance
-- Continue to support the Accountability Block Grant, which is responsible for boosting full-day kindergarten rate up to 63%.
-- Provide a 5.9% increase in the Basic Education subsidy, and $30.3 million more for the Special Education subsidy.
-- Incorporate the findings of the Costing-Out Study.
-- Include a new funding formula that phases-in over six years the funds to help all Pennsylvania school districts reach the funding targets established by this ground-breaking research.
This new approach to school funding accomplishes three goals:
• Ensures adequate resources for every school district;
• Demands the establishment of new measures to provide strict accountability to Pennsylvania taxpayers; and
• Charts a course for future funding that is both responsible and sustainable, subject to the challenges of the state budget or the national economy.
-- Anticipate that it will take six years to phase in the state share of adequacy funding.
-- Rely on strict accountability controls for the use of these new resources.
-- Require that new state funds over the Act 1 index rate be spent on programs that improve student achievement such as extra time for learning, new and more rigorous courses, advanced teacher training, early childhood education, bolstering the recruitment of more effective teachers and administrators, and then making sure that the compensation for these school leaders is tied to performance as well.
High School
-- Continue to support Classrooms for the Future, which has parents, teachers and students abuzz with excitement about this new way of learning in high schools.
Science
-- Continue to support the nationally respected Science: It's Elementary program.
http://www.state.pa.us/papower/lib/papower/08-09_budget/governors-budget-address.pdf | |
| Rhode Island |
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