The following summary includes education-related proposals from the 2009 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 Ed Rendell's State of the State Address
Accountability, Governance, Leadership, School Districts, Student Achievement
-- Adopt laws holding superintendents and principals accountable for boosting student achievement.
-- Adopt laws requiring fundamental change when schools or districts fail to improve year after year.
-- Direct school boards to focus their time to guide district improvement.
Adult Learning/Continuing Education, Community Colleges, Economic/Workforce Development, Finance, Finance (Postsecondary), Postsecondary
-- Hold state institutions of higher learning to the same levels of funding that they currently receive.
-- Increase funds for community colleges--which serve as the training ground for Pennsylvanians seeking new skills to help them re-enter the job market.
Business Involvement, Economic/Workforce Development
-- Put citizens back to work through continued infrastructure investments.
-- Provide $27 million to ensure job-creating opportunities from projects such as the CSX and Norfolk Southern rail freight expansion.
-- Expand the Business in our Sites program by $60 million.
-- Create a $100 million working capital loan guarantee program and increase the funds available to water and other infrastructure improvements needed for business growth by $40 million.
-- Add $10 million to the Infrastructure and Facilities Improvement Program to help businesses grow.
-- Urge legislature to pass amendments to the Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards, which will stimulate job growth.
Community Colleges, Finance, Finance (Postsecondary), Financial Aid, Tuition/Fees
-- Provide $35 million in funds to restore the PHEAA education grant cutbacks.
-- Provide a $15 million increase in funding for enrollment at community colleges across the state. This will make it possible for 10,000 more students to receive grants to study in state community colleges next fall.
-- Introduce the Pennsylvania Tuition Relief Act, which will provide critically needed college tuition assistance to Pennsylvania families earning less than $100,000 a year. Under this Act, all students who qualify and seek to attend public or community colleges will pay what they can afford (at least $1,000 per year) in accordance with established financial aid practices.
-- Enact legislation to legalize video poker and tax its proceeds--to pay for the tuition relief described above.
Economic/Workforce Development, Finance, Finance (Postsecondary), Postsecondary
-- Believe that investing in higher education is the single most important thing we can do to grow the economy in the long run.
Faculty, State Boards/Chiefs/Agencies, Teaching Quality--Compensation
-- Urge the legislature to pass legislation to consolidate health care benefits for all school employees in the state.
-- Freeze wages for state positions where possible and stop salary increases for this year and next.
Finance, Finance--Facilities, Finance--Resource Efficiency, State Boards/Chiefs/Agencies
-- Enact a Pennsylvania Green Building Code.
Finance, Finance--State Budgets/Expenditures, Finance--Taxes/Revenues, State Boards/Chiefs/Agencies, Unions/Collective Bargaining
-- Face a current projected budget deficit of $2.3 billion. However, Pennsylvania is in a far better position than most.
-- Hold counties at level funding.
-- Allow counties to impose a sales tax increase of up to one percent on top of the state sales tax and share 50% of those proceeds with cities.
-- Will not increase taxes on personal income, sales or businesses.
-- Propose a tax on smokeless tobacco.
-- Propose a tax on the minerals under state soil when extracted.
-- Need to tap some of our Rainy Day reserves to help close our deficit this year and next.
-- Cut current-year legislative spending by 4.25% (executive branch has already made these cuts).
-- Welcome any revenue enhancement proposals by any member of the legislature.
-- Decrease General Fund expenditures by 2%.
-- Cut $395 million in spending by completely eliminating 20 percent of the 500 line items under the control of the Executive Branch. In some cases we are cutting terrific programs that we can perhaps restore when the economy recovers, such as the Governor's Schools of Excellence, a week-long series of academic enrichment forums offered by the Department of Education to students from all over the state.
-- Cut the Scotland School permanently. This school was founded so that the orphans of the Civil War could receive a free public school education, however none of the current students in the school are orphans of veterans, and only seven have parents who are currently deployed.
-- Continue negotiating with leaders of our state unions to reach agreement on ways to meet our fiscal challenges with the lowest possible number of layoffs.
-- Accelerate local community mergers where it makes sense to do so (as recommended by the State Planning Board).
-- Provide $300 million to help contain local property tax increases and pay for public school activities that have proven effective in the last six years. If the American Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act includes temporary support for schools, we should put this $300 million into a lockbox so that when the federal funds expire in two years we can ensure that our school districts continue on the path toward full adequacy funding.
Finance, Finance (Postsecondary), Postsecondary
-- Double state capital investment in projects at the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.
-- Continue our annual commitment of $100 million in funding for important campus projects at the University of Pittsburgh, Penn State University, Lincoln University, and Temple University.
Governance, School Districts
-- Establish funds for the creation of a legislative commission to study how best to right-size our local school districts. The commission should reporting back, within one year, a set of recommendations for the legislature's approval that sets forth an optimal number of local districts and a plan with specific timelines for adjusting our boundaries to meet the optimal size. Full-scale school consolidation provides an effective way to relieve the local property tax burden all across the state. I challenge the commission to develop a plan that includes no more than 100 local districts statewide.
http://www.governor.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_2_24980_2985_368304_43/http%3B/pubcontent.state.pa.us/publishedcontent/publish/cop_general_government_operations/pagov/media/latest_news/09_2010_final_budget_address.pdf | |
| Rhode Island |
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| South Carolina |
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| South Dakota |
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| West Virginia |
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