ECS
2012 State of the State Addresses
Education-Related Proposals

Education Commission of the States • 700 Broadway, Suite 810 • Denver, CO 80203-3442 • 303.299.3600 • fax 303.296.8332 • www.ecs.org

The following summary includes education-related proposals from the 2012 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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- Mississippi
Governor Phil Bryant's State of the State Address

PROPOSALS

P-3
--Monitor the learning opportunities in licensed child care centers.
--Combine the functions of the department of health and department of human services for inspection and monitoring of licensed child care centers, in order to streamline services and improve the state's ability to identify the quality of early childhood learning programs.
--Gather additional information from ongoing programs such as Building Blocks, Excel by 5, Allies for Quality Childcare Project, and the Quality Rating System, to provide the metrics needed to determine best practices for early childhood learning.

Charter Schools
--Pass a charter school act.

K-12 Finance
--Make an executive budget recommendation that will level fund MAEP (Mississippi Adequate Education Program, state funding formula).
--Seek to replace the funding for high growth areas.
--Set aside 2% of state revenue to replenlish state's rainy day fund.

Teen Pregnancy
--Begin the public discussion of how to reduce teen pregnancy in Mississippi.
--Governor has asked the director of the department of human services and the state health officer to provide, within 30 days, an aggressive plan to address the state's teen pregnancy rate and suggestions on how to curb it.

Reading, Dylslexia
--Put reading at the forefront of the state's educational plan.
--Encourage teachers and parents who believe a child is dyslexic to seek assistance from the Mississippi Dyslexia Program at the department of education. Work to improve state response to this challenge to success.

School/District Structure, Operations
--Ask the legislature to pass the Education Administration Consolidation Bill, which mandates that districts' non-educational duties (i.e., centralized human resources, centralized purchasing, centralized transportation and other duties) be consolidated to one central county office by 2014.

Teaching Quality, National Board Teacher Certification, Teach for America, Mississippi Teachers Corps
--Make sure teachers graduate from college prepared to teach. Dr. Hank Bounds (state superintendent) and Dr. Tom Burnham (commissioner of higher education) are working to increase minimum entrance standards for teacher training programs at state universities.
--Fully fund the national board certified teacher program.
--Once data are available from a pilot program to quantify the characteristics of a quality teacher, recommend a teacher "Pay for Performance" program based on student attainments and not on subjective evaluations.
--Make executive budget recommendation allocating $12 million toward Teach for America and the Mississippi Teachers Corps. Local districts will add a portion to this appropriation to keep participating teachers in the classroom.

Dual Enrollment, Economic/Workforce Development
--Ask the state department of education, the community colleges and the Mississippi Department of Employment Security to come together to implement a dual enrollment process to allow students on the verge of dropping out of school to enroll in a community college workforce training program.

Economic/Workforce Development--Research
--Create the Biomass Center for Excellence, a partnership of the public, private and education sectors to coordinate and promote biomass research, development and manufacturing.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS
n/a

http://www.governorbryant.com/governor-phil-bryant-gives-his-first-state-of-the-state-address/ (scroll down to beginning of address)
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