2008 State of the State Addresses Education-Related Proposals by Issue

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. Accountability 2 Accountability--Sanctions/Interventions 2 Accountability--School Improvement 3 Assessment 2 At-Risk (incl. Dropout Prevention) 1 At-Risk (incl. Dropout Prevention)--Drugs/Alcohol 4 Attendance 1 Bilingual/ESL 1 Career/Technical Education 3 Career/Technical Education--Career Academies/Apprenticeship 1 Choice of Schools 1 Choice of Schools--Charter Schools 1 Counseling/Guidance 1 Curriculum 2 Curriculum--Arts Education 1 Curriculum--Mathematics 2 Curriculum--Science 3 Economic/Workforce Development 22 Finance 4 Finance--Adequacy/Core Cost 3 Finance--Facilities 10 Finance--Funding Formulas 5 Finance--Lotteries 1 Finance--Resource Efficiency 2 Finance--State Budgets/Expenditures 17 Finance--Taxes/Revenues 8 Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell's State of the State Address Child Care/Early Learning -- Provide the Department of Public Health with five additional staff to increase both the number and frequency of inspections of child care facilities Economic/Workforce Development -- Provide $800,000 in additional funding for nursing scholarships and teaching at UConn, our state universities, and community-technical colleges. -- Provide $300,000 for an engineering loan reimbursement program to engineers who work in our State. -- Establish an exciting "Green Collar" Jobs program at our vo-tech schools to train students in energy efficient building, construction and retrofit work. Finance -- Advocate for enactment of a property tax cap. -- Fund youth violence prevention programs and substance abuse counselors. Health -- Fully implement the initiative to enroll children in HUSKY B at birth – and work with schools to identify low-income families for program eligibility.  Safety -- Roll back curfew times, increase on-the-road training requirements and put stiff penalties in place for driving under the influence and violating laws regarding carrying passengers, talking on cell phones, text messaging, speeding and racing. We've lost too many of our young people to tragic accidents. Tuition/Fees -- Waive college tuition at all state colleges for spouses and children of service members killed in action. http://www.ct.gov/governorrell/cwp/view.asp?Q=405310&A=3293 Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue's State of the State Address Early Learning -- Allocate an additional $6.4 million in lottery funds to bring the total number of Pre-K slots up to 79,000. (The first Pre-K class enters college this fall.) Economic Development -- Invest $40 million for venture capital to commercialize research in areas like biosciences and medicine coming out of our universities. Deregulation -- Continue to link flexibility with accountability. Follow through on the work of the Investing in Educational Excellence (IE2) task force by offering new options in exchange for performance.  Grant public schools some of the flexibility that charter schools enjoy through new contracts between the state and the local school systems. These contracts would require clear and measurable accountability standards, and would link flexibility with student achievement.  Finance -- Eliminate the state portion of property tax. -- Invest $65 million in funding two priority needs for schools – transportation (school buses) and 21st century technology.     Parent Involvement -- Institute the "VIP Recruiter" program – Very Important Parent Recruiters.  Invest $14.25 million, targeting our schools with the poorest attendance rates.  Simply put, a child's attendance record is a direct result of parental involvement.  These recruiters will help parents understand the education system, to help them make a connection with their child's teachers.  They will learn how and why to be supportive of their child's education.  Teacher compensation -- Continue to issue the $100 Classroom Gift Card to teachers.  http://gov.georgia.gov/00/press/detail/0,2668,78006749_102386494_103230743,00.html Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels' State of the State Address Finance -- Property Tax Relief -- Implement permanent protection against the return of unaffordable taxes, through a permanent, constitutional cap of one percent of a home's value, an absolute ceiling beyond which no homeowner would ever pass. Make the cuts further secure by lifting permanently the costs of child welfare protection and school operations off the property taxpayer altogether. Reform the state's unfair assessment system, with its unexplained inaccuracies and its unequal treatment of like properties. -- Put genuine limits on total local spending and borrowing, with none of the loopholes and exceptions that have permitted such spending to balloon in recent years. -- Give citizens what they have in most states, a final say over major capital projects through a straightforward referendum. -- Add a penny to the sales tax as the fairest source of funds for relief -- Do all this in ways that preserve local control over the operations of schools and the setting of local priorities. Fix authority and accountability for controlling total spending where it should be, on the elected leadership of each community, and end the era of micromanagement from Indianapolis. http://www.in.gov/gov/files/2008stateofstate.pdf Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's State of the Commonwealth Address Finance -- Facilities -- Kindergarten -- Extended Learning -- Start with education and invest in strategies that work. Commit a record $223 million more to support public schools. -- Make significant increases in early education grants, all-day kindergarten programs, and extended learning time. -- Give the 275,000 students and faculty in our public colleges and universities the quality labs, lecture halls and dormitories they deserve. -- Support these budget initiatives and pass the higher ed bond bill. -- Give our cities and towns the tools they need to keep property taxes down. Governance -- Advance the Readiness Project, a 10-year strategic plan for the future of education in the Commonwealth. This plan creates an Executive Office of Education consisting of Early Education and Care (existing), Elementary and Secondary Education (new name for the existing Department of Education) and Higher Education (new department that will include personnel now staffing the Board of Higher Education). Establishes a Secretary of Education. Maintains existing boards -- with two additional members each. Provides the governor with authority to appoint the chair of the UMass board. -- The five objectives of the Readiness Project [Early Learning -- Teaching Quality -- Access -- High School--Transitions -- P-16 -- Student Support]: 1. Provide every child with the opportunity to enter public school ready to learn. 2. Provide every student with outstanding and highly qualified teachers who are respected professionals recruited from among the best and the brightest in the Commonwealth. 3. Provide every student with the support necessary to meet the state's high standards and high expectations. 4. Provide the support and infrastructure needed to ensure the opportunity for every student to have an accessible, affordable and globally competitive higher education. 5. Provide an education system that enables every student to transition successfully from high school to higher education, to the work force ready to succeed and to be a productive, engaged and contributing citizen. http://www.mass.gov/Agov3/video/2008-01-24_sotc.rtf Missouri Governor Matt Blunt's State of the State Address Economic Development -- STEM -- Increase investment in math and science education. To ensure that the next generation enjoys even greater prosperity, we must provide our students with a world-class education in math, engineering, technology, and science. -- Invest $5 million to create 100 technologically-advanced classrooms and to equip 300 classrooms with advanced math and science curriculum. Exceptional Children -- Invest $5 million for the Thompson Center in Columbia, a world-class treatment and research facility we will help build right here in central Missouri. Combined, this funding will improve the lives of Missouri families struggling with autism. Extended School Days -- Invest $1.1 million for after-school programs, which help students learn, stay fit, stay safe, and stay out of trouble. Finance -- Over four years, we will have invested an additional $1.2 billion in education. -- Significantly increase funding at all levels – from pre-school to graduate school. Elementary and secondary schools receive an increase of $121 million, or more than 4 percent from last year. Missouri colleges and universities receive more than $54.2 million in direct funding, an increase of more than 6 percent. That includes funding to train more doctors, nurses, dentists, and pharmacists to meet the health care needs of Missourians. -- Stop excessive local increases in property tax by developing tax reform that includes truth in taxation and mandatory levy rollbacks. Financial Aid -- Continue to increase scholarship funding -- more than $25 million for A+ student scholarships, helping more than 20,000 Missourians attend community colleges, nearly doubling the program's funding since January of 2005. -- Quadruple investment in needs-based scholarships by allocating $100 million for Access Missouri scholarships. High School -- Invest three-quarters of a million dollars to train nearly 1,000 new Advanced Placement teachers and to help more than 6,000 Missouri students take Advanced Placement tests. Postsecondary -- Invest in better classrooms and labs at the higher education level. -- Make further investments such as $31 million for construction, renovation, and improvement of the Ellis Fischel Cancer Center at the University of Missouri, and another $15 million for the Pharmacy and Nursing Building at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Safety/Student Discipline -- Increase total funding to $1.5 million for Cyber Crime Task Forces grants so that law enforcement can catch predators before they harm a Missouri child. http://gov.missouri.gov/State_of_the_State_2008.pdf South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's State of the State Address Choice, Charter Schools -- Give the families of modest incomes a lifeline, and a scholarship, out of a failing school. -- Improve the grounds on which charter schools are established in our state, as too often new public charter schools are still not able to use existing educational facilities or be afforded transportation options. Finance -- Establish a statutory cap on new spending at population plus inflation with a requirement that all money above this cap be returned to the taxpayers or dedicated to our states unfunded pension plan. -- Acknowledge the fact we can no longer afford the Teacher and Employee Retiree Incentive program, and the defined employee benefit option in its present form, and limit it to the people already in the system. -- Move toward a funding system based on a per-pupil public expenditure - rather than funding districts in lump sums. High School -- Be open to very different approaches as we proposed in the Executive Budget, like offering a scholarship for students who graduate early from high school. School Districts -- Consolidate school districts - our lines are still too often tied to the 1950's - the cost of which can be measured in facilities and administrative duplication. -- Seriously address how we build schools as our population grows. Neighborhood schools are now allowed, but to date we have not really seen them implemented. Tuition/Fees -- Link the price of higher education to its cost. By capping its increase we would force coordination - key to preventing higher education from continuing to spiral out of the reach of working families.  http://www.scgovernor.com/news/releases/jan_16_08.htm South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds State of the State Address Finance--Postsecondary Facilities -- Partner with the Board of Regents to renovate and to revitalize the science facilities at public universities, because it is truly important for the future of South Dakota's students and our economic development plans. The private sector already recognizes this important move. Avera recently announced a multi-million dollar donation to South Dakota State University to rebuild and expand Shepard Hall. Therefore, the Board of Regents and I have agreed to a $65 million bonding plan. Finance -- Requesting a 2.5 percent increase in per student allocation for state aid to local schools, which is one percent higher than the anticipated inflation rate as provided by law for the next school year. -- Fix the property tax problem. Statewide, more than $14.1 billion of property value is not taxed because of the laws now in place—that's nearly a quarter of our state's property value of $51 billion. In 1998, we had over 1,400 usable agricultural sales in the state that could be used in assessing agricultural properties. In 2006, we had just 200 for the entire state. It is not possible to fairly and accurately value all of the agricultural land in the state using just 200 sales. We are rapidly approaching the point where the current system is no longer workable. We've had several study committees and many bills introduced over the last several years. I pledge my support in working with you, but the time has come, we need to work together and fix this problem during this legislative session. -- Use the Energy Conservation Revolving Loan to provide low interest loans to schools, cities, counties, universities, tech schools, and state agencies that have developed good ways to save tax dollars by becoming more energy efficient. Preference will be given to energy efficiency improvement projects with the shortest payback period. Financial Aid -- Expand Opportunity Scholarships to even more South Dakota students (3,465 were funded last the past several years) by lowering the ACT requirement from 24 to 23 to allow more than 200 more students to qualify. Teacher Compensation -- Add $4,000,000 in funding for teacher salary enhancements (market compensation, additional training, recruitment for high-need schools). Technology -- Expand the Classrooms Connections Program through additional funding: $2,954,000 for year 3 to purchase 4,600 more laptop computers for high school students and 400 more for their teachers. This year, 41 school districts are in the Classroom Connections Program. 9,600 students have laptops or tablet computers. That's 25 percent of the high school students in South Dakota. If additional funding is approved, 14,200 students will have computers next year, and that would raise the percentage to 38 percent of our high school students. -- Asking for funding to migrate South Dakota's six public universities toward a mobile computing environment. The students that graduate from our high schools and attend one of our public universities will use laptops and tablet computers in their courses of study. It is, therefore, imperative that we start these students on a path toward using computers for learning in our public schools and that our universities be prepared to accept them. http://sd.gov/docs/STATE%20OF%20THE%20STATE%20SPEECH%202008.pdf Vermont Governor James Douglas' State of the State Address Early Learning -- Continue to invest in the healthy development of our youngest children and prepare them to arrive at school ready to learn and thrive. The Building Bright Futures initiative has worked to coordinate and support an integrated system of early childhood care, health and education that is fiscally sustainable. Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) -- Rethink how science, technology, engineering and mathematics are taught. Requesting that the State Board and Department of Education help schools implement more innovative science, technology, engineering and mathematics curricula. By rethinking how our education resources are deployed, we can make this transformation. We know that our teachers are ready for the challenge; now let's build a classroom framework to support them. Finance -- Cut property taxes directly by $25 million. -- Invest another $25 million in school modernization projects by utilizing the projected $50 million of proceeds from leasing our state lottery. Not only will this proposal ease the financial strain on homeowners, it will help clear the backlog of school construction, giving our students 21st century learning environments in energy efficient buildings, which will save taxpayers money in the long run. Financial Aid, Community Colleges -- Invest $8 million—a 14 percent increase over last year's appropriation—in college scholarships and workforce training programs. http://governor.vermont.gov/speeches/state_of_the_state-1-10-08.pdf Governance 2 Governance--Deregulation/Waivers/Home Rule 2 Governance--State Boards/Chiefs/Agencies 1 Health 13 High School 11 High School--Advanced Placement 1 High School--College Readiness 1 High School--Dual/Concurrent Enrollment 1 High School--Early Colleges/Middle Colleges 1 International Benchmarking 1 Leadership 2 Mentoring/Tutoring 1 No Child Left Behind 1 No Child Left Behind--Choice/Transfer 1 No Child Left Behind--School Support 2 Online Learning--Virtual Schools/Courses 2 P-16 or P-20 3 P-3 16 P-3 Child Care 1 P-3 Ensuring Quality 1 P-3 Kindergarten 5 P-3 Kindergarten--Full-Day Kindergarten 1 P-3 Preschool 6 Parent/Family 3 Postsecondary 8 Postsecondary Accountability 1 Postsecondary Affordability--Financial Aid 16 Postsecondary Affordability--Tuition/Fees 6 Postsecondary Affordability--Tuition/Fees--Prepd/College Savings Plans 1 Postsecondary Finance 5 Postsecondary Governance and Structures 3 Postsecondary Institutions--Community/Technical Colleges 5 Postsecondary Participation--Access 3 Postsecondary Students--Adults 4 Postsecondary Success--Completion 2 Reading/Literacy 2 Remediation (K-12) 2 Scheduling/School Calendar 3 Scheduling/School Calendar--Extended Day Programs 2 School Safety 8 School/District Structure/Operations 2 School/District Structure/Operations--Transportation 1 Special Education 2 Standards 2 State Longitudinal Data Systems 1 STEM 8 Student Achievement 1 Student Achievement--Closing the Achievement Gap 1 Teaching Quality 5 Teaching Quality--Certification and Licensure 1 Teaching Quality--Compensation and Diversified Pay 13 Teaching Quality--Induction Programs and Mentoring 2 Teaching Quality--Preparation 2 Teaching Quality--Recruitment and Retention 5 Teaching Quality--Recruitment and Retention--At-Risk Schools 1 Teaching Quality--Tenure or Continuing Contract 1 Technology 4 Technology--Computer Skills 1 Technology--Devices/Software/Hardware 1 Technology--Internet Safety 1 308