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 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 Alabama Governor Bob Riley's State of the State Address Early Learning -- Pre-Kindergarten -- Invest an additional $20 million to triple the number of children who benefit from voluntary First Class pre-K. By providing affordable access, First Class fills the gap that has left working families with too few options. Ethics -- Ban double dipping in our two-year system, our four-year system, in K through 12 and in every state agency. Finance -- Pass a balanced budget that will not only continue to fund priority programs by protecting them from cuts but expand them. These priorities are: the Reading Initiative, Math, Science and Technology Initiative, and ACCESS distance learning program. Technology -- Create the Alabama Internet Initiative with a goal of ensuring that every home and every business has high-speed Internet access and will have it within the next four years. http://governorpress.alabama.gov/pr/sp-2008-02-06-sots2008.asp Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano's State of the State Address Drugs/Alcohol -- Direct that substance abuse dollars be targeted so that the families of children in the child protective system are first in line for treatment and services. Early Learning -- Implement the voter-approved initiative aimed at early childhood. Beginning with the youngest children, focus on preschool and quality child care, so that children are fully prepared for the all-day kindergarten we now provide. English Language Learners -- 15 percent of students come from families that do not speak English. These students must learn to read, write and speak in English as soon as possible. I put this challenge to legislative leadership: take our tax dollars out of court and put them back in the classroom, where they belong. Health --Implement KidsShare to allow families – who are currently shut out of the health care system – to buy health insurance for their children at the parents' cost, with no subsidy from the state's general fund. -- Direct the Department of Administration to find ways for the State Health Insurance plan to allow all young adults – up to the age of 25 – to continue coverage on their parents' insurance, so long as this can be done in a way that is cost-neutral to taxpayers. High School -- Look at everything – including AIMS – to make sure we're testing for the right things, at the right times, and for the right reasons. Now that we've changed the graduation standards, tests need to be changed to match. -- Make reasonable alternatives available for students who can't succeed in a regular classroom (An Arizona diploma should demonstrate that a student is fully prepared for higher education, whether in a technical or vocational setting, a community college, or a university.) -- Implement strong support for students to meet the higher expectations; reward students when they succeed. -- Create the Centennial Scholars program to guarantee free tuition at Arizona's community colleges or universities for any student who stays out of trouble and maintains at least a "B" average during high school (beginning with the eighth graders of today who are the high school class of 2012 – Arizona's centennial class, and with all the classes that follow). -- Raise the high-school dropout age to 18. Teaching Quality -- Sustain a higher-quality corps of math and science teachers by expanding teacher loan forgiveness, scholarships, and incentives. Tuition -- For students who begin college at an Arizona university, prohibit raising his or her tuition for four years. Postsecondary Completion -- Double the number of bachelor's degrees issued by state universities by 2020. Provide support to universities to increase graduation rates, retain more students, create more options for students in rural areas, enroll more first-generation students, and boost the number of students coming from community colleges. http://www.governor.state.az.us/dms/upload/GS_2008%20SOS%20Address.pdf Colorado Governor Bill Ritter's State of the State Address Economic Development -- Use the new Jobs Cabinet to align Colorado's economic-development strategies, education programs and regional workforce needs, producing a high-quality, 21st century labor force. -- Double the production of technical certificates and college degrees over the next 10 years. To do that, we need our higher ed systems pulling in the same direction, not competing against each other. Finance -- Allocate $59.5 million for postsecondary education, an 8 percent increase to higher-ed funding. And that follows a $52 million, 7.5 percent increase the year before. Health -- Enroll 17,000 more eligible children into CHP+, and undertake major efforts to enroll more eligible families in Medicaid by simplifying, streamlining and modernizing the application and administrative processes. -- Fully fund the Childhood Immunization Information System. P-16 -- Cut the drop-out rate in half within 10 years. -- Align content standards for pre-school through high school with college admission standards (the "Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids") This will take unprecedented collaboration from the Departments of Education and Higher Education to establish new policies that measure actual student learning and proficiency and prepare all Colorado kids for college or a career in the 21st century. -- Move forward on recommendations from Governor Ritter's P-20 Education Coordinating Council: + Offer full-day kindergarten to 22,000 more children over five years, eliminating the current 3,000-child waiting list for the Colorado Pre-School Program + Create a Colorado Counselor Corps that would deploy 70 guidance counselors into targeted middle and high schools to keep students in school and get them ready for college. Safety --Launch the new School Safety Resource Center. The Department of Public Safety will be identifying sites around Colorado to conduct vulnerability assessments, train faculty and students, and provide additional violence-prevention measures to keep students and teachers safe. Work with local educators and prevention groups to create individually tailored safety plans. -- Protect those who can't protect themselves -- including foster children and those with severe developmental disabilities by requesting funding (nearly $500,000) to increase the number of employees who monitor county foster care programs, from just one -- for the entire state -- to seven. Also, request $10.6 million for staffing, facilities and services for people with developmental disabilities. Student Achievement -- Cut the existing achievement gap separating poor and minority students from more affluent and white students of about 30 percentage points to half (within 10 years). http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite?c=Page&cid=1199955793227&pagename=GovRitter%2FGOVRLayout 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 Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner's State of the State Address Early Learning -- Continue to support the efforts of the Vision 2015 group, an organization of business leaders, educators and state officials who are committed to a plan to make our schools the best in the world. In that effort, we will recommend an appropriation of $500,000 to continue to invest in early childhood education. Distance Education -- Make the virtual school a reality by investing more than $250,000 in that cutting-edge project. Finance -- Devote any cost savings through this effort to our early childhood education initiatives and other classroom programs. Cost savings were identified by the 18-member Leadership for Education Achievement in Delaware (or LEAD) Committee.) Health -- Get Lieutenant Governor Carney's Challenge program in every single elementary school in Delaware by this time next year. (In Delaware schools, nurses, teachers, and principals have been innovative in creating programs to address the growing problem of childhood obesity through this program -- now in 43% of elementary schools.) Kindergarten -- Continue funding for full-day kindergarten, a program that helps children get additional time in the classroom as they are building the foundation for their educational success. Budget proposal for the next fiscal year includes state funding for full-day kindergarten in 11 districts and nine charter schools Financial Aid -- Pass the Student Academic Reward scholarship program, or STAR. The STAR scholarship would enable high-achieving SEED graduates to continue on to a four-year, tuition-free bachelor's degree. (The SEED scholarship program offers free college tuition to any student who works hard, stays out of trouble, and gets good grades.) Safety -- Support the Departments of Education and Safety and Homeland Security in joining forces to protect our children. Beginning this spring, the Delaware State Police will begin offering fingerprinting and other safety-related tools to every fourth-grader in every elementary school in our state. Over time, every school-age child will participate in this program. http://governor.delaware.gov/speeches/2008_state_of_the_state.shtml#TopOfPage 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 Iowa Governor Chet Culver's State of the State Address Early Learning -- Expand early childhood education so we can meet our goal of offering it statewide by 2010. Economic/Workforce Development -- Create a $5 million dollar science, technology, engineering, and math – or STEM – Center at the University of Northern Iowa. This will help us double the number of math and science teachers in our public schools and make sure every high school graduate is ready for the jobs of the future. Financial Aid -- Expand the needs-based All-Iowa Opportunity Scholarship. Health -- Establish a minimum standard for physical activity in our schools. -- Partner with the American Diabetes Association and other groups to create a statewide focus on wellness for our children. -- Take the steps necessary to replace unhealthy food choices in our schools. We need statewide effort to promote healthier school meals, and better options when it comes to vending machines. -- Meet the obligation we have to the most vulnerable among us, our uninsured children. Expand health care to 7,500 more kids. Postsecondary -- Maintain the funding levels for community colleges, regents' institutions and private colleges. -- Fully fund our successful community college level workforce training program, known as ACE. Standards/Curriculum -- Raise the bar and expect more from our students in the classroom. Do whatever it takes to institute Iowa's new Model Core Curriculum statewide by 2010. Our goal is simple, to teach our kids to "love to learn", to love to learn more chemistry, more physics, more algebra, and more trigonometry. -- Make sure that all Iowa students receive the same educational opportunities, regardless of geography, family income, or school district. Teacher Compensation -- Pay our teachers what they deserve, and do whatever it takes to bring them to the national average in teacher pay. http://www.governor.iowa.gov/administration/speeches/080115-condition-of-the-state.pdf Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius' State of the State Address Early Learning -- Extend the state's network of quality early learning opportunities for children during their most formative years. -- Make sure that more Kansas children have a successful start by funding pre-natal care and newborn screening, Parents as Teachers, Early Head Start and quality child care. -- Provide a new Early Childhood Block Grant, driven by research-based programming and accountability measures, focused on at-risk children and under-served areas. -- Fund all-day kindergarten. Economic Development -- Open centers at Colby Community College and Neosho Community College, concentrating on attracting investment, job growth, and business development to our rural areas. Finance -- Extend the current three-year, billion-dollar school finance plan adopted in 2006. Financial Aid -- Invest significant new state resources proposed for post-secondary education, to lower the costs for parents, students and Kansas families. Provide an additional $3 million in scholarship money to ensure that 2,000 more students can afford the opportunity to compete in our new innovation economy. High School -- Fund the Kansas Academy of Math and Science -- to open in 2009 at Fort Hays State University -- to ensure that talented young Kansans have the opportunity to be the next generation of world-class innovators. Teacher Recruitment -- Provide 1 million for teaching scholarships in math, science and technology. http://www.kansascity.com/static/pdfs/2008_sos.pdf Maine Governor Jon E. Baldacci's State of the State Address Early Learning -- It's my goal that children start school ready to learn, and graduate from college ready and able to succeed here in Maine. -- Continue to work with more than 200 Maine business and community leaders to transform the Children's Cabinet Task Force on Early Childhood into a Children's Growth Council. Economic Development -- Keep more of our home-grown graduates here, and open the door of opportunity for the next generation of Maine entrepreneurs and leaders. Finance -- By the end of next year we will have invested more than $1 billion new State dollars in local education. -- Bring together three of the largest purchasers of health care in the State for a new initiative to save taxpayer money and provide better care to consumers. The Maine State Employees Health Commission, the University of Maine System and the Maine Education Association will join forces and put their enormous buying power to work to lower prescription drug costs. Financial Aid -- The Alfond College Challenge provides a $500 dollar education grant to every child born in Maine that will help them start a college savings account. It began last week in Augusta and will expand statewide in 2009. Working through the Finance Authority of Maine and in cooperation with Maine's hospitals, families in this State will have been given a head start on higher education. School Districts -- We are on our way to a new structure that will better serve our people. It will save taxpayers money and provide a better education for our children. Legislation introduced this year and already approved by the Education Committee will further strengthen the new law (that law reduces the number of school administrative units from 290 to 80.) Continue with the work of reducing the number of school administrative units. http://www.maine.gov/tools/whatsnew/index.php?topic=Gov+News&id=48517&v=Article-2006 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 Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm's State of the State Address Focus on four things: 1) A job for every worker. 2) Affordable health care for every family. 3) Safe places to live and work for all of us. 4) Quality education for our citizens - kids and adults. Accountability -- Give our state superintendent broader authority to close schools that consistently fail to meet academic goals. -- Reward colleges and universities when their students complete degrees. Also reward them when they create opportunity for low-income students, and when they find ways to turn research ideas into businesses. Invest more in higher education and expect more in return. Early Learning Significantly expand early childhood education. Economic/Workforce Development -- Create Centers of Excellence across the state to bring alternative energy companies and Michigan universities together to create new products and new jobs. -- Double the number of college graduates to give Michigan the best-educated workforce in the nation. To reach that goal, make progress throughout our education system, from preschool to grad school to on-the-job training. -- Invest more in training for adults already in the workforce. This past year, we took a giant step forward in workforce training when we launched the No Worker Left Behind initiative. Our goal is to give 100,000 workers displaced by changes in our economy access to college education and other training that prepares them for specific high demand jobs. We're offering free tuition for training in areas of need to the first 100,000 workers who sign up. Unfortunately, the huge demand for No Worker Left Behind will soon exhaust the federal funds used to pay for this program. That means Michigan residents who want new skills are on waiting lists when they could be on payrolls. The budget I propose next week will ensure that the thousands who need training are able to get it this year. Finance -- Increase our investment in our K-12 schools and significantly expand early childhood education. Financial Aid -- Expand the vision of the Kalamazoo Promise to communities across our state. (In Kalamazoo, anonymous donors promised full college tuition for every high school graduate.) Tutoring/Mentoring -- Recruiting 10,000 more mentors for kids. High School -- Establish a 21st Century Schools Fund to replace large impersonal high schools that fail, with smaller schools that use firm discipline and strong personal relationships to help students reach high expectations. Free from red tape and bureaucracy, these schools will deploy the new three Rs - rigor, relevance and relationships - to keep students in high school and then get them to college or technical training. Our 21st Century Schools Fund will give school districts the resources they need to create high schools that work. A pioneering group of schools in Michigan is showing us today there is a better way. -- Create 100 more early college high schools to help ensure every student in Michigan leaves high school with the skills it takes to succeed in college and the work place. In the past year, we created six early college high schools, which each partner with a major hospital in our state and a college or university. -- Raise the dropout age to 18. Kindergarten -- Ask all of our school districts to begin offering full day kindergarten. http://www.michigan.gov/gov/0,1607,7-168--184537--,00.html Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour's State of the State Address Early Learning -- Better utilize the existing early childhood programs that already serve 80% of our four-year-olds…by providing financial incentives for them to expand and improve their educational content. Finance -- Pass an honest balanced budget that recognizes we won't be able to increase K-12 spending nearly that much this session (last several years saw an average increase of $130 million per year for K-12 schools). -- Cannot afford continued, large increases in funding higher education this year. -- Fully fund the Mississippi Adequate Education Program. -- Fund education reforms so we can get better results for the money we spend. Find ways to be more efficient and save money. High School -- Continue to support the state superintendent's proposal to redesign high school, to make it more rigorous and especially more relevant to kids who are not on a path to college, as a way to attack our unacceptably high dropout rate. Reading -- Fund the screening of every first grader for dyslexia and other learning disabilities and get them treatment. Teaching Quality -- Compensation: Increase the salaries of teachers with more than 25 years experience. -- Fund mentoring/induction: Give beginning teachers more support as they learn to manage a classroom full of kids. Pay each mentor an extra $1000 for this valuable service. http://www.governorbarbour.com/speeches/2008SOS.htm New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson's State of the State Address Accountability--School Improvement -- For those schools identified as needing improvement, we won't give a bad grade and walk away. Instead, we are going try to help these schools. We are going to apply new academic approaches. We are going to provide new incentives for success. And we are going to boost hands-on training for teachers. Arts Education -- Maintain commitment to the arts so it remains a key part of every child's education. Early Learning -- Create Pre-K opportunities for an additional 2,000 children, which will help us close the achievement gap – before it starts. Finance--Facilities -- Require any new higher education buildings to meet a higher standard of energy efficiency, and current buildings to lower their energy usage through efficiency improvements. -- Invest another 211 million dollars to improve and modernize our elementary, middle and high schools. -- Invest 152 million to build state of the art facilities for our university and college campuses. Health -- Continue progress on making sure every child has a healthy breakfast, mandatory physical education -- whether they live in an urban area or the most rural setting. Postsecondary -- Help scientists, physicians and researchers at the University of New Mexico unlock the potential of stem cell research—and help find the cures for our world's most deadly diseases. -- Create the first dental school in New Mexico to address our state's gaps in oral health care. Teaching Quality -- Spend an additional 60-million dollars to continue to increase teacher and educational employee salaries. http://www.governor.state.nm.us/2008%20State%20of%20the%20State.pdf Pennsylvania 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 Tennessee Governor Phil Bredeson's State of the State Address Early Learning -- Invest $25 million to continue meeting the requests of communities across our state for Pre-K classrooms. That is not enough to fund all of the requests that we have, but will keep us moving forward. Finance -- Fully fund the BEP (Basic Education Program). Incorporate the remainder of the tobacco tax money—we estimate it at $87 million—to further fill out the framework of BEP 2.0. Financial Aid -- Change the grade point average for retention of the scholarship from 3.0 to 2.75 (to better accommodate for the increased difficulty of college studies and to help address the fact that nearly 80% of the scholarship winners lose their scholarship during their time in college). -- Keep the merit scholarship intact, but expand assistance to others as well. Take about half of the unallocated lottery reserves, $200 million specifically, and use it to establish an endowment for the Tennessee Student Assistance Corporation (TSAC). Between the earnings from this endowment and a small additional appropriation from the annual lottery surplus, we will be able to assist financially another 12-15,000 deserving and hard-working Tennessee students to earn a college education. http://www.tennesseeanytime.org/governor/viewArticleContent.do?id=1170&page=0 Virginia Governor Tim Kaine's State of the Commonwealth Address Early Learning -- Expand the Virginia Preschool Initiative from 13,000 to nearly 20,000 children will give a better start to those children who need it most. Expansion will be based on Start Strong Council, including education experts, business leaders, children's advocates, local officials, and legislators of both parties and draws on the experiences of the existing pre-k program, the pilot projects and last fall's report by the JLARC.    -- Increase state support for cities and counties offering pre-k programs, make more at-risk students eligible and utilize high-quality private providers so that more money can be spent on education, instead of bricks and mortar. -- Enhance quality and accountability, build collaboration among public, private and Head Start programs, and strengthen the early childhood workforce. Finance, Standards, At-Risk -- Ensure that the gains made in early education are maintained by fully funding the rebenchmarking of the Standards of Quality for K-12 and maintaining the "At Risk" monies that the General Assembly has traditionally approved. Teacher Compensation -- Continue to fund the progress made in raising teachers' salaries toward the national average by funding the state share of a 3.5% pay increase for teachers and other instructional staff effective July 1, 2009.  Postsecondary and Economic Development -- Encourage high school graduates to continue their education at universities, four year colleges, career and technical schools, and community colleges by giving those institutions what they need to serve students who will ultimately become the workforce driving Virginia's economic engine. -- Make significant new investments in higher education to help create high-tech jobs through research and innovation.  This is particularly important at a time when job growth is slowing.  Proposing a $1.6 billion bond package to continue the acceleration of top notch higher education system. This investment, to be phased in over the next 5 to 7 years, will provide facilities across the Commonwealth for researchers to develop new, cutting-edge technologies and turn them into commercial assets. The bond package centers largely on engineering, science, business, and health professions.  It will support higher education system's continuing efforts to build a more talented workforce that is fully prepared to compete in a global economy.  Beginning these needed projects now will be less costly than in future years, saving taxpayers millions of dollars.  And the bond package fits well within our conservative debt service guidelines. -- Supplement these capital projects by operational funds for increased base adequacy funding, more financial aid, and an expanded focus on competitive research opportunities. -- Place the main responsibility for workforce development in the Virginia Community College System. http://www.governor.virginia.gov/MediaRelations/Speeches/2008/SOTC.cfm 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