2011 State of the State Addresses Education-Related Proposals by Issue

The following summary includes education-related proposals from the 2011 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 6 Accountability--Reporting Results 1 Accountability--Sanctions/Interventions 1 Accountability--School Improvement 2 Assessment 4 At-Risk (incl. Dropout Prevention) 1 At-Risk (incl. Dropout Prevention)--Alternative Education 1 Attendance 2 Bilingual/ESL 1 Business Involvement 5 Career/Technical Education 4 Choice of Schools 3 Choice of Schools--Charter Schools 8 Choice of Schools--Charter Schools--Cyber Charters 1 Choice of Schools--Charter Schools--Finance 1 Choice of Schools--Choice/Open Enrollment 2 Choice of Schools--Tax Credits 2 Choice of Schools--Vouchers 2 Choice of Schools--Vouchers--Privately Funded 1 Class Size 1 Curriculum--Foreign Language/Sign Language 1 Curriculum--Mathematics 1 Curriculum--Science 1 Economic/Workforce Development 18 Finance 17 Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Finance -- Increase per-pupil funding by 2%. -- Push more of the funding that comes into the state meant to close achievement gaps into active efforts to help students, while still allowing districts to save some funding in reserve. Finance, Postsecondary -- Increase higher education funding by 1% to help institutions with rising enrollment; ask administrators to be measured and modest when looking to raise tuition, as this funding increase will unlikely alone cover growing operational costs. -- Tie funding for higher education institutions more closely to coursework completion and graduation rates, not simply to enrollment. Postsecondary Completion --Double the number of college graduates by 2025 in order to stay competitive. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Standards, Student Achievement -- Acknowledge that stronger standards and increased funded are producing positive results; we've come from consistently settling among the bottom few states in the nation to number 6 in the nation for K-12 education. http://governor.arkansas.gov/newsroom/index.php?do:newsDetail=1&news_id=2686 Florida Governor Rick Scott's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Charter Schools - Increase the number of charter schools. Choice of Schools - Expand the eligibility for opportunity scholarships to harness the power of engaged parents. Finance - Analyze how much education money is spent in the classroom versus the amount spent on administration for capital outlays. Student Achievement - Base all education decisions on individual student learning. - Adopt practices to improve student learning and abolish practices that impair student learning. Teacher Employment - Pay the best educators more and end the practice of guaranteeing educators a job for life regardless of their performance. Teaching and Administrative Quality - Recruit, train, support and promote great teachers, principals and superintendents. Testing/ Teacher Evaluation - Test students and evaluate teachers with measurements that are fair and thoughtful, and that have rewards and consequences. ACCOMPLISHMENTS N/A - Newly-Elected Governor http://www.flgov.com/2011/03/08/florida-governor-rick-scott-delivers-state-of-the-state-address/ Georgia Governor Nathan Deal's 2011 State of the State Address PROPOSALS School Finance -- Increase a net $30 million in K-12 formula funding and no reduction in Equalization Grants. -- Appropriate 1% of the Revenue Shortfall Reserve for K-12 education to cover the Mid-Term Adjustment for Quality Basic Education and the shortfall for Non-Certified Personnel health insurance costs. Teacher Compensation -- End teacher furloughs and keep students in school for a full school year. Facilities Funding/STEM/Charter Schools -- Proposed projects for bond funding: ---->$231 million for K-12 construction, equipment and buses; ---->$15 million for funding for STEM charter schools that focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics education, areas that are vital to our competiveness in the global economy; ---->$50 million for repairs and renovations in the University System; and ---->$28 million for upgrades at our technical colleges. Scholarships -- Save HOPE Scholarship we through programmatic changes during this legislative session. ACCOMPLISHMENTS N/A: Newly-Elected Governor http://gov.georgia.gov/00/press/detail/0,2668,165937316_166428912_167569533,00.html Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Make education our top priority. Pre-K -3 -- Utilize federal, state and private resources to develop a leadership position in the Governor's office for early education. This person will coordinate efforts across departments and in the private sector as we lay the groundwork for the future establishment of a Department of Early Childhood. Finance -- Implement what is an overdue increase in the alcohol tax and a fee on soda and similar drinks. We can no longer ignore the fact that consumption of these and other such products contribute to rising public health costs. Revenues from these fees will be used to repair the public health infrastructure and also to fund prevention and education programs. Governance -- Immediately resolve the appointed school board issue. In the coming weeks, the legislature needs to give me the enabling legislation allowing the Governor to appoint the school board [voters approved a Constitutional amendment but implementation details will be handled through legislation]. College Access and Completion -- Increase the number of college graduates by 25 percent by 2015 (Hawaii Graduation Initiative). We can achieve this goal by keeping education affordable and reaching out to students across the state who have not been traditionally well served at the University of Hawaii (UH), including Native Hawaiians and neighbor island students. -- Organize a Hawaiian language university-within-a-university. Language is a key element in ensuring that the Hawaiian culture remains strong and perseveres into the future for the benefit of all. When our young children master language, they master themselves. When they master themselves, they can achieve anything. Postsecondary Facilities -- Convene a group of experts and University officials to consider the future of sports and the future of development on Oahu to make a definitive decision on Aloha Stadium and any future stadium we might build. Other than maintenance related to health and safety, I will divert all other capital improvement dollars for Aloha Stadium to other projects. Right now, multimillion dollar plans to extend the life of Aloha Stadium by 20 years could take 40 years to implement. It is time to reprioritize. Economic Development -- Strongly support measures to increase the capacity of research programs at the University. These programs play a big part in our economic recovery by bringing external dollars into the State and building innovative industries. The University's current research activity brings $450 million to the table. Use a new program -- The New Day Work Projects -- to directly attack unemployment and jumpstart business activity. It will provide an economic boost that will reverberate throughout the state. Utilize the bonding power of the state, partner with willing private parties, streamline processes, and provide work that will result in paychecks for families across our islands. This includes ambitious capital improvement plans for the University of Hawaii system, including the UH West Oahu campus and the Palamanui campus in Kona, which will provide new educational opportunities for students. ACCOMPLISHMENTS N/A - Newly-elected Governor http://hawaii.gov/gov/our-voyage-together.html Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels' State of the State Address PROPOSALS Finance -- End practices like raiding teacher pension funds, and shifting state deficits to our schools and universities by making them wait until the state had the cash to pay them. Teaching Quality -- Should have tenure, but they should earn it by proving their ability to help kids learn.  -- Best teachers should be paid more, much more, and ineffective teachers should be helped to improve or asked to move. Leadership -- Give school leadership full flexibility to deliver the results we now expect.  -- Free school leaders from all the handcuffs that reduce their ability to meet the higher expectations we now have for student achievement.  Local Control -- Repeal mandates that, whatever their good intentions, ought to be left to local control.  School Choice/Charter School -- Honor, trust and respect parents enough to decide when, where and how their children can receive the best education, and therefore the best chance in life. -- Protect families against any possibility of discrimination by requiring that any school with more applicants than room fill it through a lottery or other blind selection process. -- Create more charter schools, and they must no longer be unjustly penalized. They should receive their funding exactly when other public schools do. If they need space, and the local district owns vacant buildings it has no prospect of using, they should turn them over. -- Let families apply dollars that the state spends on their child to the non-government school of their choice. Accelerated Learning -- Empower kids to defray the high cost of education through their own hard work, by entrusting them with this new and innovative choice. If you choose to finish in eleven years instead of twelve, we will give you the money we were going to spend while you cruised through 12fth grade, as long as you spend that money on some form of further education.  ACCOMPLISHMENTS -- Ordered the Board of Education to peel away unnecessary requirements that consume time and money without really contributing to learning.  -- Starting this year, schools will get their own grades, in a form we can all understand: 'A' to 'F.' No more hiding behind jargon and gibberish. http://www.in.gov/gov/11stateofstate.htm?WT.cg_n=GOV_billboards&WT.cg_s=11111_01_SOS Kansas Governor Sam Brownback's State of the State Address PROPOSALS P-3 -- Dedicate $6 million this year from the Children's Initiative Fund to the development of early childhood education centers in our most needy school districts. -- Focus more funding on early childhood reading. Economic Development -- Establish a three-year, $105M University Economic Growth initiative to enhance job growth in key economic sectors such as Aviation, Cancer Research, Animal Health, and Engineering. Each university will be required to provide through private sector or reprogrammed funds 50% of the cost of the program initiative. -- Create a Governor's Economic Council: Chaired by myself, this council will consist of some of our state's most successful men and women who are leaders in the private sector.  The Council will assure strategy integration, coordination and accountability across all of the state's economic development agencies and initiatives. Finance -- Proposed budget provides school districts with more overall state funding and will also stabilize state support for higher education for the first time since the Great Recession began. -- Let the Legislature resolve school finance… not the courts, so we can send more money to the classroom, not the courtroom. Define suitability and end the confusion. This will provide a definition of what we need to undertake reform of our school finance formula and provide our school districts with stable, sustainable funding for the future.  Reading/Literacy -- No child should pass the 4th grade without being able to read. Rural (Economic Development, Declining Enrollment) -- Create Rural Opportunity Zones, or ROZes, to provide a state income tax waiver for any individual relocating from out-of-state into any participating county that has experienced double digit percentage population decline the last ten years. ACCOMPLISHMENTS N/A: Newly-Elected Governor https://governor.ks.gov/media-room/speeches/2011/01/12/2011-State-of-the-State-Message Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear's 2011 State of the Commonwealth Speech PROPOSALS Compulsory School Attendance -- Raise the mandatory school attendance age to 18. High School Graduation -- Work together to increase the graduation rate School Finance -- Use Medicaid money to fix a Medicaid problem — don't cut education or other priorities to fix this program. Alternative Education -- Answer concerns about unmotivated students by creating alternative programs. ACCOMPLISHMENTS School Finance -- Protected basic funding for classroom teaching College Completion -- Smoothed the transfer of credits from two-year colleges to four-year institutions. Improved Achievement -- In Education Week's 2011 Quality Counts report Kentucky ranked 19th among the 50 states. -- On the most recent NAEP, Kentucky's 4th and 8th graders outperformed the national average in science. -- In reading, Kentucky was the only state to improve both 4th and 8th grade scores between 2007 and 2009. -- A growing number of Kentucky students are entering college, fewer need remedial help and more are graduating. http://www.governor.ky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/B88ACAA4-3F4E-461E-B514-477D507E1C72/0/20110201SOTC.pdf Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley's 2011 State of the State Address PROPOSALS College Affordability -- Continue to make college more affordable for more families. Governance Structures -- Merge the Higher Education Commission and Department of Education. Postsecondary Completion -- Support Complete College Maryland in this year's budget. -- Rethink the way we fund higher education so there is a greater incentive for completing college on time. ACCOMPLISHMENTS School Finace -- For the past four years, every year, we've increased education funding. -- Last year, we chose to make the largest investment we've ever made in public education. University Tuition -- Alone among the 50 states we chose to freeze in-state tuition four years in a row. http://www.governor.maryland.gov/speeches/2011SOTS.pdf Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton's 2011 State of the State Address PROPOSALS Finance -- Increase state funding for public K-12 education every year, with every additional dollar directed toward improving the quality of that education. Early Learning -- Re-establish the Governor's Council on Early Childhood Education and the Children's Cabinet, both to be led by Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius. -- Increase funding to expand the number of children who can receive all-day kindergarten. Postsecondary Effectiveness -- Identify successes in colleges and universities that are educating students most successfully. Share these strategies and encourage and require their use elsewhere. Business Involvement -- Ask every business in Minnesota to adopt a school, college or university: to become actively involved in making them better. ACCOMPLISHMENTS N/A - Newly-elected Governor http://mn.gov/governor/newsroom/pressreleasedetail.jsp?id=9690 Nevada Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Accountability -- Improve accountability report cards. Choice of Schools -- Use open enrollment, better charter school options, and vouchers to make private school education a possibility for more families and provide more parental choice. Governance -- Reform K-12 governance. Support the recommendations of Nevada's Promise to provide an improved governance model in which the governor appoints the state board of education and the superintendent of public instruction. Teaching Quality -- End teacher tenure. An important first step is to eliminate the protection of seniority when decisions about force reductions must be made. -- Rely heavily on student achievement data in evaluating teachers and principals. As incentives, provide $20 million in performance pay for the most effective teachers. -- Eliminate costly programs that reward longevity and advanced degree attainment. Student Promotion -- End social promotion. Students who cannot read by the end of third grade will not be advanced to the fourth grade. Economic Development -- Redesign the Commission on Economic Development and recommend a 50 percent increase in General Fund dollars to run it. -- Create a new entity, Nevada Jobs Unlimited, as a public-private partnership existing largely outside state government. With a private sector mentality, it will be more nimble. And it will be a Cabinet-level agency, with the governor joining the lieutenant governor, Senate majority leader, Assembly speaker, and representatives of higher education and other critical stakeholders on the board. A majority of the board members will come from the private sector to ensure the focus is squarely on jobs. -- Develop a more strategic focus that connects degree programs and the state's economic development efforts. Finance -- Reduce Basic Support in our K-12 schools by $270 per pupil. The change in total support from current spending is just over nine percent. -- Create a Block Grant Program that encourages districts to be innovative and results-oriented. If one district chooses to continue class size reduction, so be it. If another district wants to pursue other programs, we will no longer hold them back. Flexibility, local autonomy, and accountability are the keys. -- Change the level of reserves required for debt service in all those counties with bond funds. School improvements, maintenance, and equipment purchases will continue – which means no construction jobs will be lost. Simply put, these tax dollars were unnecessarily locked away in one of those separate buckets. -- Use $425 million of these funds to offset the $440 million in lost local funding. The money will stay in education and be used in the district of origin. Replenish these funds over time as the Local School Support Tax rebounds. -- Make temporary use of room tax revenue now slated for teacher salaries in order to defray the costs of overall education spending. Pay-for-performance is still included in the budget, just on a different scale. Postsecondary Finance, Tuition, Financial Aid -- Redirect nine cents of property tax from Clark and Washoe Counties. Restrict this money to the support of universities and community colleges in those counties, because property values rise and economic growth occurs where universities contribute to economic development. -- Reduce state, local, and student revenue for the Nevada System of Higher Education by less than seven percent. With the loss of one-time stimulus dollars, the total reduction is 17.66 percent. However, the Regents have the option of bringing tuition and fees more in line with other Western States, so many of these funds can be recovered. -- Grant autonomy over tuition to the Regents. Nevada's tuition rates are well below our Western neighbors – the Regents have long asked for the authority to raise them. Reserve 15 percent of any increased tuition to ensure access for those who need financial aid. As we increase autonomy, we will also increase performance indicators so that graduation rates, completion times, and access are measures of success. -- Budget an additional $10 million to preserve the Kenny C. Guinn Millennium Scholarship. ACCOMPLISHMENTS N/A Newly-elected Governor http://nv.gov/WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier=id&ItemID=4294969086&libID=4294969085 New Hampshire Governor John Lynch's 2011 Address New Hampshire does not have a state of the state address in years in which a budget or inaugural speech is given. PROPOSALS Finance -- Present a proposal for improving the current formula: Constitutional amendment Technology -- Bring affordable broadband to all of New Hampshire High School -- Set a goal of reducing the dropout rate to zero ACCOMPLISHMENTS [Incumbent Governor] Standards, College Readiness -- Improved standards -- Cut the high school dropout rate in half to a remarkably low 1.7 percent -- Expanded the Community College System's Project Running Start to more high schools, giving students access to college classes and credits. -- Provided options for online learning, internships and night school -- Implemented initiatives such as the FIRST Robotics competition to teaching children things they could never get from a textbook PreK - 3 -- Ensured that every child in every community can attend public kindergarten. Economic/Workforce Development -- Partnered with companies to train workers in the skills they need for today's jobs. In the past four years, trained more than 8,000 workers New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Accountability -- Reform poor-performing schools or close them. Economic Growth, Postsecondary -- Acknowledge that our system of colleges and universities is essential to our economic growth. Finance -- Continue to examine the amount and structure of municipal and school aid programs. -- Cut out-of-classroom costs and focus efforts on teachers and children. Leadership -- Empower principals. School Choice -- Expand the charter school program beyond the 6 approved this year and the 73 currently operating; this is a top priority. -- Attract the best charter school operators to the state. -- Increase authorizing capacity so charter school operators may start schools here. -- Implement the interdistrict school choice law passed last year. -- Pass the Opportunity Scholarship Act (gives businesses tax credits for funding scholarships for low-income students to attend private schools) to help children in failing schools. Teacher Compensation--Pension and Benefits -- Reform pension and health benefit systems for teachers; the state must begin to make its pension contributions. -- Raise (modestly) the retirement age. -- Curb the effect of COLAs -- Ensure a modest but acceptable contribution from employees toward their own retirement system. Teacher Evaluation -- Improve the measurement and evaluation of teachers; there is a task force of teachers, principals and administrators working on that now. Teacher Non-Renewal, Tenure -- Demand that when teacher layoffs occur, they be based on a merit system and not merely on seniority. -- Empower schools to remove underperforming teachers. -- Eliminate teacher tenure. Teacher Pay-for-Performance -- Reward the best teacher based on merit at the individual teacher level. ACCOMPLISHMENTS School Choice -- Created a permanent interdistrict public school choice program. -- Approved 6 new charter schools, with many more to come soon. http://www.state.nj.us/governor/news/news/552010/20110111d.html New York Govenor Andrew M. Cuomo's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Economic Development, Postsecondary - Establish 10 economic regional councils across the state. Higher education will be the key economic driver. Finance, Student Achievement - Acknowledge that NY spends more money on education than any other state but is number 34th in the nation in terms of results. - Redesign portion of state education funding to create two competitive funds that reward performance: (1) school performance: $250 million competition fund for district that increase classroom performance (e.g., improving grades of historically underperforming children) and (2) administration efficiency: $250 million competition for districts that find administrative savings through efficiencies, shared services, etc. Governance - Create program to reward local governments that save money by consolidating. ACCOMPLISHMENTS N/A: Newly-Elected Governor http://governor.ny.gov/sl2/stateofthestate2011transcript Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett's 2011 Executive Budget Address PROPOSALS Teacher Pay -- Public school employees should agree to a one-year freeze on pay increases to save school districts $400 million. -- Employees in the State System of Higher Education should consider sacrifice. School Finance -- Any new property tax increase beyond inflation should be put on the ballot. -- When it comes to higher education we should do the same thing that we do in basic education: the dollars should follow the student. Local Control -- Give school boards some breathing room. Curb mandates that tie the hands of local school boards. School Choice -- We need to develop a system of portable education funding; something a student can take with him or her to the school that best fits their needs. ACCOMPLISHMENTS N/A - Newly-elected Governor http://www.governor.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=18&objID=1049038&mode=2 South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Governance -- Allow the voters to decide if future governors will appoint other cabinet heads like the Superintendent of Education. It is crucial that the Superintendent and Governor partner in priorities, spending, graduation rates, and the workforce we produce. Education is almost 40 percent of our budget – how can we justify having those dollars flow through a completely isolated part of government? Finance -- Start with the funding formula. We need to educate our children not based on where they happen to be born and raised, but on the fact that they deserve a good, quality education, and they are our future workforce. Privatization -- Privatize our school bus system. We are one of the last states in the nation to do so, and our government just doesn't need to be in the school bus maintenance business. Making this change would deliver our state a check for our old buses. It would deliver our children a new fleet of buses. It would keep our school bus drivers employed while transferring our mechanics to the private sector. And it would put the focus of our Education Department where it needs to be: teaching our kids. ACCOMPLISHMENTS N/A. Newly-elected Governor http://www.governor.sc.gov/news/Documents/state-of-the-state.pdf Utah Utah Governor Gary Herbert 2011 State of the State Address PROPOSALS School Finance -- Funding our children's education must be the number one budget priority. Reading/All-Day Kindergarten/Workforce Development/STEM -- Address Education Excellence Commission Action Plan this session, including: ----> Ensure reading proficiency by the third grade ----> Match classroom instruction to real-world jobs-especially in the areas of science, engineering and math. ----> Focus on all-day kindergarten. Accomplishments -- Not prominently included. http://www.utah.gov/governor/news_media/article.html?article=4169 Wyoming Governor Matt Mead's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Charter Schools -- Interested in moving forward on charter schools. Charter schools could provide some new ideas to be used at traditional schools. For this model to work, the charter schools cannot cherry pick the best students. Finance -- Reduce school capital construction by $61.5 million. -- Expect districts to use block grants – state money – in ways that put students in the best position to succeed. Teaching Quality -- To determine the quality of teaching requires an objective standard. Failing the use of an objective standard we presume the infallibility of administrators. We need a testing program that is administered in a way that will measure students and teachers alike in a manner that clearly identifies both success and problems. ACCOMPLISHMENTS N/A: Newly-Elected Governor Finance--Adequacy/Core Cost 1 Finance--District 3 Finance--Facilities 3 Finance--Federal 3 Finance--Funding Formulas 3 Finance--Resource Efficiency 1 Finance--State Budgets/Expenditures 13 Finance--Taxes/Revenues 2 Governance 7 Governance--School Boards 2 Governance--State Boards/Chiefs/Agencies 2 Health 1 High School 7 High School--Advanced Placement 3 High School--College Readiness 6 High School--Dropout Rates/Graduation Rates 2 High School--Dual/Concurrent Enrollment 1 High School--Graduation Requirements 2 Leadership--District Superintendent 2 Leadership--District Superintendent--Compensation and Diversified Pay 1 Leadership--Principal/School Leadership 4 Online Learning--Virtual Schools/Courses 2 P-16 or P-20 5 P-3 5 P-3 Grades 1-3 4 P-3 Kindergarten 1 P-3 Kindergarten--Full-Day Kindergarten 3 P-3 Preschool 2 Parent/Family 1 Postsecondary 8 Postsecondary Accountability 1 Postsecondary Affordability--Financial Aid 6 Postsecondary Affordability--Textbooks 1 Postsecondary Affordability--Tuition/Fees 5 Postsecondary Affordability--Tuition/Fees--Prepd/College Savings Plans 1 Postsecondary Faculty--Compensation 1 Postsecondary Finance 13 Postsecondary Finance--Efficiency/Performance-Based Funding 1 Postsecondary Institutions 2 Postsecondary Institutions--Community/Technical Colleges 3 Postsecondary Participation--Access 6 Postsecondary Participation--Affirmative Action 1 Postsecondary Students 1 Postsecondary Success--Completion 7 Postsecondary Success--Developmental/Remediation 1 Postsecondary Success--Transfer/Articulation 1 Privatization 1 Promotion/Retention 3 Reading/Literacy 2 Remediation (K-12) 2 Rural 2 Scheduling/School Calendar 1 Scheduling/School Calendar--Extended Day Programs 1 School Safety 2 School/District Structure/Operations--District Consolidation/Deconsolidation 2 School/District Structure/Operations--Facilities 1 School/District Structure/Operations--Shared Services 2 Special Education 2 Special Populations--Military 1 Standards 2 Standards--Common Core State Standards 1 State Policymaking 5 STEM 6 Student Achievement 8 Teaching Quality 6 Teaching Quality--Compensation and Diversified Pay 5 Teaching Quality--Compensation and Diversified Pay--Pay-for-Performance 3 Teaching Quality--Compensation and Diversified Pay--Retirement/Benefits 5 Teaching Quality--Evaluation and Effectiveness 8 Teaching Quality--Paraprofessionals 1 Teaching Quality--Recruitment and Retention 1 Teaching Quality--Tenure or Continuing Contract 5 Technology 4 Technology--Computer Skills 5 Technology--Equitable Access 1 Technology--Teacher/Faculty Training 1 Textbooks and Open Source 1 Youth Engagement 1 329