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 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 Alabama Governor Robert Bentley's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Teacher Compensation/Benefits -- Ask teachers to contribute more to their individual retirement and to health care insurance programs. -- Repeal the DROP Program which has overly taxed our retirement system. State Funding -- Don't reduce state-funded teacher units. -- Don't cut classroom sizes. -- Don't cut the length of the school year or contract days for teachers or support personnel. -- Devote $5 million dollars in the education budget specifically for classroom teaching supplies. -- Protect: Alabama Reading Initiative; Alabama Math, Science and Technology Initiative; and ACCESS Distance Learning. Advanced Placement -- Expand our programs that prepare students for college by increasing the number of AP teachers in our high schools. Economic/Workforce Development -- Strengthen our work force training programs in our two-year college system. Local Decisionmaking -- Give flexibility to local school boards to prioritize and make decisions that affect the schools in their districts. -- Remove restrictive language from legislation that dictates decisions made by these schools board and give them additional funding and flexibility so they can put the money to highest and best use. Postsecondary Finance -- Increase state funding for higher education and give our presidents more flexibility in their budgets. Special Education -- Provide significant increases in state funding for disabled and special needs children and adults. ACCOMPLISHMENTS -- N/A: Newly Elected Governor http://www.governor.alabama.gov/downloads/SOTS-2011.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 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 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 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 Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell's 2011 State of the Commonwealth Address PROPOSALS Postsecondary Access and Affordability, STEM, Economic Development -- Implement major reforms and more accountability in higher education to make college more affordable and accessible for our students -- Create a pathway towards the issuance of 100,000 more degrees in the Commonwealth over the next 15 years, with a focus on science, technology, engineering, math and healthcare, which lead to the good jobs of the future -- Make college more affordable and accessible and create a better educated workforce and more jobs by making a $50 million investment in higher education, much less than needed to fund our base adequacy model, but a start in getting there ("Top Jobs for the 21st Century" Virginia Higher Education Opportunity Act"). The new dollars will be targeted to undergraduate financial aid and funding incentives for efficiency and economic development, technology, increased four-year graduation rates, year round use of facilities and degree attainment. State Retirement System -- Begin to have all state employees begin paying for their share of their retirement plans. Currently Virginia is one of only four states in which the employer picks up the entire cost. The 5% retirement contribution that we will ask all employees to pay be offset by a 3% raise for our state employees, the first in years. Thus, with a net 2% contribution from Virginia employees, and an additional 2% from the state that I included in the amended budget, we will provide $311 million a year, or $4.2 billion over 10 years, in new funding for the system. (According to the recent JLARC report, the Virginia Retirement System currently faces an unfunded liability of $17.6 billion. The system is funded at only 75% of its future liabilities, and that is projected by VRS to decline to 61% by 2014, and only 57% for the teacher retirement system.) Governance -- Reform state government by prioritizing state spending, eliminating or consolidating targeted agencies, boards and commissions, and reforming our state pension system to ensure its long term viability for our employees and their families http://www.governor.virginia.gov/News/viewRelease.cfm?id=555 ACCOMPLISHMENTS Washington Governor Christine Gregoire's State of the State Address PROPOSALS K-12/Governance/High School Senior Year -- Create one agency - the Department of Education - which will focus solely on student education with one plan for a seamless system from pre-school to Ph.D. -- Make the 12th grade relevant and exciting. Give our students a leg up in the competitive world of tomorrow by ensuring they leave their senior year on their way to certification, apprenticeship or college credits. Postsecondary Attainment/Postsecondary Affordability/Postsecondary Accountability -- Encourage every student to "complete to compete"— complete an AA, bachelor's or advanced degree so he or she can compete for the jobs of tomorrow. -- Establish tuition flexibility at our colleges and universities to keep the doors of higher education open to all and to maintain high-quality education in good and bad times. -- Adopt the recommendations of the Higher Education Funding Task Force, which increases the number of graduates, requires greater accountability from our colleges and universities, ensure stable funding, and establish a $1 billion Washington Pledge Scholarship Program. ACCOMPLISHMENTS -- Not prominently included, focused on proposals. http://www.governor.wa.gov/speeches/speech-view.asp?SpeechSeq=217 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