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 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 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 Mexico Governor Susana Martinez's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Nothing we do is more indispensable to our future well-being or will receive more attention from my administration than guaranteeing our children a quality education. Student Achievement, Accountability, Finance -- Place a command-focus on student performance and progress, not just on how much money we're spending. -- We must end the culture of low expectations. "Kids First, New Mexico Wins" plan is comprised of four key initiatives: -- First, get money out of the bureaucracy and into the classroom. Today, only 61 cents of every education dollar makes it to the classroom. -- Second, adopt an easy-to-understand, easy-to-implement system of grading. Schools will be assigned letter grades A, B, C, D or F. And these grades will be posted to the Web. That's real accountability that will yield real results. Greater accountability will ensure we identify struggling students in all grades.We will focus attention on the lowest-performing 25 percent of students. Get them help immediately. Target failing schools with immediate intervention. Currently, it takes approximately five years to identify and intervene in a failing school. -- Third, end social promotion, the practice of passing children from one grade to the next before they have mastered the basics. The New Mexico "Ready for Success" initiative will get struggling students the help they need before we pass them on to the next grade. Teaching Quality -- Reward New Mexico's best teachers. The most important people in the lives of our students are parents and teachers. The quality of our teachers is the key to improving our quality of education. A system that evaluates and rewards excellence will attract the best and brightest to New Mexico classrooms. ACCOMPLISHMENTS N/A - Newly-Elected Governor http://www.governor.state.nm.us/uploads/FileLinks/20e5f2e740f34a2297a940e2bacdfcce/011811_2.pdf Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Electronic Textbooks -- Move toward electronic textbooks where appropriate. Finance -- Restructure state spending and educational programs in order to get more money into the classroom. That will require cutting down on overhead and educational bureaucracy by sharing administrative resources. Health -- Support the Certified Healthy Schools program and other state healthy living initiatives. Pension Reform -- Reform the pension system. Public-private Partnerships -- Work with the state superintendent to find available funds for a new public-private partnership where private money matches state dollars to fund innovative learning programs that are shown to increase student performance and close the achievement gap. Social Promotion -- Work with state superintendent to eliminate social promotion. Student Remediation -- Reduce remediation rates and develop better and more accurate systems to track student progress to know what is working and what is not. Teacher Dismissal -- Eliminate "trial de novo" a system that makes it nearly impossible to dismiss even the most underperforming teachers. http://www.ok.gov/triton/modules/newsroom/newsroom_article.php?id=223&article_id=541 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