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 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 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/ Idaho Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Business Involvement -- Advance the recommendations of the Education Alliance of Idaho (i.e., a coalition of key stakeholders of the Idaho education system formed as a result of a charge from Governor Otter to the Idaho Business Coalition for Educational Excellence to develop strategic recommendations for setting Idaho on a trajectory to become a global leader in education). Finance -- Call for a little more state support for public schools and significant, targeted investments. -- Shift priorities from how much we are spending to how much children are learning. High School, Mathematics, Science -- Invest in a third year of math and science in high school. High School, Postsecondary Entrance -- Pay for all juniors to take college entrance exams. Postsecondary, Financial Aid -- Look forward to the time when we can resume building on the Opportunity Scholarship Fund to ensure money is never a barrier to qualified students going on after high school. Teacher Pay-For-Performance -- Establish a pay system for teachers that emphasizes performance, not tenure. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Business Involvement, Postsecondary -- Acknowledge the expaning role of the business community, the Idaho National Laboratory and the Center for Advanced Energy Studies in their collaboration with colleges and universities on research and technology transfer issues. Finance, Student Achievement -- Acknowledge the fact that Idaho students continue to out-perform national averages on math and reading and generally score higher on achievement tests, despite the fact that the state spends far less per student than the national average. Postsecondary, Community Colleges -- Acknowledge that efforts to provide more affordable higher education options are paying off, as The College of Western Idaho is one of the fastest-growing community colleges in the nation. Technology -- Congratulate the Idaho Education Network's (i.e., an entity formed to ensure high-speed broadband access for all students) expansion into every corner of the state where schools are using the Network to offer master's degree programs, POST Academy training, firefighter and paramedic training, and professional development courses for teachers. -- Congratulate the high school students who have earned 1,300 college credits by using the Idaho Education Network. http://gov.idaho.gov/mediacenter/speeches/sp_2011/State%20of%20the%20State%202011.pdf Iowa Governor Branstad's Budget Address PROPOSALS Pre-K -3 -- Ensure that every Iowa child has access to quality preschool. Make a $43 million annual investment in providing preschool assistance to those families in greatest need. Research shows preschool investments have the most long-lasting impact on children who come from homes with financial need. As such, our program will be targeted to those families and will give parents flexibility to choose the preschool environment that best meets the needs of their children. But we can not do it alone. All across this state parents, private donors and caring organizations have, for years, partnered with preschool providers to ensure access. I am happy to have the state of Iowa join them as a partner, not as a sole provider. Finance -- Provide nearly $160 million in direct property tax relief to Iowans. This fully funds the state's share of the school funding commitments, erasing the need for local school districts to make up the difference by raising property taxes. -- While school systems across the country are reeling with massive budget cuts, this budget for the next two years holds school spending authority at the current level. No increase, no decrease but with an assurance that we can deliver on this promise and allow our creative school leaders more flexibility and an opportunity to make things work. Quality Schools, Student Achievement --Convene an education summit this summer to bring together the nation's most dynamic education reform leaders. These national leaders will work with our new education policy team and strive to reach a consensus on what changes are needed to give our children the nation's highest quality schools. Should we reach that critical consensus, and I have no reason to believe that we won't, I will convene a special session of the Iowa legislature in the fall of this year to approve our bold reform agenda and to make good on our new covenant promise to provide our children with a globally competitive education. ACCOMPLISHMENTS N/A - Newly-elected Governor. https://governor.iowa.gov/2011/01/gov-branstads-budget-address/ Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Achievement Gap -- Close the achievement gap. At-Risk -- Use the tools in the Achievement Gap Act (passed last year) to support the imagination and creativity of great teachers, principals, parent groups, and business partners, to reach poor children, children with special needs and children who speak English as a second language. Early Learning - Postsecondary Investment -- Find ways to invest in public schools, from early education to public universities. Youth Violence -- Engage the full spectrum of people who work with young people, including educators, to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy for preventing youth violence. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Achievement Gap -- Signed the Achievement Gap Act (please see above). Community Service -- Gathered, through Project 351, 8th graders from every city and town in the state for a day of service. Student Achievement -- Acknowledge that the state leads the Nation in student achievement. Race to the Top -- Won the national Race to the Top competition. http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=gov3terminal&L=3&L0=Home&L1=Media+Center&L2=Speeches&sid=Agov3&b=terminalcontent&f=Second+Inaugural+Address&csid=Agov3 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 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 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 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