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 Teaching Quality 6 Teaching Quality--Compensation and Diversified Pay 5 Delaware Governor Jack Markell's State of the State Address PROPOSALS AP Courses, Assessment Systems, Federal Aid, Incentive Pay for Teachers, Teacher Evaluation -- Make the state's Race to the Top competition plan a reality by: (1) Implementing a better assessment system, measuring student growth during the year and providing real-time feedback so teacher can adjust and improve student learning on-the-spot; (2) Measuring student growth in every subject area so we can link teacher evaluations with how much their students learning in their classroom, identify what works, and raise the quality of instruction across the state; (3) Give teachers more time to collaborate with their colleagues and work with data coaches in interpreting student data and developing strategies to address identified needs; (4) Meet parents' requests for more Advanced Placement courses; and (5) Provide incentive pay to attract highly effective teachers to high-needs schools. Common Core Standards -- Assess more accurately how proficient our students are at meeting the new common core standards. Early Learning -- Increase the focus on early learning within state government, improving assessment and the use of data, and better coordinating and integrating funding. Foreign Languages, Online Courses -- Offer high-quality online Chinese language courses developed with federal grant funding. STEM -- Fund a new STEM Teacher Residency Program to attract individuals with experience in the STEM areas to the teaching profession. -- Bring to the classrooms a former senior scientist with Astra-Zeneca and a Master's-level physicist with prior experience at NASA. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Common Core Standards -- Adopted new, clearer and higher "common core standards." Federal Aid -- Won the national Race to the Top competition. Foreign Languages -- Required completion of a world language in order to graduate. -- Offered Chinese language courses to students at virtually no cost to the state. School Improvement -- Launched the Partnership Zone effort to provide more focus on our lowest-achieving schools. Selected schools are required to implement significant and difficult changes and all four Partnership Zones have done so. School Safety -- Asked the Safety and Homeland Security Secretary to oversee creation of model comprehensive school safety plans for the 26 public schools with a State Police Resource Officer. STEM -- Created a STEM Council to ensure that schools have the high quality programs and partnerships necessary so that students gain the critical skills and knowledge needed for high-quality jobs. http://governor.delaware.gov/remarks/2011stateofthestate/2011stateofstate.shtml 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/ 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 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 West Virginia Governor Earl Tomblins's 2011 State of the State Address PROPOSALS Global Competitiveness/Increased Completion/Teacher Recruitment/Career Education -- Submit legislation to accomplish these goals: - Refocus emphasis on creating an environment where children learn the skills necessary to be productive citizens so they can compete in our global economy. - Ensure efficient and appropriate use of resources. - Decrease the dropout rate in high school and in college. - Eliminate the high level of teacher vacancies in certain areas of the state. - Focus on developing the vocational skills from the middle school level up. - Design classrooms that will foster the development of 21st century skills. School Staff Compensation -- Propose a one-time, $800 across-the-board enhancement for our teachers. -- Propose a similar one-time salary enhancement for school service personnel. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Teacher Compensation -- Supported efforts in 2005 to fill in all of the steps in the teacher salary scale in statute. When filled in, it ensured that every teacher in West Virginia got an approximate 1.5 percent pay raise every single year. -- Presenting a General Revenue Fund budget that furloughs no teachers. Postsecondary -- Worked hard to create a consistent, comprehensive system of education. Now, community and technical colleges have the independence to focus on teaching the skills needed for the workforce. http://www.governor.wv.gov/Documents/State%20of%20State%20%202011.pdf 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