2012 State of the State Addresses Education-Related Proposals by Issue

The following summary includes education-related proposals from the 2012 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 7 Accountability--Reporting Results 6 Accountability--Sanctions/Interventions 3 Accountability--School Improvement 4 Assessment 4 Assessment--College Entrance Exams 3 Assessment--Formative/Interim 1 At-Risk (incl. Dropout Prevention)--Alternative Education 1 Attendance 3 Career/Technical Education 7 Career/Technical Education--Career Academies/Apprenticeship 1 Choice of Schools 4 Choice of Schools--Charter Schools 11 Choice of Schools--Charter Schools--Research 1 Choice of Schools--Vouchers 5 Civic Education--Professional Development 1 Class Size 1 Curriculum 1 Curriculum--Foreign Language/Sign Language 1 Demographics--Condition of Children/Adults 1 Economic/Workforce Development 16 Alabama Governor Robert Bentley's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Choice, Charter Schools --Create a limited number of charter schools. District Flexibility --Propose the School Flexibility Act of 2012, to allow more decision-making at the local level. Allow local school systems to develop their own innovative strategies, free from state or federal bureaucracy. Finance --Budget proposal includes protecting +Alabama Reading Initiative +ACCESS Distance Learning +Alabama Math Science and Technology Initiative +Advanced Placement +Pre K programs. Teaching Quality, Leadership --Ensure that every child's classroom and school is led by a highly effective, professional educator free to use their talents to create a stimulating and innovative learning environment in their own classroom. --Form a "Teacher Cabinet", made up of teachers, administrators, school board members and parents to provide the administration with unfiltered feedback on the needs of public schools. Teacher Expenditures on Classroom Supplies --Propose a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for every teacher who spends their money on their classroom. Career/Technical Education, Workforce Development --Propose new investment in Alabama's workforce development and career tech programs. ACHIEVEMENTS http://blog.al.com/bn/2012/02/alabama_gov_robert_bentleys_st.html District of Columbia Mayor Vincent C. Gray's State of the District Address PROPOSALS High School - Graduation Rates -- Raise graduation rates. P-3 - Child Care -- Expand access to universal, high-quality infant and toddler care. P-3 Systems - Ensuring Quality -- Test, learn and teach important best practices about early childhood development. Student Supports - Integrated Services -- Offer a new resource in our Early Success plan - $12 million, state-of-the-art early childhood Educare Center in the Kenilworth-Parkside Promise neighborhood, which will provide services to 171 children and their families. Student Achievement -- Help more students move beyond mere proficiency to advanced levels of achievement. Workforce Development - Workforce Demand -- Fundamentally redesign how we approach job training adapted to the needs of the 21st century. It must be data-driven and must equip people with the hard and soft skills necessary to compete for the jobs of tomorrow. Charter Schools -- Be a model of how the best public schools can operate in a healthy, virtuous competition with the best public charter schools to spur creativity, learning and achievement that prepares young people to compete in the new economy. School Structure - Facilities -- Continue to implement our comprehensive school-modernization plan, rebuilding or renovating our schools. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Special Education -- Expanded the quality of special education programming, enabling us to serve students closer to home and reduce the number of students attending non-public schools by 20 percent in just the past 11 months. Student Achievement -- Seen gains in student performance as measured both by our DC-CAS test and by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. P-3 - Preschool -- Became the first city in America to offer universal pre-K, and we are now ranked #1 in the nation in pre-kindergarten enrollment. School Structure - Facilities -- Opened a new H.D. Woodson High School; renovated Langley School; modernized and expanded facilities at Woodrow Wilson High School, Anacostia High School and Janney Elementary; restored Takoma Education Campus, where we invested $25 million unexpectedly in the aftermath fire in December of 2010; began the modernization of Cardozo High School; and broke ground on a new Dunbar High School. A new Ballou Senior High School and many others will soon follow. Youth Engagement/Professional Development -- Engaged over 14,000 youth in the reformed Summer Youth Employment Program last year, teaching them the culture and value of an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. http://mayor.dc.gov/DC/Mayor/About+the+Mayor/News+Room/Text+of+the+State+of+the+District+Address Georgia Governor Nathan Deal's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Finance -- Appropriate an additional $146.6 million to fully fund enrollment growth in K-12 schools. -- Put an additional $3.7 million toward funding for school nurses, and move school nurses and the school nutrition program and transportation funding into the Quality Basic Education funding formula. These funds will be allocated using the same formula local districts are accustomed to, but they will have complete flexibility in how to spend them.  -- Appropriate an additional $55.8 million to fund salary increases for teachers based on training and experience.  P-3 and Reading -- Provide funding for increasing the Pre-K school year for 84,000 students by 10 days, bringing it to 170 days.  -- Make a concerted effort to increase the percentage of children reading at grade level by the completion of 3rd Grade. The best evidence tells us that children not meeting this standard often fail to catch up and are more likely to drop out of school, go to prison and have higher unemployment rates later in life than their reading-proficient peers.  Students must "learn to read" in order to be able to "read to learn" and when we fail to invest in our youngest students, we are forced to spend money on remediation for the remainder of their academic careers.  -- Budget $1.6 million for a reading mentors program. This program will assist schools and teachers as they work to help more young Georgians achieve this strategic benchmark – reading at grade level by the completion of 3rd grade. Charter Schools and Innovation -- Put in place strategies that provide students with opportunities to practice and apply what they are learning in a high-quality, real-world environment. This is one reason we allotted nearly $20 million of our Race to the Top money for the creation of an Innovation Fund.  This initiative asks schools to partner with businesses, non-profits and postsecondary institutions and places a primary focus on developing applied learning opportunities.  -- To spur innovation, recommend $8.7 million in supplemental grants in both the Amended budget and next year's budget for state chartered special schools affected by the Georgia Supreme Court ruling on charter schools.  -- Develop a plan to ensure that charter schools can thrive in Georgia.  Postsecondary and Job Readiness -- Clarify the mission of our schools. Students graduating from our high schools … those young men and women who have done everything asked of them by our K-12 system … should be fully ready for postsecondary study or a job! Ensure that there is a more seamless transition from High School to further study … and from postsecondary study to the workforce.  Financial Aid -- For every student who earned HOPE this year, maintain the same HOPE Scholarship award amount next year. -- Appropriate $20 million for the needs-based one percent student loan program which eases the burden of affording a college education Postsecondary and Economic/Workforce Development -- Ensure that postsecondary institutions maintain an intense focus on employability and creating job opportunities. In today's competitive global environment where technology is constantly reshaping the economy, that means abandoning the "ivory tower" model and adapting to meet the needs of business.     -- Add $111.3 million in funding to address anticipated enrollment growth in both the technical college and university systems. -- Work together to ensure that Georgia has the craft professionals to meet present and forecast demand. Boost the state's pipeline by launching Go Build, a public-private initiative that will round out the state's workforce development program by educating young people and the public at large about the skilled trades. Already, the business community is unable to fill many positions calling for highly-skilled industrial and commercial construction professionals, jobs that on average pay 27% more than the average Georgian currently brings home.  -- Be a destination for cancer research and a resource for every family battling this disease. Georgians deserve a world-class, public medical university, and it will be a priority of this administration to have a medical college among the top 50 nationally. Within this push, the Georgia Health Sciences University will seek to become the state's second National Cancer Institute designated Cancer Center, alongside the Winship Cancer Center at Emory. Invest $5 million to support this goal of a second Georgia-based Cancer Center. In order to address the need for additional health professionals in Georgia, we have been investing in the expansion of undergraduate medical education for several years.  We must now take the next step in this process by funding 400 new residency slots in hospitals across the state.  ACCOMPLISHMENTS Finance -- Restored the Rainy Day Fund.  The balance today is $328 million, an increase of 183%. -- Passed structurally balanced budgets that fund the essential services without raising taxes. Financial Aid -- Appropriated $20 million for the needs-based one percent student loan program which eases the burden of affording a college education. Half of the newly-appropriated $20 million funds went to students who had no assistance from their families. http://gov.georgia.gov/00/press/detail/0,2668,165937316_165937374_180385525,00.html Kansas Governor Sam Brownback's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Finance -- Add $45 million dollars in state funding for poorest school districts. -- Give local school boards more flexibility to spend money. -- Reform the school finance formula now and sunset that formula after four years. (A lawsuit is scheduled for trial this summer.) ACCOMPLISHMENTS Economic Development -- Enacted Rural Opportunity Zone program, which provides tax credit and student loan repayment incentives for rural Kansans. http://www.governor.ks.gov/docs/2012-legislative-agenda/2012-state-of-the-state-01-11-12-final.pdf Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear's State of the State Address PROPOSALS P-3 --Continue restructuring preschool and day-care programs to ensure every child is mentally and physically prepared for kindergarten. Formalize the Early Childhood Advisory Council (created via executive order) through legislation. --Find funding to increase access to high-quality early education and care programs. Career/Technical Education and Governance --Propose legislation to move oversight of Career Technical Education to the state department of education (currently one program is operated by local school districts, and the other by the state department of workforce investment). This will enable the state to elevate the importance of this segment of the educational system, consolidate administrative staffs and improve the consistency of the programs by uniting them under one vision and leadership. High School Attendance --Urge passage, for the third year in a row, of legislation to phase in an increase in the mandatory school age from 16 to 18. ACCOMPLISHMENTS P-3 --Created a standard definition of school readiness, one that gives both public and private programs a consistent, singular mission. Created the Early Childhood Advisory Council to implement this readiness definition. Health --Saw a drop in the last 10 years in the number of middle-schoolers who smoke from 22 percent to less than 9 percent. --Improving dental care for tens of thousands of children by training more dentists in pediatric techniques and taking treatment to schools. Economic/Workforce Development --Next month, Kentucky will become only the 3rd state to begin identifying and certifying "work-ready communities." Career/Technical Education, Dual/Concurrent Enrollment --Increasing the quality of Career and Technical Education courses to integrate them more fully into the secondary education system, and give them a more rigorous academic foundation. --Signed a dual credit agreement to allow students in high school to earn college credit for approved courses, including in career and technical education. This will speed a student's path to a certificate or degree, reduce his or her costs and keep them in school by tying class work directly to their future careers. http://governor.ky.gov/Speeches/20120104SOTC.pdf Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Community Colleges, Economic/Workforce Development --Community colleges are uniquely positioned to help close the state's skills gap and get people back to work. Community colleges must become a fully integrated part of the state's workforce development plan.  They must be aligned with: + Employers, voc-tech schools and Workforce Investment Boards in the regions where they operate + Each other in core course offerings + The Commonwealth's job growth strategy. --Channel more state workforce training dollars through the community colleges. Community College Funding, Governance --Create a unified community college system to: + Help students find courses specifically tailored to meet local workforce needs alongside a core curriculum that emphasizes STEM subjects and with credits that are easily transferable to another community college or a four-year college. + Create "learn and earn" programs across the entire state enabling students to get practical workplace experience while completing course work.   + Offer the students the opportunity to earn a certificate of workplace readiness, opening doors in their chosen field anywhere in the state. And as they near course completion, offer one-stop career centers right on campus to help them move into, or back into, the workplace. --Streamline the funding and governance of community colleges, and increase overall funding by $10 million. --Challenge to the business community: Match that new funding with an additional $10 million. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Public Employee Pensions --Made meaningful reforms in the pension system. Student Safety --Legislature approved and funded the "Safe and Successful Youth Initiative."  Student Achievement --Massachusetts students lead the nation in overall achievement and the world in math and science. http://www.mass.gov/governor/pressoffice/speeches/23012012state-of-the-commonwealth-address.html Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Economic Development --Enact "Jobs Now" tax credit to encourage businesses to hire unemployed Minnesotans, Veterans, and recent college graduates. --Expand the Minnesota GI Bill to provide education benefits to all eras of veterans. Finance --Repair buildings and upgrade classroom equipment at state colleges and universities via passage of a bonding bill. State Policymaking --Develop education initiatives in cooperation with teachers, rather than in conflict with them. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Federal --Had the state's No Child Left Behind Waiver application approved. Finance --Increased the per-pupil aid formula by $50 per student in each year of the biennium. --Successfully applied for Race to the Top dollars. P-3 and Early Literacy --Expanded Early Childhood Education. --Enacted "Read by Third Grade." Teaching Quality --Enacted an Alternative Licensure path for teachers. --Established evaluation requirements for both teachers and principals. Full text: http://mn.gov/governor/images/2012_State_of_the_State.pdf Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant's State of the State Address PROPOSALS P-3 --Monitor the learning opportunities in licensed child care centers. --Combine the functions of the department of health and department of human services for inspection and monitoring of licensed child care centers, in order to streamline services and improve the state's ability to identify the quality of early childhood learning programs. --Gather additional information from ongoing programs such as Building Blocks, Excel by 5, Allies for Quality Childcare Project, and the Quality Rating System, to provide the metrics needed to determine best practices for early childhood learning. Charter Schools --Pass a charter school act. K-12 Finance --Make an executive budget recommendation that will level fund MAEP (Mississippi Adequate Education Program, state funding formula). --Seek to replace the funding for high growth areas. --Set aside 2% of state revenue to replenlish state's rainy day fund. Teen Pregnancy --Begin the public discussion of how to reduce teen pregnancy in Mississippi. --Governor has asked the director of the department of human services and the state health officer to provide, within 30 days, an aggressive plan to address the state's teen pregnancy rate and suggestions on how to curb it. Reading, Dylslexia --Put reading at the forefront of the state's educational plan. --Encourage teachers and parents who believe a child is dyslexic to seek assistance from the Mississippi Dyslexia Program at the department of education. Work to improve state response to this challenge to success. School/District Structure, Operations --Ask the legislature to pass the Education Administration Consolidation Bill, which mandates that districts' non-educational duties (i.e., centralized human resources, centralized purchasing, centralized transportation and other duties) be consolidated to one central county office by 2014. Teaching Quality, National Board Teacher Certification, Teach for America, Mississippi Teachers Corps --Make sure teachers graduate from college prepared to teach. Dr. Hank Bounds (state superintendent) and Dr. Tom Burnham (commissioner of higher education) are working to increase minimum entrance standards for teacher training programs at state universities. --Fully fund the national board certified teacher program. --Once data are available from a pilot program to quantify the characteristics of a quality teacher, recommend a teacher "Pay for Performance" program based on student attainments and not on subjective evaluations. --Make executive budget recommendation allocating $12 million toward Teach for America and the Mississippi Teachers Corps. Local districts will add a portion to this appropriation to keep participating teachers in the classroom. Dual Enrollment, Economic/Workforce Development --Ask the state department of education, the community colleges and the Mississippi Department of Employment Security to come together to implement a dual enrollment process to allow students on the verge of dropping out of school to enroll in a community college workforce training program. Economic/Workforce Development--Research --Create the Biomass Center for Excellence, a partnership of the public, private and education sectors to coordinate and promote biomass research, development and manufacturing. ACCOMPLISHMENTS n/a http://www.governorbryant.com/governor-phil-bryant-gives-his-first-state-of-the-state-address/ (scroll down to beginning of address) Missouri Governor Jay Nixon's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Charter Schools - Evaluations -- Pass a comprehensive charter school accountability bill that holds all charter schools - and their sponsors - to high standards of academic achievement and financial integrity. Finance -- Increase funding for K-12 classrooms. Teaching Quality - Recruitment at High-Risk Schools, Evaluation and Effectiveness -- Recruit our best college students to become teachers in those urban and rural public schools that have the greatest needs and hold them accountable for what kids are learning. Special Education - Autism -- Pass legislation to increase access to care by expanding the number of licensed professionals working with children with autism. Postsecondary - Financial Aid -- Provide stable funding for our state college scholarships, including Bright Flight, Access Missouri, and A+. -- Increase number of A+ scholarships granted to students from 12,500 this year to 14,000 next year. High School - Dual Enrollment; Career/Technical Education - Apprenticeships; Postsecondary - Financial Aid -- Expand Innovation Campuses which allow students to enroll in college courses while still in high school, and then participate in high-impact apprenticeships throughout the college curriculum. Corporate partners will underwrite tuition scholarships, and faculty and employers will partner to guide each student. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Student Achievement -- Students have shown academic improvement for four years in a row. Distance Learning -- Expanded the ability of a local school in Otterville to provide web-based classes using streaming video. Finance -- Maintained level funding for K-12 classrooms during difficult economic times. Teaching Quality - Certification, Alternative Preparation -- Put teaching certifications on-line. Special Education - Autism -- Passed legislation to ensure that children with autism get the therapy they need. Community/Technical Colleges, Economic/Workforce Demand -- Established new higher-education programs like Caring for Missourians, Training for Tomorrow, MoHealthWINS and our Nurse Training Initiative through community colleges in order to prepare thousands more Missourians for rewarding careers. -- Increased investment in our Customized Training Program by 50 percent. The investment allowed employers to provide on-the-job training to nearly 37,000 workers who are currently working at more than 300 Missouri businesses. Postsecondary - Enrollment -- Increased enrollment at public colleges - over the past three years, we've added 31,000 students. That's set a new record each fall. High School -- Added 110 "A+" schools (The A+ Schools Program mobilizes an intensive partnership among high schools, community colleges, students, teachers, parents, labor, businesses, and communities to give these students the motivation, skills, and knowledge to graduate from high school. The schools create an innovative and well-designed path from high school to high skill, high wage jobs). -- Increased the number of students enrolled in A+ schools by 30%. Postsecondary - Tuition Affordability -- Froze tuition in 2009 and 2010 at all public colleges and universities. http://governor.mo.gov/newsroom/2012/Gov_Nixon_delivers_2012_State_of_the_State_address Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman's State of the State Address PROPOSALS -- N/A - The State of the State did not include proposals that related to education. ACCOMPLISHMENTS (economic) -- Bloomberg Business Week identified Arlington, Nebraska as the second best place in America to raise kids because it's a Midwestern farming community with top notch schools. -- Invested in the University of Nebraska's Innovation Campus. -- Passed the Talent and Innovation Initiative to continue improving the state's small business and entrepreneurial environmnet. -- Approximately 270 businesses committed to investing more than $ 5.9 billion in the economy and to create more than 19,500 jobs in Nebraska. -- Passed the largest tax relief package in Nebraska's history and built up cash reserve. http://www.governor.nebraska.gov/news/2012/01/pdf/2012-State-of-the-State-FINAL-READING.pdf New Hampshire Governor John Lynch's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Finance - Funding Formula -- Pass a bipartisan constitutional amendment that would eliminate the requirement that the state spend the same base amount for every student in every town and allow us to target state education aid. School Structure - Facilities -- Put in place a reformed building aid program that will establish a building aid budget, prioritize projects, and increase the match available to school districts with the greatest needs. Postsecondary - Finance -- Make it a priority to restore funding for higher education. ACCOMPLISHMENTS P-3 - Kindergarten -- Made kindergarten available to every student in every community in New Hampshire. At-Risk - Alternative Education -- Invested in alternative education programs Attendance - Compulsory --Increased the compulsory attendance age from 16 to 18. Economic/Workforce Development -- Launched New Hampshire Working. This program has already helped avert the layoffs of more than 1,200 workers. It has helped companies hire hundreds of people by allowing up to six weeks of on-the-job training for people collecting unemployment. And this fall, we launched its final component, which is helping unemployed workers assess and upgrade their job skills. Finance -- Increased funding for our public schools Community Colleges -- Partnering with a billion-dollar company to create an advanced composites training program at the Great Bay Community College in order to ensure Albany, NH has the workforce it needs. Postsecondary - Facilities -- Invested in modernizing the facilities at our colleges and universities http://www.governor.nh.gov/media/speeches/documents/013112state.htm New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Teacher and School Effectiveness -- Develop a meaningful teacher evaluation system. -- Improve management efficiency by making schools accountable for the results they achieve and the dollars they spend. -- Appoint a bipartisan education commission to work with the Legislature to recommend reforms in these key areas. -- Consider me (Governor Cuomo) a lobbyist for students. Economic Development -- Continue work to build SUNY institutions into leading centers of excellence, innovation, and job creation by committing $10m from the executive branch and $10m from SUNY for awards for which 60 campuses will compete. Finance -- Reform the pension system and create a Tier VI retirement plan. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Economic Development -- Enacted NYSUNY 2020 Challenge Grant Program (tied academic excellence to economic development) http://www.governor.ny.gov/stateofthestate2012 Ohio Governor John Kasich's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Career/Technical Education --Bring vocational education back strong in K-12 education. Charter Schools --Ask the legislature to exercise proper oversight of charter schools. Urban --Change urban education in Ohio. SStudy successful schools in urban areas. Economic/Workforce Development--Research --Use university research to commercialize, and create jobs and spinoff companies. Workforce Development, Community Colleges --Ask companies to forecast workforce needs so the state can point students to where the jobs are. --Match community colleges with business community needs and forecasting. --Develop workforce training reform plan. Postsecondary Completion --Improve completion rates for technical degrees, community college degrees, and university degrees. --Increase graduation rates for all universities. Postsecondary Finance, Facilities --Have universities collaborate on single capital bill. --Increase postsecondary collaboration to reduce duplicative programs across campuses. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Accountability --Allow parents, teachers to take over a school that continues to fail. --Public reporting on how schools are doing statewide. Teacher Evaluation --Took teacher evaluation framework to state board of education. Teachers want to make sure there are multiple ways for them to be measured. Teach for America --Brought Teach for America to Ohio. Vouchers, Charters --Went from 13,000 vouchers to 30,000 families. Next year there will be 60,000 vouchers. --Lifted the charter school cap. Postsecondary, Economic Development --Created a course at several universities, community colleges to train students in risk management to work in Cleveland financial sector. http://governor.ohio.gov/Portals/0/2012%20State%20of%20the%20State%20Address%20Transcript.pdf Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Economic Development -- Focus on education to make sure that Tennessee is a state that attracts companies and keeps its best and brightest graduates in state with good-paying, high-quality jobs. Make sure graduates have strong enough skills to meet companies' needs. Educator Quality -- Make the evaluation process better. The State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) will be spending the year talking to teachers and principals statewide to evaluate the evaluation system, and after gathering and analyzing that information, there may be changes that need to be made. -- Recruit, retain and reward the best and brightest employees through the TEAM Act (Tennessee Excellence, Accountability and Management Act). Federal -- Be one of the first states to receive a waiver from the federal government's No Child Left Behind law. Build an accountability system that measures growth and improvement and gives every school a chance to success by doing better each year. Finance -- Rather than cutting the education budget, continue to fund the Basic Education Program (BEP) cost increases. -- Restore over $100 million out of $160 million of slated cuts that had included programs like the Coordinated School Health Program, extended teacher contracts, etc., to protect vital services Postsecondary Finance, Financial Aid and Costs -- Increase higher education's operating budgets. -- Increase the amount of money available in need-based scholarships. -- Keep tuition increases to a minimum to encourage more access to more students. -- Provide state funding for a number of new buildings and lab facilities on state campuses. Postsecondary Governance -- Strengthen the Tennessee Higher Education Commission's tie to the Governor's Office. THEC functions as a policy arm for higher education issues, and like the policy chief for K-12 education reports to the governor, it makes sense that higher education should have a similar structure. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Charter Schools -- Expanded charter school opportunities. Financial Aid -- Made lottery scholarships available to students for summer school to encourage them to finish faster and to help universities use their campuses year round. Teaching Quality -- Reformed tenure laws. http://forward.tn.gov/stateofthestate/files/2012StateoftheStateAddress.pdf Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Economic Innovation -- Transform Vermont into the innovative education leader, where from early childhood to higher education to continuing education, the state trains employees for the prosperous jobs of the future. Dual Enrollment, Higher Education -- Proposing significant state investments in higher education and dual enrollment. ACCOMPLISHMENTS -- n/a http://governor.vermont.gov/blog-state-of-the-state-address West Virginia Governor PROPOSALS Accountability --Introduce legislation to establish a pilot program to improve struggling local schools. Under this pilot program, local administrators and educators will be granted flexibility to attract qualified teachers into those local schools in an effort to obtain better student results. This legislation will be implemented in coordination with the Reconnecting McDowell Project, a public-private partnership involving over 40 organizations that will focus on everything from jobs and economic development, housing and transportation, technology and services for students and their families. Finance --Find innovative ways to invest in new and improved schools. Public/Private Partnership, Literacy, Rural --Save the Children will match $1 million in state funds with a $500,000 investment in McDowell County. Save the Children will partner with 3 elementary schools and their administrators to focus on literacy. Teacher Evaluation --Introduce legislation incorporating student achievement into every teacher performance evaluation. This bill will codify a pilot program currently in place and expand it to require yearly assessments of teacher performance. Economic/Workforce Development--Research --Continue to bridge the gap between the education system, its research components and the potential for new business development. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Finance--Resource Efficiency --An efficiency audit conducted by private experts has generated ideas that can save approximately $90 million in the state education system every year. These recommendations have the potential to eliminate overlap and allow schools to work smarter and more efficiently. http://www.governor.wv.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/Documents/2012%20State%20of%20State%20Final%20-%20Press%20Copy.pdf Federal 1 Finance 24 Finance--Facilities 1 Finance--Federal 2 Finance--Funding Formulas 4 Finance--Resource Efficiency 2 Finance--State Budgets/Expenditures 2 Governance 3 Governance--Deregulation/Waivers/Home Rule 1 Health--Teen Pregnancy 1 High School 3 High School--Advanced Placement 3 High School--Dropout Rates/Graduation Rates 4 High School--Dual/Concurrent Enrollment 6 High School--Graduation Requirements 1 Instructional Approaches 1 Integrated Services/Full-Service Schools 1 International Baccalaureate 1 Leadership 1 Leadership--Principal/School Leadership--Evaluation and Effectiveness 2 Leadership--Principal/School Leadership--Preparation 1 No Child Left Behind 3 Online Learning--Virtual Schools/Courses 5 P-16 or P-20 1 P-3 2 P-3 Child Care 1 P-3 Early Intervention (0-3) 2 P-3 Ensuring Quality 3 P-3 Evaluation/Economic Benefits 1 P-3 Finance 2 P-3 Governance 3 P-3 Grades 1-3 3 P-3 Health and Mental Health 1 P-3 Kindergarten 3 P-3 Kindergarten--Full-Day Kindergarten 1 P-3 Preschool 7 P-3 Teaching Quality/Professional Development 1 Postsecondary 1 Postsecondary Accountability--Student Learning 1 Postsecondary Affordability--Financial Aid 7 Postsecondary Affordability--Tuition/Fees 1 Postsecondary Affordability--Tuition/Fees--Undocumented Immigrants 1 Postsecondary Finance 13 Postsecondary Finance--Efficiency/Performance-Based Funding 1 Postsecondary Finance--Facilities 3 Postsecondary Governance and Structures 2 Postsecondary Institutions--Community/Technical Colleges 6 Postsecondary Participation--Enrollments (Statistics) 2 Postsecondary Success--Completion 3 Postsecondary Success--Completion--Completion Rates (Statistics) 4 Postsecondary Success--Transfer/Articulation 1 Promising Practices 1 Promotion/Retention 3 Reading/Literacy 12 Rural 1 Scheduling/School Calendar 3 Scheduling/School Calendar--Extended Day Programs 1 School Safety 2 School Safety--Bullying Prevention/Conflict Resolution 1 School/District Structure/Operations--Facilities 4 School/District Structure/Operations--Transportation 1 Special Education 2 Special Populations--Immigrant Education 1 Standards 2 Standards--Common Core State Standards 2 State Policymaking 7 STEM 6 Student Achievement 7 Teaching Quality 6 Teaching Quality--Certification and Licensure 2 Teaching Quality--Certification and Licensure--Alternative 1 Teaching Quality--Certification and Licensure--Highly Qualified Teachers 1 Teaching Quality--Certification and Licensure--Natl. Bd. for Prof. Teach. Stds. 1 Teaching Quality--Compensation and Diversified Pay 2 Teaching Quality--Compensation and Diversified Pay--Pay-for-Performance 6 Teaching Quality--Compensation and Diversified Pay--Retirement/Benefits 6 Teaching Quality--Evaluation and Effectiveness 16 Teaching Quality--Induction Programs and Mentoring 1 Teaching Quality--Preparation 3 Teaching Quality--Professional Development 2 Teaching Quality--Recruitment and Retention 2 Teaching Quality--Recruitment and Retention--At-Risk Schools 3 Teaching Quality--Recruitment and Retention--High-Needs Subjects 1 Teaching Quality--Reduction in Force 1 Teaching Quality--Tenure or Continuing Contract 10 Technology--Computer Skills 2 Urban--Change/Improvements 1 Youth Engagement 1 356