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 2 Assessment 4 Assessment--College Entrance Exams 3 Assessment--Formative/Interim 1 At-Risk--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 Continuous Impr/Performance Mgmt. 2 Continuous Impr/Performance Mgmt.--Promising Practices--Schools 1 Curriculum 1 Curriculum--Foreign Language/Sign Language 1 Demographics--Condition of Children/Adults--Welfare 1 Distance Learning/Virtual University 5 Economic/Workforce Development 12 Economic/Workforce Development--Research 3 Economic/Workforce Development--STEM 6 Economic/Workforce Development--Workforce Demand 3 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 High School--International Baccalaureate 1 Instructional Approaches 1 Leadership 1 Leadership--Principal/School Leadership--Evaluation and Effectiveness 2 Leadership--Principal/School Leadership--Preparation 1 No Child Left Behind 2 No Child Left Behind--Flexibility 1 P-16 or P-20 1 P-3 Early Care & Intervention 2 P-3 Early Care & Intervention--Child Care 1 P-3 Early Care & Intervention--Health & Mental Health 1 P-3 Early Grades 2 P-3 Early Grades--1-3 1 P-3 Early Grades--Kindergarten 3 P-3 Early Grades--Kindergarten--Full Day 1 P-3 Early Grades--Preschool 7 P-3 Systems 2 P-3 Systems--Ensuring Quality 3 P-3 Systems--Evaluation/Economic Benefits 1 P-3 Systems--Finance 2 P-3 Systems--Governance 3 P-3 Systems--Teaching Quality/Prof. Dev. 1 Postsecondary 1 Postsecondary Accountability--Student Learning 1 Postsecondary Affordability--Financial Aid 7 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 Illinois Governor Pat Quinn's State of the State Address PROPOSALS P-3 Systems - Finance -- Invest more dollars in early childhood education. Attendance - Compulsory -- Raise the minimum school attendance age to 18. Finance; Facilities -- Invest in education through the Illinois Jobs Agenda for 2012. This investment will create jobs now as classrooms are upgraded with modern labs, smart technology, digital books, high-speed Internet access, and 21st century efficiency. Postsecondary - Financial Aid -- Make a significant investment in more state MAP scholarships to help students attend college. Postsecondary Success - Completion Rates -- Set goal to have at least 60 percent of adults in the state to have a college degree, an associate degree or a career certificate by 2025. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Accountability - Reporting -- Passed laws that improve school report cards so that parents have more information about the schools that educate their kids. Facilities -- Built and renovated more than 400 schools from Western Illinois University's new riverfront campus in Moline to the new Transportation Education Center at SIU in Carbondale and from the repurposed Cole Hall at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb to the new electrical and computer engineering building at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. School Calendar -- Passed laws that lay the groundwork for a longer school day and a longer school year. Teacher Quality - Evaluations; Tenure -- Passed laws that set clear benchmarks for teacher evaluation and put performance above tenure. Postsecondary - Financial Aid; Immigrant Education -- Passed the Illinois DREAM Act to help high school graduates from immigrant families. http://www.illinois.gov/PressReleases/ShowPressRelease.cfm?SubjectID=2&RecNum=9997 Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels' State of the State Address PROPOSALS Postsecondary --Assist students with the cost of higher education by empowering the Higher Ed Commission to limit the "credit creep" that increases both time to graduation and student expense. ACCOMPLISHMENTS K-12 Finance --K-12 spending is now 56% of the entire state budget, the highest percentage of any state in the nation. Public Education Reform --Others are praising Indiana's public education reforms. Others are following Indiana because of the state's commitment to rewarding the best teachers, liberating principals and superintendents, and providing low- and middle-income parents the same choices as their wealthier neighbors. This year, Indiana will end practice of promoting students who can't read to 4th grade, and reducing college costs for students who graduate from high school in 11 years. State Employees --Indiana now pays state workers on a performance basis, so those doing the best job are properly rewarded for their superior efforts. http://in.gov/gov/2012stateofstate.htm?WT.cg_n=GOV_billboards&WT.cg_s=090211_01_SOS2012 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 Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett's State of the State Address PROPOSALS State Policymaking -- Give more flexibility at the level where money will be spent: the county and school district. Postsecondary -- Create a panel on postsecondary education to study our system and to make recommendations on how our universities can best serve the students and citizens. Postsecondary/Community College - Finance; Financial Aid -- Maintain funding for career and technical education. -- Invest in the Targeted Industry Certificate program that increases grants for college and trade school students who are training for high-demand occupations. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Finance - Funding Formula -- Invested $5.3 billion to the Basic Education funding formula last year, the largest amount the state's taxpayers have ever put into the formula. http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/current_and_proposed_commonwealth_budgets/4566/2012-13_proposed_budget_news_releases_and_governor's_address/1067477 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 Washington Governor Chris Gregoire's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Accountability -- Step in and turn around schools where dropout rates are high, student performance and achievement are low, and where no progress is being made. Teaching Quality - Evaluations -- Overhaul the way teachers are evaluated by focusing on high-quality instruction, student achievement and growth. -- Provide a system to evaluate the performance of principals based on student achievement. Finance -- Lift the levy lid. -- Fund levy equalization. P-3 - Preschool, Kindergarten -- Continue implementation of all-day kindergarten for all kids. -- Create "All Start," a voluntary Washington preschool program to provide early learning opportunities to all 3- and 4-year-olds. Postsecondary - Community/Technical Colleges -- Provide funding to community and technical colleges to retrain 2,500 workers for the jobs of tomorrow. Postsecondary - Finance -- Provide four-year institutions with competitive tuition flexibility. -- Restore funding for the State Need Grant Program in order to keep the doors to higher education open to students of all income levels. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Student Achievement -- K-12 student test scores continue to rank high nationally. School Choice -- Innovative schools in cities around the state have been highly successful in raising vital math and science skills. Postsecondary - Community/Technical Colleges -- Community and technical college system is rated as one of the best in the nation Teaching Quality -- Rank fifth in the nation in board-certified educators. http://www.governor.wa.gov/speeches/speech-view.asp?SpeechSeq=213 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 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--District Structure 1 School/District Structure/Operations--Facilities 4 School/District Structure/Operations--School Structure--Class Size 1 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 Student Achievement 7 Student Supports--Integrated Services 1 Students--Promotion/Retention 3 Teaching Quality 6 Teaching Quality--Certification and Licensure 2 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--Employment--Reduction in Force 1 Teaching Quality--Employment--Tenure or Continuing Contract 10 Teaching Quality--Evaluation and Effectiveness 16 Teaching Quality--Induction Programs and Mentoring 1 Teaching Quality--Preparation 3 Teaching Quality--Preparation--Alternative Preparation 1 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 Technology--Instruction 2 Urban--Change/Improvements 1 Youth Engagement 1 359