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 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 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 Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Finance, Teacher Evaluation/Pay for Performance --Find a way to fund desired results and reward educators. Teacher Quality, School Safety, Choice, Data-Driven Decisionmaking, High Standards --Committed to quality teachers, a safe environment, a setting of parents' choosing, data driven decisions and the highest of standards. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Choice --State is a leader in allowing parents to choose a school that best meets their children's needs. http://www.azgovernor.gov/dms/upload/GS_010912_2012SoSAddress.pdf Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy's State of the State Address PROPOSALS P-3 - Access, Quality -- Enhance families' access to early childhood education by creating new seats for 500 children who can't afford preschool. And work to get to universal pre-K access. -- Investing in a new early childhood education rating system to improve quality.  Accountability - School Improvement -- Strengthen and expand high-quality school models – whether they are traditional schools, magnet schools, charter schools, or other successful models – and hold them accountable for their results and inclusiveness. Accountability - Interventions -- Transform schools with the worst legacies of low achievement.  The state will serve as a temporary trustee of schools that lack the capacity to improve themselves.  These schools will become part of a Commissioner's Network and they will receive our most intensive interventions and supports. Finance -- Spend 128 million dollars to increase funding for education, much of it targeted to the lowest performing districts. -- Add 50 million to the Education Cost Sharing formula, with the vast majority of that money targeted to the districts serving students with the greatest need.  State Policymaking -- Remove red tape and barriers to success.  The state can streamline its systems – in teacher certification, data collection, and elsewhere – and free districts to innovate and perform. Teaching Quality -- Create new career opportunities with a new master teacher certificate so that teachers do not have to leave the classroom to advance in their profession.  Teaching Quality - Teacher Preparation -- Overhaul teacher preparation programs so that the brightest young people go into teaching and graduate with the skills to succeed.  Teaching Quality - Tenure -- Reform tenure policies. Tenure will have to be earned and re-earned – earned by meeting certain objective performance standards, including student performance, school performance, and parent and peer reviews. If teachers want to keep that tenure, they will have to continue to prove their effectiveness in the classroom as their career progresses. Teaching Quality - Pay-for-Performance -- Allow local school districts, if they choose, to provide career advancement opportunities and financial incentives as a way of rewarding teachers who consistently receive high performance ratings. Teaching Quality - Professional Development -- Invest in better on-the-job training, such as one-on-one coaching in the classroom. -- Provide professional development (responsibility of district) to a teacher that begins to struggle at any point after they've earned tenure ACCOMPLISHMENTS -- n/a http://www.governor.ct.gov/malloy/cwp/view.asp?A=11&Q=498904 Delaware Governor Jack Markell's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Curriculum - Foreign Language -- Press ahead with the World Language Expansion Initiative. + Create partial immersion programs in twenty schools (in the next 5 years), where students will spend half the school day learning in another language. P-3 Early Grades - Ensuring Quality, Facility Evaluation, Teacher Evaluation (Early Learning Challenge winner) -- Properly train professionals who care for young children. -- Ensure that early childcare facilities where our children spend their days will have the best teaching and learning tools. -- Continually monitor the successes and challenges of centers to ensure continual improvement. -- Raise the percentage of high-need children in quality-rated programs from 20 percent to nearly 80 percent over the next four years. -- Introduce a new kindergarten assessment to let us know where our kids stand when they start school. Teacher Quality - Evaluations -- Implement without additional delay the Performance Appraisal System, with its focus on student progress. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Curriculum - Foreign Language; High School -Graduation Requirements -- Completion of a world language is a graduation requirement. Finance - Federal -- Won nationwide Race to the Top Grant. -- Won nationwide Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge. Standards -- Established high standards. Assessments, Accountability -- Put in place an improved assessment system so parents and teachers can track student progress and identify quickly when students risk falling behind. Teacher Quality -- Provide support to teachers with resources that help them raise student achievement. http://news.delaware.gov/2012/01/19/state-of-the-state-2012-transcript-delawares-time-to-lead/ Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's Inauguration Address 2012 PROPOSALS Choice of schools -- Real reform lies in providing more choices and more opportunities for parents, for families, and for children. Finance -- The key to reforming education here in Louisiana is not massive spending and tax increases ... Throwing more money at the problem has proven to be a failure.  That experiment has been tried for decades, and it has failed. State policymaking -- I believe we all need to check our party affiliations, our ideologies, and our political agendas at the door when it comes to improving our schools. -- Reforming and improving education should not be a partisan issue.  Getting our kids ready to face the challenges this world has to offer, getting them prepared to succeed and triumph should not be a political matter. Teaching Quality (See link to reform plan for more details) -- Every kid does have a right to a quality education from an excellent teacher.  And by getting a good education, kids then do have the opportunity to pursue their dreams. ACCOMPLISHMENTS I could go on boasting about all the progress the people of Louisiana have made over these past four years… But I won't…and here's why…All of that was yesterday We will not stand still or rest on our laurels.  We can either go forward or backward…those are the only two options.  Standing still IS going backwards. Full text of Inauguration Address: http://www.gov.state.la.us/index.cfm?md=newsroom&tmp=detail&catID=3&articleID=3187 Link to Governor Jindal's reform plan Fact Sheet (released 1/17/2012): http://www.gov.state.la.us/index.cfm?md=newsroom&tmp=detail&catID=2&articleID=3198&navID=12 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) 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