2013 State of the State Addresses Education-Related Proposals by Issue

The following summary includes education-related proposals from the 2013 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 Arizona Governor Janice K. Brewer's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Reading/Literacy -- Develop comprehensive reading assessments to identify students falling behind. -- With the help of the State, local schools will connect students with reading experts. School Safety -- Expand State funding for School Resource Officers. Accountability/Standards -- Raise standards and increase accountability for students, schools and teachers. School Finance/Accountability --Implement the nation's first comprehensive performance funding plan for districts and charter schools. This plan will reward schools that earn high marks or see real improvement in performance (Not scrapping attendance-based funding formulas but rather, augment that system with an innovative approach to promoting school performance, while maintaining local control). ACCOMPLISHMENTS School Choice -- Expanded school choice. Reading/Literacy -- Funded the Move on When Reading program. Full Text: http://www.azgovernor.gov/dms/upload/GS_011413_SOS2013.pdf District of Columbia Mayor Vincent C. Gray's 2013 State of the District Address PROPOSALS Accountability -- Clarify roles, responsibilities and expectations of both traditional and public charter schools and develop a citywide vision and roadmap for public education to: - Empower families to understand and access all aspects of our education system; - Promote equity across our education sectors so that all children, regardless of which school they attend, have the resources they need to succeed; - Plan across our education sectors in a way that ensures access to quality educational seats in every neighborhood; and - Develop a transparent way to hold District government leaders and their education partners accountable for these outcomes. Economic/Workforce Development -- Bring DC Workforce Intermediary online this spring. The intermediary will make direct connections between employers in our construction, retail and hospitality industries who have jobs to offer and qualified District residents who need them. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Economic/Workforce Development -- Revitalized the Workforce Investment Council with a broad array of experts from the public, private and non-profit sectors. Facilities -- Invested heavily in the modernization of our schools and built a number of brand new schools. P-3 Access -- Continued to make investments in early-childhood education, including opening a major Educare facility in Ward 7 last year. The District is now the first city in America where there are enough seats in publicly-supported early-childhood-education programs for all three- and four-year-olds. Special Education -- Built the capacity of public schools to serve the educational needs of children with disabilities which reduced the number of these students placed in private schools by 40 percent. Full Text: http://mayor.dc.gov/release/text-prepared-delivery-mayor-vincent-c-grays-2013-state-district-address Georgia Governor Nathan Deal's 2013 State of the State Address PROPOSALS P-3 -- Fund 10 days additional pre-K days in the 2014 school year (doing so also increases salaries). Finance -- Provide $156M in additional funding for enrollment growth in K-12 schools in FY2013.  For next year [2014], there will be $147 million for enrollment growth and salary increases for teachers based on training and experience. There is also an additional $41 million to fully fund the revised Equalization formulas adopted last year. -- Change the 1985 funding formula to modernize the way we spend tax payer dollars so that we can produce more positive results in our public schools. Governance and Accountability -- Use legislation to solve the problem of Georgia having too many school boards placed under the sanctions of potential loss of accreditation. While this is a very serious matter, it is somewhat ironic that the loss of accreditation can only be based on governance issues and not on substandard academic progress of the school system. Reading/Literacy -- Include $1.6 million in this year's budget to continue the reading mentor program. Economic/Workforce Development -- Focus more funds within our HOPE Grant Program toward occupations where we know jobs are available and shortages actually exist. Currently, there are several thousand jobs available for individuals with a commercial driver's license. There are similar shortages in the areas of nursing and early childhood education. In order to fill these vacancies we suggest directing additional funds within our Technical College HOPE Grants so that over 90 percent of the tuition costs in these programs will be provided. Postsecondary --Increase the Hope Scholarship by 3% over last year, bringing the total funds going to Hope in FY 2014 to nearly $600 million -- Fully consider the Higher Education Funding Commission's recommendation for change from enrollment-based funding to outcomes-based funding in our university and technical colleges. ACCOMPLISHMENTS P-3 -- Designated by the National Institute for Early Education Research as having 10 out of 10 in measures of quality. Georgia was one of only five states to receive such a designation. Reading/Literacy -- Focused on literacy by designating $1.6M to establish a reading mentor's program that was designed to grow the percentage of Georgia's children who are reading on grade level by the 3rd grade. Full text: http://gov.georgia.gov/press-releases/2013-01-17/deal-focus-foundations-strengthen-georgia   Illinois Governor Pat Quinn's State of the State Address PROPOSALS School Safety -- Pass legislation that will require every school in the state to practice active safety drills that will prepare them for even the worst. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Accountability -- Improved school report cards. Economic/Workforce Development -- Trained thousands of workers for jobs in high-demand industries like healthcare, manufacturing and construction. Postsecondary Access - Immigrant Students -- Created the Illinois Dream Commission for awarding scholarships to high school graduates from immigrant families. Military -- Signed an Executive Order that directs our licensing agencies to assess military training for state license requirements. Last month, the Board of Nursing approving a suggested "bridge" curriculum for military medics to obtain LPN licenses. P-3 -- Invested $45 million to build early childhood education centers in high-need communities across Illinois, including in Carpentersville, Dolton, and Cahokia. School Safety -- Convened a School Safety Summit with education, public safety, mental health and law enforcement leaders to identify better ways to protect our schools. Teacher Evaluations/Tenure -- Set clear benchmarks for teacher evaluation and put performance above tenure. Full Text: http://www2.illinois.gov/gov/Documents/State%20of%20the%20State/State%20of%20the%20State%202013.pdf Indiana Governor Michael R. Pence's State of the State Address PROPOSALS P-3 - Full-day kindergarten -- Increase funding for full day kindergarten. Pensions -- Fully fund teacher pensions each of the next two years. Postsecondary/Workforce Development -- Create a partnership with Indiana's life sciences industry and the universities, to spur research and produce high-paying jobs. Finance/Accountability -- Increase in funding for schools each of the next two years, with the second year based on school performance. Teacher Pay-for-Performance -- Invest $6 million in teacher excellence grants to increase pay for our high-performing teachers. Reading/Literacy -- Ensure that every third grader can read, Dropout Prevention -- Invest in highly successful dropout prevention programs like Jobs for America's Graduates. P-3 - Preschool -- Continue to expand educational opportunities, especially for those with the fewest resources, beginning with pre-K education. Expand incentives for Hoosiers to support innovative, community-driven pre-K effort for low-income children. School Choice -- Expand tuition tax deductions, removing the prior year requirement and lift means testing for foster, adopted, special needs and military families. Postsecondary - Performance Funding -- Increase funding to our state-sponsored colleges and universities and tie funding and financial aid to on-time completion. Career/Technical -- Make career, technical and vocational education a priority in every high school in Indiana. -- Create Regional Works Councils to work with business and educators across the state to develop regional, demand-driven curricula to bring high-paying career options to more Hoosiers in high school. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Accountability -- 207 schools received the highest school ranking for the first time. Forty-three schools moved up three letter grades. Twenty-eight schools moved from the lowest ranking to a mid-ranking. Full Text: http://www.in.gov/gov/2013stateofstate.htm New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo's State of the State Address PROPOSALS State Policymaking-Commission/Teacher Evaluations/Accountability Systems -- Appoint a bipartisan education commission to work with the legislature to recommend reforms for a meaningful teacher evaluation system and a school accountability system. Postsecondary - Grant Funding -- Expand NYSUNY2020 to the remaining 60 campuses, offering challenge grants to research centers for plans to connect academic excellence and economic development. Workforce Development -- Create the Office for New Americans to assist legal permanent residents, providing adult education and job training. Civic Education -- Implement the New New York Leaders Initiative to create opportunities for the state's next generation to dedicate their careers to public service. - Student Intern Program - brings students into state government - Empire State Fellows Program - full-time leadership training program that will prepare next generation professionals who are members of underrepresented groups for careers as New York State policymakers. ACCOMPLISHMENTS -- N/A Full Text: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/04/nyregion/04-state-of-the-state-text.html Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell's 2013 State of the Commonwealth Address PROPOSALS Accountability -- Create an A-F school ranking scale to empower parents and students to demand excellence -- Establish a statewide Opportunity Educational Institution to provide a high quality education alternative for children attending any chronically underperforming public elementary or secondary school. The Opportunity Educational Institution will be a new statewide school division to turnaround failing schools. If a school is consistently failing, the Opportunity Educational Institution will step in to manage it. If the school has failed for two years, the Institution can take it over and provide a brand new approach to a broken system. Choice of Schools -- Pass a Constitutional amendment to allow the state Board of Education to authorize charter applicants. -- Eliminate the requirement that local school boards who originate a charter school application must first apply for authorization from the state Board of Education. Finance -- Add another $50 million to more than double our rainy day fund from $304 million to nearly $740 million by the end of this biennium Reading/Literacy -- place one reading specialist in each school that scores below 75% in the 3rd grade Standard of Learning test Special Education -- fully fund the state share for staffing standards for blind and visually impaired students Teaching Quality -- recruit, incentivize, retain and reward excellent teachers and treat them like the professionals that they are. Give teachers their first state supported pay raise since 200. Budget amendments provide over $58 million for a 2% pay raise for all SOQ [standards of quality] funded instructional personnel. --Implement the Educator Fairness Act to streamline the bureaucratic grievance procedure to benefit teachers and principals. Extend the probationary period for new teachers from three to five years, and require a satisfactory performance rating as demonstrated through the new performance evaluation system to keep a continuing contract. -- Provide funding to support new teachers who teach science, technology, engineering, or mathematics in our middle and high schools -- Provide $15 million for school districts to reward their well-performing educators. This strategic compensation plan based on a model developed in the Salem school system will be implemented through local guidelines that best fit each school division's unique characteristics -- Start the Teach for America program in the Commonwealth. -- Propose a new method to obtain waivers from bureaucratic red tape, putting the algebra readiness and early reading intervention initiatives into the SOQ, and expand character education and youth development programs. Postsecondary -- Make college more affordable and accessible by increasing TAG grants from $2800 to $3100 per student. This will benefit up to 21,000 Virginians. Target an additional $31 million for our public colleges and universities to continue to add more slots for in-state students, and bring tuition rate increases down. I've asked our college presidents and boards to further increase operating efficiencies and keep 2013 tuition increases for in-state students to no more than the CPI to help lower student debt. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Finance -- Three years ago, we closed a cumulative budget shortfall of $6 billion, without raising taxes. The results: Three consecutive budget surpluses, totaling $1.4 billion. -- Audited multiple state agencies, finding over $1 billion dollars and bolstering efficiency. We eliminated and consolidated dozens of boards, commissions, agencies and programs -- Increased the percentage of K-12 funding going into the classroom from 62% to 64% -- Reformed and stabilized the Virginia Retirement System. While other states march towards pension insolvency, we put the most new funding in history in the system, and our reforms will reduce the system's total unfunded liabilities $9 billion by 2031. Postsecondary and Economic Development Our 2011 landmark "Top Jobs for the 21st Century" higher education reform legislation has made the college dream more affordable and accessible. Our bold statutory goal of 100,000 new degrees over the next 15 years, with a focus on STEM-H degrees, is supported by more than $350 million for higher education over three years. Over the past two years we've added over 3,800 slots for undergraduate in-state students, and tuition increases this year averaged 4%, after a decade of double digit increases. High School -- Graduation rates are up. The statewide dropout rate has fallen by more than 25 percent. Reading/Literacy Ended social promotion to 4th grade if students cannot read well School Safety -- Established a School and Campus Safety Task Force to review all security policies in effect in our schools and colleges, and to make initial recommendations by January 31st. STEM There are now more STEM teachers and programs and less bureaucracy. Full text: http://www.governor.virginia.gov/news/viewRelease.cfm?id=1591 Accountability--Reporting Results 3 Accountability--Rewards 2 Accountability--School Improvement 3 Assessment--High Stakes/Competency 1 At-Risk (incl. Dropout Prevention) 6 Attendance 2 Bilingual/ESL 1 Business Involvement 3 Career/Technical Education 4 Choice of Schools 4 Choice of Schools--Charter Schools 7 Choice of Schools--Choice/Open Enrollment 2 Choice of Schools--Tax Credits 1 Choice of Schools--Vouchers 3 Civic Education 2 Counseling/Guidance 1 Curriculum--Foreign Language/Sign Language 1 Curriculum--Mathematics 1 Economic/Workforce Development 19 Finance 24 Finance--Facilities 3 Finance--Federal 1 Finance--Funding Formulas 1 Finance--Lotteries 1 Finance--Performance Funding 1 Finance--State Budgets/Expenditures 6 Finance--Taxes/Revenues 3 Governance 3 Health 2 Health--Mental Health 1 High School 3 High School--College Readiness 3 High School--Dropout Rates/Graduation Rates 1 High School--Dual/Concurrent Enrollment 2 High School--Exit Exams 1 High School--Graduation Requirements 1 Integrated Services/Full-Service Schools 1 Online Learning--Digital/Blended Learning 3 Online Learning--Virtual Schools/Courses 1 P-16 or P-20 1 P-3 4 P-3 Child Care 1 P-3 Early Intervention (0-3) 1 P-3 Finance 1 P-3 Kindergarten 4 P-3 Kindergarten--Full-Day Kindergarten 2 P-3 Preschool 16 Parent/Family 1 Postsecondary 5 Postsecondary Affordability 5 Postsecondary Affordability--Financial Aid 6 Postsecondary Affordability--Tuition/Fees 3 Postsecondary Finance 12 Postsecondary Finance--Efficiency/Performance-Based Funding 7 Postsecondary Finance--Facilities 1 Postsecondary Institutions 1 Postsecondary Institutions--Community/Technical Colleges 3 Postsecondary Online Instruction 1 Postsecondary Participation--Access 3 Postsecondary Success--Completion 4 Postsecondary Success--Developmental/Remediation 1 Reading/Literacy 13 Scheduling/School Calendar 2 Scheduling/School Calendar--Extended Day Programs 1 School Safety 9 Service-Learning 1 Special Education 4 Special Populations 1 Special Populations--Military 3 Standards 1 State Longitudinal Data Systems 1 State Policymaking 6 State Policymaking--Task Forces/Commissions 5 STEM 5 Student Achievement 5 Teaching Quality 5 Teaching Quality--Certification and Licensure--Alternative 1 Teaching Quality--Certification and Licensure--Natl. Bd. for Prof. Teach. Stds. 1 Teaching Quality--Compensation and Diversified Pay 5 Teaching Quality--Compensation and Diversified Pay--Pay-for-Performance 7 Teaching Quality--Compensation and Diversified Pay--Retirement/Benefits 3 Teaching Quality--Evaluation and Effectiveness 5 Teaching Quality--Preparation 3 Teaching Quality--Professional Development 1 Teaching Quality--Recruitment and Retention 7 Teaching Quality--Tenure or Continuing Contract 3 Technology 5 Technology--Devices/Software/Hardware 1 Youth Engagement 1 323