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 Accountability--Reporting Results 2 Accountability--Rewards 2 Accountability--School Improvement 3 Assessment--High Stakes/Competency 1 At-Risk (incl. Dropout Prevention) 6 Attendance 1 Bilingual/ESL 1 Business Involvement 2 Career/Technical Education 4 Choice of Schools 3 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 Curriculum--Foreign Language/Sign Language 1 Curriculum--Mathematics 1 Economic/Workforce Development 18 Finance 21 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 2 P-16 or P-20 1 P-3 4 P-3 Kindergarten 3 P-3 Kindergarten--Full-Day Kindergarten 2 P-3 Preschool 14 Parent/Family 1 Postsecondary 5 Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Economy -- Increase jobs in education by 114,000. Finance -- Invest to improve public education Finance - Buildings -- Invest to build new schools.  Postsecondary Access -- Offer early access to affordable college credit by letting motivated high schools students work toward both their two-year Associates Degree and their high school diploma – at the same time.   Postsecondary - Community Colleges -- Increase funding for community colleges Postsecondary - Completion -- Redesign college curricula and courses to better promote completion.  -- Move the system toward rewarding a student's competency, and not merely the years he or she spends sitting in a lecture hall.    -- Rework financial aid so that more students can afford to carry full course loads to complete their degrees on or ahead of time.  -- Give students more on-line options for earning college credit. Postsecondary Finance - Tuition -- Continue to hold down the cost of college tuition. School Safety -- Invest in security upgrades in our schools. Technology -- Invest in iPads, laptops, smart-boards, and 21st century digital learning tools.  ACCOMPLISHMENTS General -- Remained #1 in education (best public schools in America) five years in a row.   -- Record high student achievement.  -- Record high graduation rates.  -- Significantly closed the achievement gaps between white and non-white students.   -- Achieved highest Advanced Placement scores in science, technology, engineering, and math MD students have ever achieved.  -- Have the best overall AP scores of any state in the nation. Postsecondary Finance - Tuition -- Remained #1 in holding down the cost of college tuition.   Full Text: http://www.governor.maryland.gov/blog/?p=8075 Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Dropout Prevention -- Fund national certifications for high school students enrolled in workforce training. Choice - Charter Schools -- Pass a charter school act. Choice - Open Enrollment -- Implement an open enrollment policy. Choice - Vouchers -- Create privately funded Opportunity Scholarships for students who are below 250 percent of the poverty level and live in D and F schools districts. P-3 - Best Practices -- Fund $3 million to help Mississippi Building Blocks continue literacy research and thereby develop best practices in early education. Postsecondary -- Build new expansion at University of Mississippi's School of Medicine. With the addition of new classrooms and laboratories, each incoming class of medical students will increase to more than 160. Reading/Literacy -- End social promotion of third grade students who cannot read on a third-grade level. -- Fund $15 million to assist with literacy improvement efforts. These funds will help us train teachers on best-practices in reading instruction and will also help provide reading interventionists to help struggling third-graders and other students. Teacher Pay-for-Performance -- Reward best teachers with higher pay. Teacher Preparation --Raise the bar for new teachers by raising the entrance standard for education programs. A student must have a 21 ACT score and a minimum GPA of 3.0 to become a teacher. Why would we want anything less for our students? Teacher Recruitment - Scholarships -- Fund 200 scholarships for students who have a 28 ACT score, a 3.5 GPA, and who commit to teaching in Mississippi public schools for five years. ACCOMPLISHMENTS State Policymaking - Task Forces -- Formed a working group of educators at all levels to identify the core problems in Mississippi's public education system and develop realistic recommendations for improvement. Full Text: http://www.governorbryant.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/State-of-the-State.pdf New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Finance -- Invest $8.9 billion of state aid into education ACCOMPLISHMENTS Choice -- Implemented inter-district school choice which has tripled enrollment in the last 3 years and will grow to 6,000 students next year. -- Expanded the number of charter schools in NJ to 86. -- Signed the Urban Hope Act to turn failing schools into renaissance Schools in Newark, Trenton, and Camden. Postsecondary -- Restructured higher education resulting in Rutgers being in the top 25 in research dollars and the newest member of the Big 10. -- Made new capital investments in all NJ universities for the first time in 25 years. State Policymaking - Task Forces -- Created a task force that has helped NJ develop strategies for making New Jersey's institutions more competitive. Teacher Issues - Compensation - Merit Pay -- Finalized a teacher contract in Newark that acknowledges merit-pay. Teacher Issues - Tenure -- Reformed teacher tenure. Full Text: http://nj.gov/governor/news/news/552013/approved/20130108d.html Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Community Colleges -- Invest $16.5 million in equipment and technology related to workforce development programs at our technology centers and community colleges. -- Fund a new technical education complex at Northeast State Community College in the Tri Cities that will be directly tied to advanced manufacturing in the region. -- Build a much-needed multi-purpose classroom and lab building at Nashville State Community College. Economic/Workforce Development - Public/Private Partnerships -- Open a new state-of-the-art technology center in Smyrna that represents a unique public-private partnership with Nissan. The center won't only be committed to training employees to work at Nissan but will teach the skills that other area businesses need as well. Finance -- Committed $9 million over three years to schools in the bottom 5 percent of the state. -- Invest $45 million to build a new Community Health Facility at the University of Memphis for audiology, speech pathology and nursing. Postsecondary Access -- Partner with Western Governors University to establish "WGU Tennessee." It is an on-line, competency-based university that is geared to the 800,000 adult Tennesseans that have some college credit but didn't graduate with an associate or four-year degree. The program is unique because of its competency-based curriculum but also because of an emphasis on mentors who guide those adults through the academic process. -- Supported the The Degree Compass program at Austin Peay University. This program is designed to predict the subjects and majors in which students will be most successful. The model combines hundreds of thousands of past students' grades with current students' transcripts to make an individualized recommendation. It's inspired by companies like Netflix, Amazon and Pandora that tailor their recommendations to what their customers are looking for. Postsecondary Affordability -- Establish an endowment of $35 million using operational reserve funds from the Tennessee Student Assistance Corporation (TSAC). It is designed to provide nearly $2 million each year to support scholarships for "last dollar" scholarship programs such as tnAchieves. These scholarships fill the gaps between students' financial aid and the real costs of college including books, supplies, room and board. Postsecondary Completion -- Raise the number of Tennesseans who earn an associates' degree or higher to 55 percent by 2025. Tonight begins our "drive to 55" – a strategic initiative to have the best trained workforce in America. Postsecondary Finance -- Fully fund, for the first time, the Complete College Act outcomes formula -- Invest nearly $62 million to renovate a four building complex that will house research labs and administrative offices at The University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center in Memphis. Postsecondary Tuition -- Limit tuition increases to no more than 6 percent at four-year schools and no more than 3 percent at two-year schools. School Safety -- Invest $34 million is budgeted to address ongoing capital needs that can be used for increased security measures if local officials decide to do so. Special Populations - Hearing Impaired -- Invest $22 million for a new high school for the Tennessee School for the Deaf in Knoxville. Teacher Compensation -- Invest $35 million for teacher salaries. Technology -- Invest $51 million to assist locals in paying for technology transition upgrades in schools across the state – a substantial and strategic investment in our schools. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Charter Schools -- Expanded charter schools to eliminate the cap. Finance -- Increased state education spending by almost 12 percent - the second largest increase in state K-12 expenditures of all 50 states in fiscal year 2012. -- Fully funded the Basic Education Program the past two years and are doing so again this year. -- Committed $38 million over three years to schools in the bottom 5 percent of the state. This year we're adding $9 million more. Student Achievement -- Made double-digit gains in high school graduation rates and the largest aggregate gains ever in the TCAP testing scores last year. Teacher Tenure -- Addressed tenure so that a principal doesn't have to decide after three years to either fire a teacher or grant tenure. There is now a five year time period for the principal to use data more effectively to assess a teacher's performance and then allow time to give that teacher the additional support that he or she needs to improve to earn tenure. Full Text: http://www.tn.gov/stateofthestate/files/2013/01-28-13%20State%20of%20the%20State%20Address%20-%20FINAL.pdf Wyoming Governor Matthew H. Mead's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Finance -- Reduce budget for community colleges and the University by 6%. -- Provide roughly $600 million for new schools over the next five years. Postsecondary -- Build a Tier I School of Engineering at UW. Priorities -- Focus on high school graduation rates, dual immersion language opportunities, charter schools, career technical education, and how to minimize the potential for school violence. Teacher/School Personnel Compensation -- Increase state employee salaries (incl. UW and community college personnel) by $8.5 million and offer one-time merit-based bonuses of $2.5 million. ACCOMPLISHMENTS State Policymaking - Task Force -- Appointed a task force to help define what a Tier I university looks like in preparation for a new Tier I School of Engineering at UW. Full Text:http://governor.wy.gov/SiteCollectionDocuments/2013%20State%20of%20the%20State%20Address.pdf Postsecondary Affordability 4 Postsecondary Affordability--Financial Aid 6 Postsecondary Affordability--Tuition/Fees 3 Postsecondary Finance 9 Postsecondary Finance--Efficiency/Performance-Based Funding 6 Postsecondary Finance--Facilities 1 Postsecondary Institutions 1 Postsecondary Institutions--Community/Technical Colleges 1 Postsecondary Online Instruction 1 Postsecondary Participation--Access 3 Postsecondary Success--Completion 4 Postsecondary Success--Developmental/Remediation 1 Reading/Literacy 10 Scheduling/School Calendar 1 Scheduling/School Calendar--Extended Day Programs 1 School Safety 8 Service-Learning 1 Special Education 4 Special Populations 1 Special Populations--Military 3 Standards 1 State Longitudinal Data Systems 1 State Policymaking 4 State Policymaking--Task Forces/Commissions 5 STEM 4 Student Achievement 4 Student Supports--Counseling/Guidance 1 Teaching Quality 5 Teaching Quality--Certification and Licensure--Alternative 1 Teaching Quality--Compensation and Diversified Pay 5 Teaching Quality--Compensation and Diversified Pay--Pay-for-Performance 6 Teaching Quality--Compensation and Diversified Pay--Retirement/Benefits 3 Teaching Quality--Evaluation and Effectiveness 5 Teaching Quality--Preparation 3 Teaching Quality--Recruitment and Retention 6 Teaching Quality--Tenure or Continuing Contract 2 Technology 4 Technology--Devices/Software/Hardware 1 Youth Engagement 1 285