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 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 Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Finance -- Fund education above inflation and enrollment. Finance - Funding Formula -- Ensure that there is a school finance formula that offers equity to all districts. P-3 - Preschool/Kindergarten -- Serve up to 6,500 new kindergartners and preschoolers. Postsecondary - Finance -- Adopt a need-based financial allocation process to support Coloradans with the highest need and incentivizes retention and timely completion. Teacher Preparation -- Continue to build the best educator pipeline in the country and attract the best and brightest people to enter teaching. Teacher Retention -- Find new ways to retain and reward current teachers. ACCOMPLISHMENTS P-3 - Reading/Literacy -- Passed an early childhood literacy program (The Read Act) which identifies struggling readers early and provides interventions so that all children can read by the end of third grade. Finance - Federal -- Received a $29.9 million "Race to the Top" grant to support early childhood education and enhance early literacy. Full Text: http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite?c=Page&childpagename=GovHickenlooper%2FCBONLayout&cid=1251638211880&pagename=CBONWrapper Delaware Governor Jack Markell's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Economic/Workforce Development -- Develop a Delaware Skills Bank – an inventory of essential tasks for in-demand occupations in the state – and use it to ensure that training programs provide workers with the right opportunities. Once workers have completed the training they need to fill in-demand jobs, make sure that employers know it, by providing these workers with a Career Readiness Certificate that employers respect and trust. Dropout Prevention Implement the Youth ChalleNGe program supported by the Delaware National Guard. This is a residential program for a couple dozen Delaware high school dropouts. Through education and mentoring from Guard members, the program targets young people who can get back on a path to a degree and a rewarding life and career. And because Maryland has all of the necessary facilities and because the Department of Defense picks up 75 percent of the cost, this is a very cost-effective way to serve these young people. Health -- Increase ten-fold the number of trained, front line mental health personnel in our middle schools. P-3 -- On track to increase from 20 to 80 the percentage of high need children in child care enrolled in quality-rated early learning programs. School Choice -- Create a best-in-class information system on Delaware's schools that provides a clear picture of the different strengths in each school. -- Give parents the option of a common application to make it easier to apply to multiple schools. Teacher Compensation -- Re-examine that pay structure in order to incentivize teaching in high-need schools and critical subjects, raise starting teacher pay, and reward teacher leadership. Teacher Preparation -- Strengthen the standards for entry into the teaching profession.   -- Introduce rigorous exit assessment for our preparation programs, which includes demonstration of content knowledge as well as teaching skills. Teacher Retention -- Create a Teacher Leaders role which will keep excelling teachers in the classroom by encouraging them to be role models in their schools, and earn more for putting their experience to work in the classroom. Youth Engagement -- Provide more opportunities for after-school and summer activities that get kids off the streets and give them exposure to the arts, nature, and physical activity and ensure the staff running these activities receive training in suicide prevention. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Health - Suicide Prevention -- Funded new training for front line school personnel in Kent and Sussex Counties to recognize early signs of trauma in children, and we worked together with Johns Hopkins School of Medicine to offer the highest-quality training to all of our high schools in detection and prevention of depression in teenagers. Student Achievement/Graduation Rates -- Moved thousands of students from below or average to higher levels of achievement.  -- Steadily improved graduation rates. -- Increased number of high school students taking advanced coursework. Curriculum - Foreign Language -- Started 340 students in a world language immersion program. Ten thousand Delaware students will participate in the program over the next decade.  Full Text: http://governor.delaware.gov/speeches/2013stateofthestate/2013_sots_address.shtml Iowa Governor Terry E. Branstad's 2013 Condition of the State Address PROPOSALS Finance -- Permanently change the school finance formula so that "allowable growth" will be replaced by 100% state aid, meaning no longer will the school aid formula trigger automatic increases in local property taxes -- Cut the current 4% cap on valuation growth for residential property and agricultural land in half to two percent and apply it to all classes of property. Quality Teachers and Leaders -- Update the teaching system by elevating the teaching profession with a new teacher leadership and compensation structure that provides five career pathways in order to offer new professional opportunities -- Implement the Teach Iowa Initiative to recruit top students to become teachers. Increase beginning teacher pay by 25%, from $28,000 to $35,000 per year, and attract top students with a priority placed on hard-to-hire subjects, like math and science, with awards also going to future teachers in other majors as well. This initiative includes a pilot to expand the traditional one-semester of student-teaching to a year-long apprenticeship in partner schools.  Stronger clinical experiences stand to better prepare future teachers.  College and Career Readiness -- Establish a college or career ready seal that high school students may earn in addition to their diploma. Beginning next school year, students will have the option, at the state's expense, of taking a college-entrance or workforce readiness test.   ACCOMPLISHMENTS --  Launched the Governor's science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, initiative. This initiative is already enhancing learning opportunities for Iowa children by putting outstanding STEM programs in more than 800 sites statewide. --Launched Skilled Iowa to bring new workforce skills to the unemployed, under-employed, and those simply seeking better long-term careers. This initiative initiative builds on the STEM program to ensure workers get the skills they need to fill the high-paying jobs of today and tomorrow. Already, 2,400 Iowa businesses have signed up for Skilled Iowa and 18,000 Iowans have used Skilled Iowa resources to certify their skills with a National Career Readiness Certificate.  Link to full text: https://governor.iowa.gov/2013/01/%E2%80%9Cour-opportunity-our-iowa-%E2%80%9D-gov-terry-e-branstad-delivers-2013-condition-of-the-state-address/ 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 Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval's 2013 State of the State Address PROPOSALS Choice -- Provide more choice of schools by giving businesses a tax credit for making contributions to a scholarship fund (an opportunity scholarship). These dollars will be distributed, on a means-tested basis, to students at low-performing schools for use in attending the school of their choice. English Language Learners -- Invest $14 million in an English Language Learners initiative. Finance -- Provide more support for autism and early intervention services -- Overall, make a new investment of $135 million in Nevada's schoolchildren. P-3 -- For pre-Three students, increase funding for early education in the state's most at risk schools. -- Aggressively expand all-day kindergarten among the state's most at-risk schools -- Allocate 20 million dollars over the biennium for this purpose. High School -- Fund the JAG program (Jobs for America's Graduates) to include up to 50 additional high schools by 2014 and to serve nearly 2,000 additional high school students. State Longitudinal Data System -- Fund a data system that links student performance to teacher effectiveness. This system is a long term investment in what will be the backbone of our approach to teacher evaluation. Teaching Quality -- Make a new investment in Teach for America to help recruit, train, develop, and place top teacher and leadership talent in Nevada. Postsecondary -- With the Chancellor's support, create new courses of study at UNR and UNLV focused specifically on the sectors targeted for economic growth -- Establish UNLV as the global intellectual hub for gaming, hospitality and entertainment -- Pair community colleges more closely with workforce needs so that they can deliver students into jobs that will be waiting for them in the new economy -- Support and extend the Kenny C. Guinn Millennium Scholarship through 2017 -- Financially support the University Cooperative Extension program in rural Nevada. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Governance -- Reinvigorated the State Board of Education. Teaching Quality -- Required performance-based evaluations for teachers -- ending teacher tenure as we know it. Full text: http://gov.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/govnvgov/Content/2013StateOfTheState.pdf 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 West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin's State of the State Address PROPOSALS Accreditation -- Develop a new system of accreditation, so all schools will be held to higher standards (completed by the State Board of Education) Attendance -- Work with the Department of Education, the courts, and DHHR to coordinate truancy reduction efforts. Online/Digital Learning -- Integrate technology and digital learning into the school system. Embrace opportunities like Project 24, an effort led by former Governor Bob Wise, that will enable the State to make the best use of technology. P-3 -- Support the efforts of the Benedum Foundation to help establish a process for defining, once and for all, the components and costs of a quality ―birth through 5 program. P-3 - Childcare -- Appropriate $17 million to preserve childcare subsidies. P-3 - Preschool -- Require every county, within 3 years, to offer full-day 4-year-old preschool. Reading/Literacy -- Ensure every new elementary teacher is specially trained in reading. -- Make sure all current elementary teachers are prepared to help all students learn to read. Scheduling - School Calendar -- free local boards of education, in consultation with staff and the community, to design a calendar meeting the needs of adequate instructional time. Teacher Certification - National Board -- Reward and pay for teachers who seek and gain re-certification for the National Board. Teacher Recruitment -- Require that superintendents give more credence to recommendations from principals and teachers about who they believe is best qualified to raise student achievement. -- Make other qualifications count, in addition to seniority, when making hiring decisions. Teacher Professional Development -- Provide quality professional development on a continual basis. The State Board of Education should have the flexibility to oversee professional development. However, it should be delivered at the local level. Vocational Education/Workforce Training -- Begin workforce training in middle school and make available more vocational training to students not planning to attend college. -- Provides students access to counseling from community and technical college staff and be engaged with employers who are prepared to hire qualified graduates. -- Make quality vocational courses that prepare students to meet the high demands of today's job market a part of every school curriculum. To assure the needed quality, require every vocational school to have at least one program that meets the rigorous requirements of the Preparation for Tomorrow program of the Southern Regional Education Board. ACCOMPLISHMENTS N/A Full Text: http://www.governor.wv.gov/media/pressreleases/2013/Documents/2013%20State%20of%20State%20Final.pdf Teaching Quality--Tenure or Continuing Contract 3 Technology 5 Technology--Devices/Software/Hardware 1 Youth Engagement 1 323