From: Whipple, Deb (GOV)
Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2009 1:36 PM
Subject: What the governor is talking about today
What the Governor’s Talking about Today
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
 
    Layoffs of People Providing Essential Services Harm Our Communities, Governor Says
    Governor Says Education Reforms Will Position Michigan for Race to the Top Competition; Bipartisan Legislative Action Needed This Month
 
 
Layoffs of People Providing Essential Services Harm Our Communities, Governor Says
 
The governor is in Washington, D.C. today and tomorrow along with other Democratic governors to advocate for policy changes and job-creation strategies that can be especially powerful for states like Michigan that have been hardest hit by the nation’s economic crisis.  The governor’s trip comes as President Obama prepares to convene a White House Jobs Summit and Congress continues to debate job-creation strategies.
 
The governor noted the cascading effect of the national economic crisis on states and local governments.
 
“Our country’s ongoing economic challenges translate at the state level into budget crises that threaten existing jobs for local police officers, fire fighters and school teachers,” Granholm said.  “Layoffs of people who provide essential services harm our communities and are a drag on national recovery efforts.”
 
State revenue sharing payments to local governments have been cut by more than $3 billion in the last eight years, resulting in the layoffs of more than 1,800 police officers and 2,400 fire fighters.  Continued cuts are making it difficult for many local governments to provide essential services, and are pushing some toward insolvency.
 
Key messages:
 
•  The governor wants to restore funding for revenue sharing so local governments can continue providing essential services.
 
•  We are working to diversify Michigan’s economy and create jobs.  For Michigan communities to be attractive for economic development, local governments must be able to provide essential services.
 
•  The Michigan House has passed HB 5403 that would restore statutory revenue sharing for cities, villages and townships to the amount actually received in the 2009 fiscal year.  That bill is now pending before the Michigan Senate.
 
Governor Says Education Reforms Will Position Michigan for Race to the Top Competition; Bipartisan Legislative Action Needed This Month
 
In an address to the Network of Michigan Educators on Tuesday in Lansing, the governor said that Michigan must enact comprehensive reforms in the next three weeks to strengthen the state’s education system for a new knowledge-based economy and position the state to successfully compete in the Obama administration’s Race to the Top competition.
 
In the Race to the Top competition being conducted by the U.S. Department of Education, all 50 states are racing to reform their education systems so American children can compete in a global economy.  Only a small number of states will be winners.  Each will receive as much as $500 million in federal Recovery Act funds to improve their schools.
 
To strengthen Michigan’s education system and position the state to be a winner in the Race to the Top, the state legislature must enact and the governor must sign into law legislation that achieves the following reforms:
 
•  Require school principals to be certified
 
•  Create high-quality alternative routes to certification for both teachers and administrators to help bring more of our best and brightest into education
 
•  Give the state superintendent of public instruction clear authority to intervene in low-performing schools
 
•  When failing schools are clustered in a few school districts, allow state intervention to make individual school turnaround possible
 
•  Increase the number of high-quality charter schools in Michigan
 
•  Require an annual evaluation of teachers, principals and other school leaders that uses student-growth data along with other factors
 
Key messages:
 
•  Race to the Top reflects President Obama’s and Secretary of Education Duncan’s desire to move education in this country to new heights.  Just as we have set a goal to double the number of college graduates in Michigan, President Obama has set an ambitious goal for our nation:  to once again lead the world in the share of our population with college degrees by 2020.  The president has said that nothing else we do is as important to American prosperity.  That’s true for Michigan as well – nothing else we do is as important for the prosperity and future of Michigan.
 
•  While each of these reforms meets a specific Race to the Top goal, each in its own right will give us a stronger education system in Michigan.
 
•  No state needs to be a winner in the Race to the Top more than Michigan – not just financially, but from the long-term perspective of changing the state’s economy.
 
•  Race to the Top is an opportunity to tell the nation and the world just who we are: a state committed to the fundamental change, the systemic change, the deep change that the future demands.  We must transform education in Michigan, and we must be fearless in our determination to do so.
 
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