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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