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Introduction
SOLs:  A Yardstick of Success
From Competence to Excellence
Teacher Salaries and Evaluations
Challenges Remain
Start Strong Pre-K Education
Conclusion

Introduction  

Good afternoon.  It’s a pleasure to be with so many friends.  And let me begin by saying congratulations to the Virginia School Boards Association as they celebrate the association’s 100th anniversary this year.

I appreciate the opportunity this afternoon to speak with you and share my vision for education as we move forward.  The good news is that there are a lot of things that we are doing right as we prepare our children to live, work and play in a world more global in scope than when you and I were growing up – a world where knowledge is the currency and the ability to learn and relearn, over the course of a lifetime, will determine one’s success.

But there are things we can and must do better.  And we will.  I often say if there’s one thing a state would want to be known for, one thing that anchors a state’s reputation across the country – and for that matter, across the world, it would be that state’s quality of education.  We want to be the best.

We can be the best.  And we will be the best, if we are willing to work for it.  That means living up to our long-standing funding obligations.  That means accountability: using the data we acquire about student performance, rewarding schools that are doing well and helping schools that aren’t.  That means attracting and retaining the best teachers, and paying them fairly.  That means pursuing innovation, making sure that our youngest children are ready to learn inside the classroom and that our graduating seniors are ready for life outside the classroom.

I came to the Governor’s office with unique experience in education.  For a year, I was the principal of a vocational school in Honduras.  As the Mayor of Richmond, I worked closely with parents and educators to improve our public education system, built new schools for the first time in a generation and converted the historic Maggie L. Walker School into an acclaimed Governor’s School.
As Lieutenant Governor, I visited schools in nearly every Virginia locality, talking to students, parents, teachers and administrators about challenges and success.

And as a father, I have three children in the Richmond Public School System.  Education policy isn’t just a hypothetical issue for me.  The decisions we make come back to me every day…usually crumpled up in the back of a book bag.

SOLs:  A Yardstick of Success  

My tenure as mayor of Richmond coincided with the rollout of the SOL program, which remains the foundation of our accountability system. The establishment of statewide content standards in English, mathematics, science, and history has brought about a greater consistency of instruction between our school divisions.  And we now measure student achievement with the same yardstick, regardless of whether students attend school in the inner city, in the suburbs, or in a rural area. 

As a Richmonder, I am proud that 90 percent of the city’s schools are now fully accredited, roughly the same percentage as statewide. Even the most enthusiastic cheerleaders for the SOLs in the late 90s would hardly have dared to predict this level of success.  But Richmond has shown that accountability, investment, and leadership can make a difference in schools that critics of public education were once willing to write off.

The SOLs have focused our schools on achievement as never before.  The result is that, overall, our students know more and can do more.  This is clear from the rising pass rates on SOL tests and increased achievement on other tests, such as the National Assessment for Educational Progress.

From Competence to Excellence  

But while the Standards of Learning have raised the academic floor and enabled many students to reach higher, the SOLs have always been intended as minimum standards for competency.  

But the enthusiastic response to high school reform initiatives such as Early College Scholars and the Virginia Virtual Advanced Placement School demonstrate that there are thousands of students in the commonwealth who are ready and eager to soar from competence to excellence. The SOLs, as minimum standards, do not hold schools accountable for meeting the needs of these students.
I take great pride in the leadership I provided as mayor to create the Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School for Government and International Relations in Richmond.  Maggie Walker and our other Governor’s Schools offer high-octane academic environments where excellence is the standard.

But we have far more high school students with the potential to excel than we have seats in our regional Governor’s Schools.  Every high school – and every school for that matter – should have a vision that looks beyond SOL benchmarks and includes challenging programs for students who are ready to move from competence to excellence.

An example of this approach is the Commonwealth Scholars program I announced earlier this year.  This program is aimed at students who may not achieve an Advanced Studies Diploma but who are capable of exceeding the course requirements for a Standard Diploma.  We are starting this effort in 11 school divisions and hope to expand it statewide.

I also believe that schools and school divisions should be recognized and rewarded for making measurable progress in the journey to excellence.  The commonwealth’s vision of educational excellence must combine SOL competency requirements with incentives that recognize and reward higher levels of achievement and progress on multiple indicators of school and student performance.  

Teacher Salaries and Evaluations  

I am proud of the legislation I signed only a few weeks ago raising Virginia teachers’ salaries by four-percent, to a level competitive with the national average and providing teachers with regular, meaningful evaluations and continuing professional development.  Ongoing professional development supports our teachers by helping them keep their classroom skills sharp and their educational knowledge up to date.

The General Assembly passed legislation this session that requires school divisions to evaluate teachers with continuing-contract status at least once every three years. The bill also sets a goal of having sufficient salaries to attract highly qualified teachers. We also must build on the successful pilot programs initiated by Governor Warner and provide incentives for our best teachers to serve in schools where they are needed the most.

Challenges Remain  

It is sobering to note that there are pockets of low achievement in rural and urban communities across the commonwealth where meeting the minimum competency standards of the SOLs still represents a challenge for many students.  We also seek solutions to ensure that more students entering the ninth grade are graduating with their class four years later.
We must encourage and reward significant progress in closing the achievement gap while raising the achievement of all students. In addition, we must increase graduation rates, particularly among our minority populations, and place greater attention on career and technical education.  And we must continue to encourage our high school students to strive for excellence by successfully completing college-level courses and acquiring the skills necessary for personal success in the 21st century.

Start Strong Pre-K Education  

As a father, as someone who has taught, as someone who has sat down with students, parents and teachers across the Commonwealth and as an elected leader with experience at both the local and state level, I believe the most important thing we can do to move Virginia forward in the area of public education is to ensure that all students are able to read on grade-level by the third grade.

Sometimes, one meaningful statistic can tell an entire story.  Every year in Virginia, 26,000 students fail the 3rd grade reading SOL exam.  Half of them go on to fail reading SOL exam again in the 5th grade.  And often the achievement gaps we see later in a child’s life in the SATs and other exams are simply a continuation of this problem.

As a rule, this early performance indicator – the 3rd grade reading SOL exam – is an accurate predictor of an individual’s future success, not just in school but throughout life.  Too often, failing that test means problems in school, time in the juvenile justice system and later in the criminal justice system and a life that fails to reach its potential.

I’ve worked with Secretary Morris and Superintendent Cannaday to set an aggressive goal for this administration – reducing the number from 26,000 to 10,000 students by the year 2010. Reaching this goal –and surpassing it – would benefit not only the individual students in question, but it will make our system of public education more efficient and benefit Virginia as a whole.

Every year, 10,000 students between kindergarten and the 3rd grade have to repeat the school year.  It cost taxpayers $8,000 for every repeater, for a total of roughly $80 million dollars a year. That amount is almost double what we spend every year on the Virginia Preschool Initiative.  Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to spend that money on children on the front end of that equation?

This takes me back to an old saying that a friend taught me, “It’s easier to build a child than it is to repair a man.”

So how can we do that?  How can we help better build our children?  How can we help them better prepare to learn and be reading at or above grade level by the third grade?

One of the ways we do it is by expanding access to high-quality Pre-K.  That’s why I am proposing the Start Strong Pre-K program. We know so much more now than we did just a decade ago about how a person’s brain develops.  90% of our brain is developed by the age of five, yet our education system really doesn’t begin until after that. Those early years are critical to prepare children for both school and life.  A Pre-K education is a means, not an end.    

There are other steps we must also take by placing more emphasis on reading in grades K-through-3 and continually improving the training we give teachers.  As I’ve talked to school administrators across Virginia, and asked them what’s the one thing the state can do to improve education, the vast majority – without hesitation – said the same thing:  expand Pre-K.

K-12 school officials aren’t the only ones who feel this way.  University administrators tell me that they support early childhood education because they believe that higher quality early learning will result in a higher caliber of students in their institutions of higher learning.

Corporate executives tell me that they support investments in early childhood education because they will benefit from a greater pool of educated, critical thinkers for their work force, a necessity to meet increasing global competition.

Law enforcement officers say they support early childhood education because they see the strong correlation between successful students, productive citizens, and decreased crime in our communities.

And economists – from different persuasions and backgrounds – say expanding access to high-quality Pre-K carries with it the best return on the dollar of just about any educational reform you can make.  Some studies have the return on investment at a ration of 17 to one.

We currently spend four times as much on remediation efforts as we do for Pre-K.  We should reverse that ration.  By cutting in half the number of children who have to repeat a grade, we could double what we spend on existing Pre-K programs.

The question isn’t whether we’re going to spend the money, but when to spend it best.  The two-year budget we just adopted makes important strides in early childhood education.  We increased by $10 million per year the amount of money we are spending on preschool for at-risk four-year-olds.  We are funding for the first time the Early Childhood Foundation to encourage the active involvement of private partners in this effort.

In one of my first executive orders, I established the Start Strong Council. The purpose of the Council will be to oversee the development of infrastructure for voluntary Start Strong early childhood education programs in the commonwealth.  The Start Strong Council is seeking ways to make quality preschool programs available to any parent who wishes their child to participate, by expanding the successful Virginia Preschool Initiative, working with Head Start providers, and building on the network of private and faith-based providers.  This is not a one-size-fits-all approach.  Start Strong programs will be locally driven and designed to meet local needs.

We already have a strong network of public and private Pre-K providers, including those in the Virginia Pre-K initiative and Head Start.  As we move forward, we want them at the table and we want them to be part of this effort.

We don’t want the dollars going to bricks and mortar; we want them used for educating kids.  In fact, some private providers have more experience and expertise than some public programs. And this is not a mandate.  Any four-year-old who wants a Pre-K program should be able to get it, but it’s not mandatory. This is a competitiveness issue.  If we make a statement about educating kids earlier we make Virginia and America more competitive in the global marketplace.

If we choose to not go down this path, if we choose not to pursue the expanding access to high-quality Pre-K, we are missing the best opportunity to help kids succeed.

Conclusion  

I will conclude much the same way I began.  When it comes to public education in Virginia, we have a lot to be proud of.  But our pride, our sense of competitiveness and our obligation to our children demands that we never stop finding ways to improve it. 

Thomas Jefferson wrote that progress depends on the broadest possible diffusion of knowledge among the entire population.  More than ever, we are now in a position to provide all children with the opportunity to learn and fulfill their God-given potential.  Let us work together to ensure that lifelong learning – from the expansion of early childhood education to world-class higher education, and beyond – is our Commonwealth’s top priority.

Thank you.

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