Plenary Session Transcripts

Governors Attending:

Guests:

Discussion Subjects:

• Economic Development and Commerce (EDC)–Telecommunications Roundtable: State Reforms and Federal Initiatives
• Education, Early Childhood and Workforce Committee (ECW)–Attracting Students to Science Careers: Business and Government Working Together
• Health and Human Services (HHS)–Health Care Reform: Opportunities for Public-Private Partnerships
• Natural Resources (NR)–Challenges Facing the Expanded Use of Alternative Transportation Fuels
• 2005-06 Chair Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's Initiative - Healthy America: Wellness Where We Live, Work and Learn
• Plenary Session Discussion Subjects - Transforming the U.S. Health Care System; Healthy America: A View from Industry; Honor States Grant Update; and Back to Basics: Learning to be Creative

Points of Interest:

At the start of the second plenary session, Tom Vander Ark, director of education for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, spoke about the $24 million NGA Honor Grant State Program supported by the Gates Foundation for the purpose of making a high school education more rigorous and relevant. Vander Ark noted that the program was designed to fulfill two promises owed to every young person in America: (1) that a high school diploma should prepare them for college and work; and (2) that all students should have access to quality schools. He went on to report that in the two years since the program's implementation, 35 states had signed on to either NGA's Honor Grant State Program or a program called American Diploma Project, administered by the organization Achieve. Roughly 20 states had put college and work-ready graduation requirements in place. A total of 14 states had either implemented or planned the implementation of policies to have a college-ready assessment in their high schools. Thirty-four states had signed up to create a longitudinal data system for tracking student progress from year to year and school to school. And 51 governors had signed the Graduation Rate Compact at NGA's 2005 Annual Meeting for the purpose of establishing a common definition for their high school graduation rates. After nearly 20 years of flat graduation rates, since 2000 the rate had risen about a point and a half yearly. In addition, there was steady improvement in the number of high school graduates ready for college. A total of 34 percent of incoming ninth graders were now leaving high school ready for college, compared with 22 percent in 1993.

Governor Huckabee noted that for the first time in Arkansas, in the coming Fall students would be assigned an electronic transcript to follow them on to the postsecondary level. And he added that Arkansas was among the states that had already implemented the Graduation Rate Compact signed by Governors at the NGA 2005 annual meeting. Other Governors shared their own experiences with the Honor Grant State Program, among them:

Governor Pawlenty reported that Minnesota's grant was being used to improve standards and to focus on math, science, and technology, and he noted that a summit had been convened in his state at which leaders in the fields of business, science, and technology, along with education and community leaders, discussed how to attract student interest in math and science.

Governor Kaine referred to Virginia's "Governor's School Network," begun 30 years earlier as a summer program on one state college campus, and now expanded to serve every community in the state in the form of year-round accelerated high schools. Governor Kaine also spoke of Project Graduation, a program using tutoring and intense personal instruction to target students in jeopardy of not achieving graduation requirements. He also mentioned the Early College Scholars program designed to help students earn at least 15 college credits while still in high school; the Virtual Advance Placement program, assisting students in taking Advanced Placement exams through virtual coursework who would not be able to do so through live instruction in the classroom; the Career Prep Academy, designed to help those who have dropped out of school complete their high school diplomas on community college campuses; and a curriculum reform program to improve reading levels from Kindergarten through third grade, which are demonstrated to be critical years in reading development.

Sir Ken Robinson, author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, spoke of the importance of cultivating creativity in the educational process. Robinson pointed out that imagination is the gift of human intelligence—what makes us human, creativity is the application of imagination to problem-solving, and innovation is putting the ideas resulting from creativity into practice in the real world. He challenged the myths that creativity is inherited by only a few and applies exclusively to the arts, arguing that anything at all involving human intelligence is a scene of creative achievement, and that we are all born with the capacity of imagination but are discouraged from using it as we progress through our educational system. Robinson also faulted the tendency of the educational system to segregate curricula—for example, separating math from foreign language learning—whereas in actuality real innovation comes from the interaction of such subjects. And he argued that it is a mistake to impose standardizing procedures on children to promote conformity rather than natural diversity.

In Dr. Robinson's opinion, our present system of education was designed in a different time, at the height of industrialism, for the purpose of preparing a labor force for the demands of an economy very different from what we are living with today. Now, he said, it is critical to promote innovation and creativity systematically to meet the challenges of the 21st Century. Robinson espoused four areas of action to achieve this end. First, curricula need to be rebalanced to reflect the equal power and weight in the growth of children's minds of different ways of thinking that are represented in the arts, science and mathematics, and the humanities—renaissance thinking, if you will. Second, there should be greater investment in the professional skills of teachers. Third, assessment and accountability should be increased. And fourth, partnership should be promoted, moving away from the factory model of teaching children in separate facilities and toward utilizing collaborative programs in which schools and cultural organizations work together rather than in isolation.

Robinson referred to a number of promising programs already under way in the states, among them the Oklahoma Creativity Project, a project for 21st Century skills that is working with West Virginia and North Carolina; Arkansas's promotion of a broader focus in its school curricula; and California's recently-passed budget to promote the arts in schools and restore them to equal footing with other disciplines.

In closing, Robinson paraphrased Michelangelo's remark that it is a problem not that we aim too high and fail but that we aim too low and succeed. The creative challenge in education, he said, is comparable now in scale and scope to the challenge that galvanized America with the launch of Sputnik.

Memorable Quotes:

Mike Huckabee, Arkansas Governor and NGA Chair, said: "We're all aware of the fact that 75 percent of costs in medical care today [are linked to] chronic disease driven by three behaviors: overeating, under-exercising, and smoking. It's been said that America looks a lot like an NFL football game on a Sunday afternoon. You have 22 people who are down on the field desperately in need of rest, [and] 70,000 people in the stands desperately needing some exercise…"

Tommy G. Thompson, former Wisconsin Governor and former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said: "You don't realize how wonderful it is to be a Governor until you leave and go to Washington and become a Secretary. When you're a Governor, you can wake up in the morning and you can have an idea and you can have somebody working on it by 11 o'clock in the morning. When you go to Washington…I get up, get the same idea, go in. Then you have to vet it with 67,000 people who all believe sincerely they're smarter than you. Then it goes over to the super God in our society. I didn't know we had a super God until I got to Washington…It's OMB. They turn you down nine times out of ten just to show you who the boss is. Then if you do get by OMB, it goes to the super intelligentsia in the White House, the young college graduate who has never had a job, who knows everything…Then if you do get by them, the palace guard, you go to the President. If you get by the President, it goes to Congress. If Congress ever does pass it, it's time to retire."

Governor/Secretary Thompson also said: "The Japanese eat very little fat, they drink a lot of saki, and they suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or the Americans. Now the Mexicans eat a lot of fat, eat a lot of corn, drink a lot of tequila, and they suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or the Americans…Africans drink very little red wine, eat a lot of red meat, and they suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or the Americans. Our friends, the Italians and the French, drink large amounts of red wine, eat a lot of white bread, and they suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or the Americans…the Germans drink a lot of beer, eat lots of sausages and fats, and they suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or the Americans. The conclusion…: Eat and drink whatever you like; speaking English is apparently what kills you."

Sir Ken Robinson said: "One of the things we take for granted is that the hierarchy of [educational] subjects is a natural scheme of things. Actually, it isn't. We take for granted that science speaks to the intellect and is about hard work and objectivity and that the arts are about emotions and feelings and something to do with leisure and recreation. They're not. In every culture on earth everywhere, the arts have emerged as part of the common practice of being a human being. It's only really in education that they become marginalized. It's a very interesting process, this, that outside of education, the arts are high-stakers, high impact…but inside education they're low-stakers, almost everywhere. And yet the greatest achievements of American culture have been driven forward by a congruence of science, technology, design and art…"

Resolutions:
(1) Recognizing the increased flexibilities states were given to manage state Medicaid programs as part of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA), and calling on Congress and the Administration to work closely with Governors to implement any required changes to Medicaid the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs under the DRA; (2) Expressing Governors' support for a strong state role in all aspects of telecommunications regulation and underscoring gubernatorial opposition to federal preemption of state authority in the telecommunications arena; (3) calling for greater coordination between the federal government and state governments in economic recovery from disasters, and urging broader use of Community Development Block Grants and HOME Investment Partnerships Program funds in the event of a federally declared disaster; (4) highlighting Governors' support for the federal-state employment security system as administered by the states, and outlining recommendations to ensure that the system is workable for states, workers, and employers; (5) reflecting Governors' support for public charter schools as an option within the public school system; (6) recommending preservation of the states' flexibility—as provided under the Jobs for Veterans Act—to determine how best to integrate the Local Veterans Employment Representatives program and the Disabled Veteran Outreach Program Specialists program into state employment service delivery systems; (7) with respect to state programs to prevent youth delinquency and violence: calling for the elimination of the presence of violence where children congregate, and ensuring strong punishment for those responsible for exposing young people to delinquency, drugs, and violence; (8) seeking funding for programs to assist children harmed by illegal drug activity, raising concern about the growing trend of synthetic drug abuse—including use of methamphetamine, requesting federal support to help stimulate and sustain effective substance abuse prevention/treatment and drug enforcement efforts, and recommending that more emphasis be placed on seizure and asset forfeiture of national and international drug trafficking organizations' resources; (9) affirming the state role in conducting the majority of water protection activities; (10) with respect to farm and agriculture policy: affirming Governors' support for alternative fuels and renewable energy, highlighting states' commitment to food security policies and procedures and requesting additional resources to respond to food security emergencies, and calling for expansion of conservation programs under the Farm Bill and for a requirement that participation in federal crop insurance be a prerequisite for receipt of disaster assistance; and (11) with regard to global climate change: focusing on the need for the federal government to recognize and avoid preempting state actions, and calling on the federal government to consult with states in the course of international negotiations to assess potential economic and environmental consequence of proposed international policies and measures.