The National Governors Association (NGA) Center for Best Practices, in partnership with ACT, the nonprofit learning, measurement and navigation organization behind the ACT® test, is releasing its initial 10 one-page profiles detailing the educational priorities and plans of the nation’s governors, along with statistics that provide a snapshot of education in each state.
The one-pagers, which can be found at education.nga.org, were developed through a months-long project by NGA’s Education Division that examined the top education priorities of gubernatorial candidates in the 2018 midterm elections. The Gubernatorial Candidate Education Priority Monitoring project found that public education remains an important focus for most of the nation’s governors, who are increasingly framing education in terms of workforce development.
“Whether the issue is school funding, career and technical education, expanding early education programs or school safety, public education very much remains on the minds of governors, many of whom are developing and implementing solutions to the challenges of educational equity and access, as well as a well-educated workforce,” said Seth Gerson, who oversaw the project as a program director in the Education Division of the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices. “The one-page documents we’re releasing today provide a brief, yet contextual and data-rich, overview of each governor’s positions on the major education issues in his or her state. We are proud to have partnered with ACT on this first-of-its-kind project, which is part of our commitment to sharing policy best practices across states.”
“As we move into 2019, the NGA Center’s analysis indicates that the nation has a strong class of education governors,” said R. Kirk Jonas, director of the NGA’s Center for Best Practices. “We look forward to working with them as they advance their priorities.”
“This initiative will shed light on the most pressing educational issues facing our nation and how specific states and governors are tackling them,” said Scott Montgomery, senior vice president of ACT State & Federal Programs. “Just as ACT developed a series of Policy Platforms as a basis for promoting education and workplace success, we believe these profiles provide a starting point for policymakers to discuss problems, strengths and solutions and share best practices across states to improve college and career readiness for all.”
The NGA Center for Best Practices plans to release one-page documents spelling out the educational priorities of the governors of all 50 states. Following today’s rollout, the NGA will post subsequent documents on the website over the next few months.
