The uncertain power supply last summer was inexcusable. Tonight we unveil a sweeping energy reliability plan.
S405
My recommendations will give Wisconsin the tools we need to both generate and access more power at a cheap cost.
We eliminate cumbersome and outdated reporting requirements, streamline the approval process for construction of transmission lines, and encourage construction of new generating plants to ensure an ample supply of electricity.
Our plan is comprehensive and aggressive. It protects the environment and the consumer. And it keeps Wisconsin's economy charging forward.
Nothing is ever going to turn the lights out on Wisconsin!
While reliable energy is certainly important, our biggest economic challenge is finding people for our jobs. And this requires even greater emphasis on education.
I believe in parents. More than anyone else, parents know what's best for their children and what they need to be successful.
So I want to make sure a lack of money doesn't hinder the education plans our parents make for their sons and daughters.
We pump more money into public schools than just about any state in the nation. It's time we pumped a little money into the family budget for education.
Tonight, we seek to enrich our economy by making it more affordable for parents to educate their children, whether the child is in kindergarten or a senior at the University of Wisconsin.
Our Family Education Tax Package gives parents $100 million in tax breaks to spend on the educational expenses of their children. Families would be eligible for up to a $1,500 tax break per child in kindergarten to 12th grade -- low-income families would get a refundable tax credit, while middle-income families would receive a tax deduction.
If your struggling student needs a tutor; we're going to help pay for one.
If your children need a home computer; it'll be more affordable.
And if your son or daughter wants to be a Badger, money won't stand in the way.
Our plan will give families a $3,000 per child tax deduction for tuition and expenses at any state university, technical college, private college or Minnesota reciprocity school -- a deduction equivalent to an entire year's tuition at most UW campuses.
Wisconsin has the 10th-lowest tuition in the Big Ten. We're pumping more money into financial aid. And now, this tax break will make a college education more affordable than ever in Wisconsin.
This tax package is for our parents, who work so hard to give their children the very best.
Keep our families moving forever forward toward a world-class education. Cut their taxes.
Education:
I am the Youth of Wisconsin. My dream is to go to a great school that makes learning fun and challenging so I can make my dreams come true.
The greatest challenge before our state tonight is to make sure every child in this state - whether rich or poor, suburban or urban - receives the best education in the world.
That's why we are building the world's most challenging schoolhouse of tomorrow, wiring it with the most ambitious technology capabilities in America through TEACH Wisconsin.
As we do so, we must remain dedicated to the fundamentals of education such as reading. This means literally taking a few baby steps.
New science tells us that it is never too early to begin developing the minds of our children. We should begin reading to them at birth, if not before.
Let's help families get off on the right foot toward a world-class education by giving them their child's very first book. My wife Sue Ann suggested we proposed tonight a Wisconsin First Book program, which would send the family of every newborn a Golden Book, welcoming our newest Badger and encouraging the parents to begin reading to their baby.
Educators say good reading habits start at home; now let's start them at the hospital.
Give the gift of reading to our new families.
Learning must be a continual process for our children. Our high standard of excellence applies to all our schools, not just our high schools. We must make every grade count.
Performance in the classroom - not age -- should determine whether a student moves to the next grade in school. We must worry more about our children keeping up with their friends in the classroom than on the playground.
So tonight, I propose requiring students to meet local standards on 4th- and 8th- grade tests in order to move on to the next grade. If they fail to meet these standards, we must give our students the necessary help until they succeed. But they won't be promoted until they do.
The days of social promotion must end. From now on, we only promote success in Wisconsin.
As we work to prepare world-class students, we must make sure we're preparing world-class teachers as well.
We all saw the recent national report giving the quality of our teaching a D-, the lowest in the nation. I think this grade is just plain absurd. We have some of the best teachers in the world.
Basing an entire grade for "quality of teaching" on a prescribed set of licensing standards would be like giving Mark Twain a D- on an English paper because he wrote it with the wrong color ink. Results must count for something.
While we reject the simplicity of this criticism, we must take the call for higher standards to heart and do all we can to help prepare our teachers.
Tonight, we give our teachers a chance to show the nation that they are indeed the best by helping them become certified by The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Currently, only one teacher in our state is nationally certified.
To help develop the best and the brightest for our classrooms, I am proposing that the state help pay for the cost of taking the national certification test. And when they pass it, we'll give them a $3,000 bonus.
And we're asking teachers to help us raise the bar of excellence for our classrooms by participating in a peer review and mentoring program. If we have a struggling math teacher, let's pair her with the school's best math teacher so she can improve her skills. The state will provide grants for training assistance. Teachers helping teachers raise quality in the classroom. It just makes sense.
We can't talk about education in Wisconsin, however, without taking some time to focus on Milwaukee. Nowhere is change more desperately needed than in our largest city. In recent years, we've developed some innovative programs to help raise the quality of Milwaukee's schools.
But change is not coming swift enough. Graduation rates are dropping, and the dropout rate soared to nearly 14 percent. We lost 3,400 kids last year in Milwaukee schools - that's equivalent to the entire Stoughton School District.
S406
When welfare threatened to consume a new generation of children, we pursued aggressive reforms but eventually scrapped the broken system and built a better one.
We must be prepared to do the same for Milwaukee Public Schools. The state of Wisconsin pays for 85 percent of the cost to educate the children of Milwaukee and we will not tolerate failure any longer.
MPS recently hired Dr. Alan Brown as its new superintendent and he deserves a chance to reverse this downward spiral. But it must be very clear that more of the status quo is completely unacceptable.
Tonight, we demand results from Milwaukee Public Schools. MPS must meet four standards of improvement by June 1, 2000.
MPS must improve its graduation rate to 90 percent.
It must raise its attendance rate to 91 percent.
It must cut its dropout rate to 9 percent.
And it must raise its third-grade reading performance to 90 percent of the statewide average.
If MPS fails to meet all four standards, it will be dissolved. Operation of the district will be turned over to a three-member commission appointed by the mayor of Milwaukee, the state superintendent of Public Instruction and me. The school district will be turned immediately into a full charter, giving the commission ultimate flexibility in rebuilding the schools of Milwaukee.
We also should immediately give MPS and Superintendent Brown some important tools to help them meet these standards.
Restore the ability for MPS to close failing schools and allow the superintendent to reassign staff without regard to seniority.
Restore permission for MPS to convert private schools to charter schools.
Provide $2.5 million for MPS to create after-school programs so our students remain engaged in their education and stay out of trouble.
And forgive the student loans of minority teachers who commit to educating the children of Milwaukee.
We must also stop wasting money busing our students from one part of Milwaukee to the other. We must immediately put 10 percent of our busing money toward building more neighborhood grade schools in Milwaukee.
Three years from now, I expect the nation to be touting Milwaukee as the model for revitalizing urban education in America.
There is nothing - nothing - more important to me as governor than making sure each and every child in this state gets the world-class education they deserve. We should pledge tonight that we will not lose one more generation of children in Milwaukee to poor schools.
It's time for MPS to stand and deliver or step aside.
Environment:
I am the youth of Wisconsin. My dream is to live in the most beautiful place in the world. A place with clean water to drink, green hills to hike and bountiful lakes to fish.
My friends, we live in the most beautiful state in America.
God is surely looking down upon our great state with pride at how we have cared for and nurtured the bountiful resources he bestowed upon us.
Just look at the remarkable comebacks by our wildlife. Our elk have now given birth to 11 calves and the timber wolf is no longer endangered.
With 600 nesting pairs of bald eagles, we're now sending our eaglets to other states to help with the national recovery effort. Four eaglets were sent to the National Arboretum in Washington where federal officials hope they will soar above the Nation's Capitol, just a few miles away.
Just think how long our eagles will be able to stay afloat from all the hot air that rises from that building.
We have more trees in which our eagles can nest as well. The first statewide forest survey in 14 years showed that nearly one-half of Wisconsin's total land area is forest - 15.3 million acres -- a greater percentage than when the first inventory was taken in 1936.
The growth of our forest accentuates our landmark efforts to preserve more land for public enjoyment. Most recently we bought 2,000 acres along the Menominee River, 1,400-acres of the Bill Cross Rapids and the 8,700-acre Willow Flowage, one of the largest buys in state history.
We have now preserved 200,000 acres of land since 1987, roughly equivalent to one-quarter the size of Rhode Island.
And together this past year, we passed the most far-reaching environmental initiatives in a generation.
We have worked too hard together to build this record of environmental stewardship to allow anything to threaten what we've accomplished. Many people are concerned about the proposed Crandon mine. I am the first person in this room who does not want a mine that in any way is going to harm or damage our environment - especially our great rivers.
That is why we must move beyond the rhetoric to the cold, hard facts... In the spirit of the Wisconsin Idea, UW-Madison professor Anders W. Andren will chair an independent council of five scientists from his university, UW-Milwaukee and Marquette University. These scientists bring impeccable credentials to the project as well as a sense of duty to the people of Wisconsin.
They will review the proposed mine, inside and out; evaluate every worst-case scenario; and use the very best science to determine whether this mine can be operated without harming our environment.
If this independent body determines that the mine is not safe; it will not be built - period.
Our heritage is of a people who know how to cultivate the resources without destroying our environment.
As we move forward, we can take great pride in knowing that our children and grandchildren will reap the benefits of our environmental stewardship.
Health Care:
I am the youth of Wisconsin. My dream is for every member of my family to be healthy and safe so they live long lives.
There is nothing we, the people of Wisconsin, value more than each other. Our families are the fabric of this great state, and when a family member becomes sick or dies too young, that fabric is weakened.
Therefore, we place a high priority on the health of our families in Wisconsin. And keeping our families healthy means keeping them safe from crime.
Already one of the lowest in the nation, our crime rate dropped another 5 percent last year. And it seems that criminals may be finally heeding our zero tolerance message.
Ladies and gentlemen, the number of convicts entering our prisons went down last year. Our first decline in a decade! We saw a 2.5 percent drop in our male institutions and 4.7 percent in our female.
In Wisconsin, we fight crime equally hard on the front end and the back end.
S407
Our education reforms, economic programs, central city initiatives, and anti-drug investments all aim to steer youth away from crime. And by the dropping crime rates, we can see these investments paying off.
We also work harder than any other state at making sure a criminal's first trip to prison is his last. That's why we're putting prisoners to work, to develop their skills and make them pay their way in society. We now have approval for work programs in six of our prisons - an important step toward reducing recidivism.
At our women's prison in Taycheedah, inmates are rebuilding used computers so they can be used in our schools. Three hundred computers have been sent to schools so far, but we have another 2,000 waiting to be repaired.
So we want to expand this computer recycling program to three other prisons, giving more inmates the opportunity to learn a highly valuable skill and providing more valuable computers to our schools as we expand our investments in technology.
And we must restore confidence in our criminal justice system by finally passing truth in sentencing. I introduced this reform last year with bipartisan support and can't believe it hasn't reached my desk yet.
The public is cynical of a system where a criminal is sentenced to 20 years in prison but is out in five. Truth in sentencing is plain old common sense. It abolishes parole, eliminates mandatory release and replaces time off for good behavior with more time in for bad behavior. It gives our elected judges sole authority to determine when a criminal will get out of prison.
It is beyond me why anyone would oppose such a common sense reform to a complicated justice system that is breeding cynicism in the people.
