As many of you know, Tonette and I still have a son at Wauwatosa East High School. Like many parents, we looked at the score for Alex's school. In fact, our district actually put the scores for all of their schools right on the front of their recent newsletter. That tells me we were able to develop a transparent and objective system for measuring performance in education.
In our budget, we will lay out plans to provide a financial incentive for high-performing and rapidly improving schools. We want to reward and replicate success—all across the state.
At the same time, we will outline a plan to help failing schools fundamentally change their structure and dramatically improve their results. Our goal is to help each school excel, so every child in the state has access to a great education.
As a parent, it really is a moral imperative. As the governor, it is also an economic imperative. If we want to help employers grow here in Wisconsin, we must show them there is a steady supply of graduates with the skills needed to fill the jobs—not only of today—but of tomorrow.
We worked hard over the past year to improve education, particularly in reading. Funds in my last budget provided reading screeners to assess kids as they come into kindergarten.
This is tremendously important as research shows kids learn to read through third grade and then read to learn for the rest of their lives. We also put in place a series of other important reforms to improve our early childhood and elementary school reading skills.
One other great way to help improve reading skills is by increasing the number of people who read to our kids. Last year, I challenged all of us to mentor a child as a reading buddy.
I know we all cherish those times when we could read to our young children. With those days in my past, I partnered with a school in Milwaukee to read with a third grader. Stacy and her family are with us here tonight. Stacy continues to do a super job. At the start of this school year, I paired up with another third grader. Angelo and his mother are also here tonight.
Again this year, I challenge each of you to join with me and find some time to mentor a student in reading.
Every child should have access to a great education. We continue to expand the number of choices for families in Wisconsin—be it a traditional, a charter, a voucher, a virtual, or a home school environment. Moving forward, we want to continue to dramatically improve existing schools and give parents the opportunity to choose legitimate alternatives to failing schools.
In addition to transforming education, we must continue to reform government. Take the Waste, Fraud, and Abuse Commission, for example. So far, they have identified nearly $456 million worth of savings. Our reforms allow state government to focus on efficiency, so taxpayers get great service without needless spending and waste.
Our reforms also gave schools and local governments flexibility to make management choices to improve their communities, while saving money. For example, our technical schools are saving millions of dollars by making simple, common sense changes to instructor schedules and overtime policies. In Racine County, they are saving money with a program that allows non-violent jail inmates to do maintenance work, like mowing grass and shoveling snow.
And much of the work being done to save taxpayers money is about finding creative solutions to problems faced by the state.
Several years ago, the previous governor closed welcome centers. As a candidate, I highlighted the importance of the tourism industry and pledged to reopen these centers.
Tonight, I’m happy to report that there are now eight Travel Wisconsin Welcome Centers staffed with people that direct visitors to the many exciting attractions all across our great state. The Department of Tourism worked with the Department of Transportation and local chambers and visitors bureaus to form a tremendous partnership that protects state taxpayers in this effort.
With me tonight are a number of our dynamic Travel Wisconsin greeters, who provide a warm welcome to all of our visitors.
It's no wonder tourism has grown to a $16 billion industry, supporting one in thirteen jobs in our state.
Tourism is one of the many industries that benefit from a strong infrastructure system. We need to continue to invest in it to keep people working in Wisconsin.
With this in mind, I am committed to a healthy transportation system that includes roads, bridges, freight rail, ports, and airports. Whether it is traveling to a tourism destination or taking product to and from market, so many of our key industries—manufacturing, dairy products, timber and paper products, cranberries, vegetables, grain, sand—and soon, iron ore mining; so many of these industries depend on our strong transportation backbone.
They need it to keep their competitive edge. The MillerCoors Brewery in Milwaukee is a good example. The plant manager told us that MillerCoors is in a hyper-competitive industry. Every day, they are looking to find any competitive advantage to see who can get a cold beer on a bar in Madison, Green Bay, or even Chicago the fastest. If beer trucks are tied up in the Zoo Interchange, the MillerCoors Brewery here in Wisconsin is at a disadvantage.
In a similar way, a dairy farmer from Independence or a lumber company from Antigo or a crop farmer from Dodgeville or a dock worker from Superior all have a competitive advantage, if we have a good transportation system. That’s why I am committed to improving our infrastructure.
In addition to investments in our transportation system, we need to ensure access to cost-effective and reliable sources of power, preserve our clean water advantage, improve availability of high-speed Internet connections and support our quality health care in Wisconsin.
Tonight, I invite all of you here, and all of you watching at home, to join us as we continue to move our great state forward.
Next month, I will lay out a clear plan for how to achieve these priorities when I present our biennial budget to the State Legislature. Unlike the deficit we faced two years ago, we start out in a much better position today because of the tough, but important, decisions we made over the past two years.
In many ways, our position in Wisconsin is a stark contrast to the chaos in Washington, DC. While many of our nation's leaders fail to make tough decisions, we decided to avoid failure by embracing true reform.
Still, there is much work to be done.
As I travel the state, it is clear to me why our focus on helping create 250,000 jobs by 2015 is about much more than just fulfilling a campaign promise.
Simply put, it is about helping improve the lives of 250,000 more families in Wisconsin.
You see, adding a new job is about more than just a number. Every time another job is created, and a new employee is hired, it means that another family has someone working in their household. For many, that means fewer worries about putting bread on the table or clothes on the backs of their kids—or even making the mortgage payment on the house.
I will work hard each and every day, so we can help people all across Wisconsin have the chance to have a job, and work hard to support themselves and their families for generations to come.
With bold vision and bright hope for the future, we are turning things around. We are heading in the right direction. We are moving Wisconsin forward.
Thank you, may God bless you, and may God bless the great State of Wisconsin.”
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Adjournment
The Joint Convention arose.
7:37 P.M.
