SJ96030

Working with me, the new majority in the Legislature broke a 148-year cycle of annual, oppressive property tax increases.

We promised relief. We delivered relief.

Of course, our job is not over. It never will be.

Maintaining 2/3rds funding of our schools will continue to be the greatest fiscal challenge we face. The next budget won't be easy, nor will the one after that.

But the State Assembly today made a major downpayment on continued property tax relief by passing a bipartisan bill, authored by Rep. Mike Powers, creating a property tax relief account endowed by a $210 million surplus.

A surplus made possible solely because state government is spending less and managing better.

Taxpayers can spend their money more wisely than government can.. any day. And taxpayers will spend it on what truly matters in their lives: An education for their children....A bigger home...A more comfortable retirement.

A few months ago, taxpayers were being told a budget deficit was looming and we could never maintain our commitment to lower property taxes.

Today we have a surplus. There is no deficit. The budget will be balanced. We will keep our promise to fund 2/3rds the cost of education.

Wisconsin Works because we keep our promises. We deliver for the people of this state.

(Children and Families)

I want to take a few minutes to talk about what we all cherish -- our children and families. We know that the stronger our families, the stronger our communities, the stronger our state.

That is why we are working to strengthen our families -- as well as build new ones -- through several initiatives

We have thousands of parents waiting to adopt and thousands of children waiting to be adopted. We must do a better job of matching the children with the parents.

Adoption should be easier and more affordable.

Tonight, we have children in our Milwaukee foster care system dreaming of a new home with loving parents...Tomorrow, we're putting together a team of adoption experts to make the dreams of 100 more children come true this year. We're going to find them a new home and a loving family.

And a bipartisan bill proposed by Rep. Sheryl Albers will make adoption more affordable by providing a tax benefit for certain adoption expenses.

Unfortunately, there are parents who are not providing their children a loving home.

We are working with Sen. Huelsman and Rep. Krug on bipartisan legislation to strengthen the children's code so we can better protect these children. Nothing makes me more angry as governor and as a parent than to know our laws don't require termination of parental rights even when a parent has abandoned a newborn in a garbage dumpster.

We must do a better job of protecting our children from abuse and neglect.

Studies show that about 40 percent of American children will go to sleep tonight in homes without a father present. As a result, these children are more likely to be poor, drop out of school and become teen parents.

Our new Fatherhood Initiative will help dads become more involved in caring for their children. On a one-on-one basis, this program will teach fathers parenting skills....nutrition...appropriate play for appropriate ages...and how to bond with their children.

We're also continuing to make sure fathers meet their financial responsibilities. It is a national disgrace that $34 billion in child support goes unpaid to mothers and children in this country. Even though Wisconsin is one of the best states at collecting child support, we're getting even tougher on the scofflaws who abandon their children and expect taxpayers to pay for them.

This spring, we'll release our first Ten Most Wanted poster featuring parents who owe the most child support. This is one poster nobody wants to be on.

Wisconsin works by making sure our children are properly cared for.

(Crime)

We owe it to our families to provide safe neighborhoods where they can live and play without fear. Our zero tolerance for violent crime in Wisconsin is working. We're winning many battles, although we're still waging the war on crime.

FBI statistics show that we have the six safest cities in the entire United States: Wausau, Eau Claire, Appleton, Oshkosh, Neenah and Sheboygan. And Madison is the third safest among the nation's 100 largest cities.

We can never be too bold when it comes to fighting crime. Tonight, I am offering a nine-point Family Security Package to further protect our children and families.

S567 We will have a new victim information system at the Department of Corrections. This Victim Security Card puts the status of criminals in the hands of their victims.....Court dates. Sentencing. Prison Location. Release Date... The victim will know it all. And will never have to wonder when the criminal gets out or where he or she is. We need to start worrying more about protecting our families than about the confidentiality of convicted criminals.

We're also making it easier for law enforcement agencies throughout the state to keep tabs on criminals. At the request of the Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Association and Sen. Gary Drzewiecki, we are making available the Mobil Data Terminal System. This new technology will connect officers in the field to a common information system, giving them instant access to criminal data.

We are forwarding legislation to make it illegal to harbor a runaway. A runaway child is the worst nightmare of any parent, and we must do what we can to keep these children safe.

Gangs are becoming a growing problem across our state. We struck a blow against gang crime recently when we toughened our laws so gang members can no longer hide behind their birthdays and be coddled by a weak juvenile justice system.

Tonight, we are giving our local law enforcement agencies even more help. We are creating an Office of Gang Intervention in the Division of Youth Services, helping coordinate information on gang activity in the state as well as efforts to combat gang crime.

Statistics show that 50 percent of violent sexual offenders commit more sex crimes once released from prison untreated. That's why we joined together to pass a groundbreaking sexual predator law, which we've already used to keep 87 predators off our streets after their sentences expired. By keeping these predators institutionalized, we've prevented an untold number of sexual attacks on law-abiding citizens. Tonight, I am proposing construction of a new sexual predator facility ...because we plan to use this law a lot more in the future.

Prisons work. They keep violent people from harming good people. It's that simple. So tonight I am committing to build a SuperMax prison. If we don't get federal funding, we must build it ourselves. And once this plain, stark and austere facility is built, that's where Wisconsin's most vicious criminals will go. The SuperMax will be a criminal's worst nightmare.

We're putting prisoners to work, both inside our prison walls and alongside our roadways. Next month, I will announce the first three companies that will come into our prisons and put inmates to work in activities no other workers want. No more sitting around. Prisoners are going to start working. And they're going to help pay their keep.

And to the extent possible under the constitution, we are banning pornographic materials from our prisons and removing all movies. Prisoners won't have time for these things anyway. They'll be too busy working.

Finally, our law enforcement officers are doing a courageous job of capturing criminals. And once imprisoned, they should stay that way. To that end, we have followed up on an idea by Speaker Prosser and Senator Zien.

We have talked with Texas corrections officials. They have room for our prisoners. They have agreed to take them. And we're working out the details.

If keeping criminals off our streets means sending our prisoners to Texas -- bye, bye.....they're going South.

When it comes to keeping our neighborhoods safe for families and protecting our law-abiding citizens, Wisconsin works.

Education Reform

Along with making our children safer, we're working to make sure they receive an education that will help them succeed as adults.

Wisconsin has one of the finest public education systems in the country. In most of our school districts, we have top-flight educators and parents who care about their children's learning.

And we've accomplished proud achievements in our schools:

Our pioneering school-to-work program is making education relevant to more of our students and preparing them for the workforce. In fact, Milwaukee Public Schools just credited the school-to-work program for three straight years of decline in its dropout rate. And statewide, our dropout rate is the lowest in 10 years.

But we must do more to make this program work in all our communities. Therefore, I am naming former Superintendent of Public Instruction Bert Grover as Special Assistant to the Governor for School-To-Work. Dr. Grover will make sure school-to-work becomes an even more effective part of every school in the state.

Another success is our charter school law, which is giving every school district in the state the opportunity to explore new ways of teaching and learning.

And our school choice initiatives are giving low-income parents in Milwaukee the opportunity to make sure their children receive the best education possible.

But we must ask ourselves: Is being good ... good enough?

Is it good enough to rank high against other states when we're sending our students out to compete in the global marketplace?

Is it good enough to have the nation's highest college entrance test scores and one of the best university systems in the nation when 70% of our students won't graduate from a four-year college or university?

Is it good enough to have strong suburban schools when many of our urban schools are facing unprecedented challenges to learning?

It may be good enough for some, but it's not good enough for Wisconsin.

So tonight I am setting forth a bold new set of initiatives in our ongoing effort to build a worldclass system of education in Wisconsin. A system based on choice, academic achievement and technology.

We begin by giving students and parents even more choices in education; choice must be at the core of any reform.

Most of the jobs that will be created in Wisconsin in the next 10 years will be technical in nature. Our employers already have an acute and growing need for workers with strong technical skills.

Tonight, I am proposing an ambitious pilot program to allow high school students who meet basic academic requirements to complete their junior and senior years at a technical college. These students will receive their high school diploma from that technical school.

We will give students the choice to immerse themselves in a technical college field of study and graduate with a marketable skill for the workplace or a head start on additional education.

We're working with several technical college and K-12 districts on this innovation right now.

Along with giving parents more options, we must also demand that our schools are accountable for their performance and our students are held to high standards of academic achievement.

S568 Every year in Wisconsin, we graduate about 48,000 high schoolers, without really knowing what they've learned. We put them in robes, hold grand graduation ceremonies, play "Pomp and Circumstance." Yet the only thing we are guaranteeing is that they completed at least a minimum number of high school courses. We know how long they sat in their seats, but we don't know what went into their heads.

Tonight, we begin making a high school diploma in Wisconsin a ticket to opportunity instead of just a keepsake.

Beginning in the year 2000, every student in this state must pass a graduation exam in order to receive a high school diploma.

The standards for the graduation exam will be set by each school district, working together with parents, teachers and employers.

Now let me make something absolutely clear from the start: I'm not talking about outcome-based education or some politically correct cultural standards, such as measuring some kid's cognitive diversity conflict management skills.

I am talking about solid, purely academic standards in core subject areas.

If you can't read and write....If you can't calculate...If you don't know the difference between Elroy and Argentina. You're not going to get a diploma in the state of Wisconsin. Period.

And if a school district is failing to teach those skills, the taxpayers and parents deserve to know about it.

It's called accountability.

I am asking the Governor's Task Force on Education and Learning, chaired by businessman and education pioneer Carl Weigel, to develop a process for communities to set local graduation standards.

And I applaud the courage and vision of former Superintendent Howard Fuller and current Superintendent Bob Jasna for already setting a graduation standard for math achievement in the Milwaukee schools.

The Class of the Year 2000 will be setting the standard for a new century. We owe them, and those who follow, the guarantee of an education that will help them lead productive, happy lives in the next millennium.

Our partner in achieving higher academic performance in our schools is technology.

In the time since we joined together to pass a landmark telecommunications bill, technology has advanced further than anybody predicted.

Distance learning is erasing school district boundaries....Students in Bowler and Marion, for example, are taking advanced placement psychology from a teacher in Clintonville. UW-Eau Claire is teaching English composition to high school seniors at Altoona and Cadott. And 9,000 registered nurses from all across the state can now pursue bachelor's degrees from 5 UW schools -- without ever stepping foot on those campuses.

Tonight, I am asking the UW System to reach three goals that will allow high school students to take greater advantage of new technology:

First, make additional UW courses available for high school students over the Internet. Second, establish a network for students and faculty on all 26 campuses to share interactive video and computer-based instructional materials. And third, give all high school students access to the UW System libraries as well as the Library of Congress. This will give students access to all the great libraries of the world...And never again will a student be able to say to a teacher: "The book is not in the library."

I am also asking the Educational Technologies Board and the Wisconsin Advanced Telecommunications Foundation to make sure that at least half of all Wisconsin public high schools are on the Internet by this fall, with the remainder on line by the fall of 1997.

By working together, we will become the first state in the nation to have all its high schools, technical colleges and universities connected via the Internet.

Also, UW System President Katherine Lyall is spearheading an effort to form a Student Information System available to every student in Wisconsin...

Finally, I'm proud to announce that high school students will be able to apply for admission to all UW and technical colleges over the Internet, beginning in 1997.

These are all bold initiatives. I have already discussed many of these ideas with Superintendent Benson and representatives of the teachers union, school boards and other education groups -- with the hope that we can pursue them together -- as partners.

We've never been afraid to set a new course in Wisconsin. Simply being good has never been good enough. That's why Wisconsin Works.

W-2

For nine years, we have been working to end welfare in Wisconsin. Tonight, we stand on the precipice of doing just that with our Wisconsin Works program, more commonly known as W-2.

With W-2, we're not just ending welfare as we know it. We're ending welfare. Period.

We are done experimenting. We're replacing the welfare check with a paycheck, creating an entirely new system for helping families in trouble.