Governor Michael O. Leavitt

President Christensen, Speaker Bishop, ladies and gentlemen . . .

It is a great pleasure for me to deliver my first state of the state address to the Legislature and to the citizens of Utah. We have a great deal of work to do together and I'm anxious to get at it!

The opening of a new legislative session reminds me of a story that might sound familiar to some of you . . . you know how I love to tell stories. When I was a boy, there was a farmer down the road from my grandfather who always seemed to have more land than he could afford and a brand new John Deere tractor. I said, "Grandpa, how can he do that?" He replied, "Mike, he's not just a farmer . . . he's a lobbyist!"

The state of our great state today is upbeat and positive. We are well positioned, recognized nationally as the best managed state, and a great place to live and do business. But we have not arrived. We are only poised -- moving along side pacesetters, prepared now to emerge as a leader among states.

In 1996, we will celebrate Utah's Centennial -- 100 years as a state. On Jan. 4, 1896, after 47 years of petitioning and 8 proposed constitutions, Utah became the 45th state in the nation. The occasion brought bell ringing and dancing in the streets. The new governor Heber M. Wells allowed his rhetoric to soar. Listen to this prose ..."In the great firmament of nations, the United States is the constellation most beautiful, most sublime. Down the stream of time, through all ages and ages, may Utah be the brightest star in that glorious constellation."

I read that to my 16-year old son, and said, "I should have said something like that." He said, "Yeah, the only thing you're remembered for is... Real and Right."

Well, if Governor Wells was here today, I would declare to him, as I do to you, that Utah is ready to become that brightest star. But getting there will require a clear agenda to prepare our citizens for a future marked by breathtaking change, uncertainty, and an explosion of technology.

Join me in adopting a Centennial Agenda. A commitment to pursue improved education, enhanced job quality, and the protection of Utah as a clean and safe place to live. As we celebrate Human Rights Day, the phrase, "I have a dream" comes to mind. We need to turn our dreams into reality.

EDUCATION

First, education.

I propose a basic change in education. Not just a new program -- far more than that. I propose a change in our philosophy, our basic approach.

Step by step, for reasons that seemed prudent at the time, two problems have occurred in our school system. First, we have drifted toward a top down system, with more and more decisions made at school districts offices, or state school boards, or even legislatures rather than neighborhood schools. Top-down systems don't encourage or even allow innovation. Teachers, parents, administrators and legislators are frustrated by it.

The second problem is a natural product of the first. Top-down systems always lose touch with outcomes, so they start measuring the process rather than results. For example, students advance based on the time they spend in class, rather than the amount they learn. Or the system sets up a certification process for teachers, rather than evaluating their abilities.

This is not just a phenomenon of schools. Businesses all over the world are re-learning that if all direction comes from the top and if jumping through the hoops is the goal--slow response and lower productivity are the result.

This is not just my conclusion. It's a concern of the education community. It resulted in your creation of the Education Strategic Planning Task Force, which has made some dramatic recommendations to change the basic culture of education.

Now it's time to act. Therefore, today I propose a daring new initiative that will transform top down into bottom up, recast our system from valuing the process to measuring the outcome. I call it the Centennial Schools Initiative. It is a framework for excellent schools, for providing our citizens with the skills they need to compete for jobs and economic security in the global, high-tech marketplace of the next century.

When the bells ring marking the beginning of our second 100 years, I want every Utah child to have had the opportunity to attend a Centennial School.

Let me explain how it will work.

This is truly a bottom-up approach. The process starts at the neighborhood school. Teachers, parents and the principal decide they want to be a Centennial School. The first step is creating a local board of directors made up of parents, teachers and others with real authority to operate the school. The school must engage in a strategic planning process to determine how the community wants to reinvent their school.

Then, perhaps the most critical point. The neighborhood school will negotiate with the elected district school board to obtain the necessary autonomy and independence to proceed with the school-based plan. The school district will then formally delegate authority to the local school. School districts need to make a powerful change in their philosophical approach . . . Give local schools real authority -- not an illusion. No one cares more about children than their parents and their teachers. Trust them!

Next, the school will submit it's strategic plan to a selection committee, which will choose the Centennial Schools. Willingness to delegate local operating authority is the key criteria.

A minimum requirement will be complete delegation of money for career ladders, education technology, and class size reduction for which the school qualifies. This puts teachers, parents and the principal in a position to make real decisions on what's best for their school, not a one size fits all formula.

But the real power of this proposal is that it allows a fresh start, and unleashes a tremendous amount of creativity at the school community level to reinvent education. We hope for and expect much diversity in the proposals. We hope for some radical ideas, for some truly innovative approaches. For example:

A school with control over its entire budget might want to contract with local businesses or even its own teachers to provide services formerly provided by the school district, allowing teachers to earn more while increasing their responsibilities.

A school community, understanding that technology can revolutionize education, might choose to increase funding for computers by eliminating costs of some extracurricular activities.

A school might want to use flexible scheduling and evening classes, so qualified students can attend college or vocational classes or accommodate apprenticeship programs.

A school might decide to emphasize foreign language study or mathematics, setting up special programs to attract students with high interest. It might hire two teacher aides instead of a new teacher, or contract with a college professor or a parent to teach some classes via video hookup.
Some ideas probably won't work, and we know that going in. Out of this experimentation and creativity will emerge models that do work, that move us toward world-class schools. It's important to note that many revolutionary ideas are already being used today in our schools . . . like the Nine High School Consortium . . a complete rethinking of how high schools should work . . . or the outcome-based program at Beaver Elementary . . . or the Jordan Technology Center -- already a national model. We need to capture these ideas of excellence and use them to cross-pollinate our entire system.

But we hope schools will go even beyond these ideas to develop Utah's schools of the future.

Schools selected will receive a base allocation of $5,000 and an additional $20 per student for training and implementation of the school's strategic plan. We anticipate enough funding to initially create up to 120 Centennial Schools. For a school with 1000 students, that's $25,000.

Let me recount a recent experience I had with a group of school administrators. After proposing these ideas in general terms, I asked for questions and comments. One participant raised her hand, shook her head, and said, "Your proposal just scares me to death."

I responded, "Well, I have an easy solution for you. Don't do it!" It's very simple. This proposal is entirely voluntary. Anyone happy with the status quo need not participate. This is not being imposed from the top down. It must emerge from the school community up.

If world-class education is your goal, if you're feeling a little adventurous, if you dare to break the mold, then let's undertake this crusade together and see what we can make of it.

By the end of the discussion, I could still detect reluctance in a few people, but in most I could see excitement and eagerness! Generally, I have found Utah educators and parents ready and anxious to innovate.

The Centennial Schools Initiative is part of a broader legislative program for our schools. In my funding proposals to be announced on Wednesday, you will see significantly increased dollar amounts for class size reduction, with an important new element -- flexibility. We will continue to focus our efforts on kindergarten through 3rd grade, but local schools should be able to use class size money as best fits their needs. I have recommended that the Tax Commission Building be added to the building bond list, freeing up millions of dollars to put computers and technology in schools under the Education Technology Initiative.

I heartily support the recommendation that funding be increased by $4 million for the very successful at-risk program, which identifies and helps students and families with difficult social needs.

The value of this program was demonstrated to me when I visited a school in northern Utah and a teacher told me of a fifth grader who came to school intoxicated every day, unable to perform even marginally. The child's parents were both alcoholics and it was apparent that school resources were inadequate to meet this student's needs. Under the at-risk program, the state's social services and other agencies went into action and helped the entire family, giving the student a chance for success. These programs are vital priorities and I hope you will support them.

Now, I recognize that some people measure our commitment to education only by the amount of dollars spent. Frankly, that's flat-world thinking. I am absolutely committed to putting every dollar possible into education. I want to pay our teachers better. I want to attract the best and the brightest to this great profession.

I am proposing the largest education budget ever. Utah is near the top in the nation in percentage of tax dollars going to education. But let me say, once again, that we will not measure our education success by our dollars, but by our results.

Education improves life quality, but our goal in creating world-class schools is not just education as an intellectual exercise. Our goal is to prepare our citizens for high-paying jobs, giving them an improved quality of life, and to build our economy through creation of an excellent workforce.

Thus it is important to extend our concern for education beyond public schools and into our job-training programs and higher education. We have much work to do in this area. While job training has typically been neglected in deference to public schools and higher education, it is in this area between high school and four-year degrees where most of our people will be prepared for the workplace.

Our universities fuel economic expansion through outstanding teaching and research. They must continue to receive our support. But, many good-paying jobs in the high-tech future will not require four-year college degrees. We need to elevate the status of vocational and applied technology training to give it equal importance with traditional four-year degree programs.

Let me use an example. In the chamber tonight, there are roughly 100 legislators. If you represented a typical population, 44 of you would have some college, but only 20 of you, roughly the front row, would be college graduates. This runs at the heart of one of our most challenging economic problems as a country. America is without peer in providing 4 year degrees. (The 20%) But we are painfully deficient by comparison to the Germans, Japanese and others in the providing technical skill training for the 80% . We are now competing with them for jobs every day and we must improve our specialized job training to do that successfully.

Presently, we have a great deal of duplication and confusion in job training. Utah has 24 separate state and federal programs administered by six different agencies, in addition to programs in public education, higher education, and the private sector. These activities must be well-coordinated.

Today I propose the Education Strategic Planning Committee, which has essentially completed its work in public education, turn its attention to developing a master plan for post-secondary education. We must broaden our vista beyond the traditional view of higher education and look for new ways to elevate and oversee the important area of job and applied technology training, consolidating the scattered job-training functions and making technical training more desirable in the eyes of students and parents.

We must do more than change organization and structure. The bigger problem here is a cultural mind-set that sees a four-year degree as the only avenue to success. That mind-set is wrong. All of our students do not need 4 year degrees--but they do need training.

A revised post-secondary system is ultimately the answer to our serious access problems in higher education. The last 10 years have seen unprecedented enrollment growth in higher education and we expect another 30,000 students by the year 2000. We must charge the Strategic Planning Committee to develop a strategy to accommodate every prepared student in some type of postsecondary training. We can solve the access problem, and I am willing to recommend more money to incrementally close the gap between the number of students and the slots available. But more money must be coupled with a re-thinking of the way higher education does business. More money is not the entire solution.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Now let's talk about how education and job training are linked to a strong economy. A strong education system is not just about smart people. It's about people being trained for jobs that support families, so our young people can find jobs at home. How do we create a business climate that provides meaningful, high paying jobs?

A number of years ago I attended a football game. The stadium was only half full and our team lost badly. The next day I read a newspaper column by a sports writer who had attended the same game. He asked an interesting question: "How do you fill a football stadium?" He suggested a number of ways. You can use gimmicks. You can lower your ticket prices. You can give away incentives, like free posters or wrist bands. You can put on great half-time shows. But he said it was his experience that when it comes to filling football stadiums, "there's no gimmick like winning".

The same is true in economic development and job creation. Gimmicks may lure a business or two . . . but the only way to really keep our economy strong is to create a business climate where businesses can win -- can be profitable. I am committed to seeing that Utah offers a healthy business climate -- a climate with a reasonable regulatory structure, competitive utility rates, low taxes, affordable housing, a trained workforce, an excellent quality of life, and necessary infrastructure.

There are three more important elements in creating the proper infrastructure and business climate so businesses can create jobs for our citizens.

The first is small business financing and capital. I propose the creation of a Capital Formation Task Force to create an action plan for attracting investment for small businesses. This will become a major help for promising businesses needing start-up capital.

Second, I will create a task force to develop an electronic highway master plan. As I mentioned in my inaugural speech, Utah must not be bypassed by the electronic highway. We must build the technological infrastructure to be successful in the high-tech, global marketplace we now compete in.

Third, health care. A solution to our health care crisis is important for our business climate, but it is also basic to our life quality in Utah. This is a matter I have given a great deal of thought. I have reached the conclusion that it is a challenge of such proportion and complexity that the traditional public policy mechanism cannot solve it. But it must be dealt with. Within the next few weeks I will advance a proposal to this body. Not a prescribed solution, but a process that I believe will provide an answer.

Quality of life also means balancing environmental preservation with economic progress. Just last week I announced my opposition to the placement of high-level nuclear waste anywhere in Utah. We must continue our vigilance in not allowing Utah to become a national sacrifice area and we must protect our state's great environment. But we must also provide help for our rural economies. To reach that balance between jobs and the environment, we are proposing in this session enterprise zone legislation that will offer proper incentives for existing rural businesses and those who would relocate to rural Utah to provide badly needed jobs.

Now . . . these are all life quality issues for someone.

Like the young man I met last month named David. David and his mom were meeting with a counselor to continue their Aid to Families with Dependent Children. He was kind enough to let me sit in on the hour-long interview.

Through the interview, I learned that life has been hard to David. At the age of 16, he has dropped out of high school twice. He showed aptitude in math classes, but said he got frustrated by the rote exercises that were required, even after he knew the subject matter. He finally got fed up and quit. His dad hasn't been there to support his family financially. His mom has health problems, and has difficulty holding a job.

With all these problems, what do David and his mother want? A continued handout from government? NO. David and his mom desperately want to become self sufficient and they are taking steps to do so. It's a life quality issue for them.

It's people like the young father I met in Spanish Fork who wants to stay in Utah, but needs a job to support his wife and two-year-old daughter. That's life quality to them.

It's about the single mother who moved back from California to get her teenage son away from drug-infested schools. That's life quality for them.

It's the employer looking for a place to do business where he can operate without undue government interference. That's life quality for him and his employees.

Please join me in building Centennial schools, in creating job training opportunities for every citizen, in building a strong economy that provides jobs and enables us to maintain our quality of life and support our needy. We can be a leader among states. We can, even as Heber Wells said, be the brightest star in the glorious constellation.