Mark Warner - U.S. Senate

Quality public education is at the heart of Virginia’s success. From his successful career in business, Governor Mark Warner recognized that improving and investing in public education would prove critical to helping the Commonwealth emerge from tough times stronger than ever.

Despite enormous fiscal pressures, Governor Warner successfully fought to protect state support for Virginia’s public schools. For instance, in 2002 and 2003, spending on K-12 education actually increased by more than $100 million. And in 2004, Governor Warner won approval of the single largest increase in K-12 spending in Virginia history as part of historic budget reform legislation – an increase of almost $1.5 billion.

Virginia’s higher education institutions also ended an era of chronic under-funding by the state, and saw large increases in state support, as a result of budget reform. The Chronicle of Higher Education cited it as the second largest increase in college and university funding in the nation. Additionally, in 2005, Governor Warner proposed an unprecedented new $252 million state commitment to research and development.

The Warner administration’s record on education is, of course, about more than expanding public education investment at a time of extraordinary fiscal pressures. During his term, Governor Warner never wavered in his commitment to standards and accountability, and he brought the same zeal for reform and innovation in education that he brought to other areas of state government – including instituting a voluntary Efficiency Review program to audit school system budgets for potential savings on non-classroom spending.

His program of innovative reforms from pre-school through grad school and beyond was called “Education for a Lifetime.” Over the course of the Warner administration, the percentage of fully accredited public schools increased from 40% to 92%. Virginia students posted the highest math SAT score increase in the nation, and Virginia was recognized as a leader in areas ranging from high school reform to school efficiency.

The high school reforms at the heart of Education for a Lifetime served as the basis for a national reform movement, Redesigning the American High School, which Governor Warner led as chairman of the National Governors Association in 2005.

School Efficiency Reviews

In the fall of 2003, Governor Warner launched a pilot program to increase the efficiency of local school systems, ensuring that as many dollars as possible were dedicated to classroom instruction. Auditors were deployed from the state’s Department of Planning and Budget to willing school districts to make recommendations on how savings could be achieved in the administrative portions of the budget – from the management of bus fleets to energy efficiency.

By the time the Governor left office, the state had conducted reviews in nine school divisions, identifying almost $10 million in annual savings – eight dollars in savings for each dollar spent on the reviews. Eighteen more reviews were completed in 2006 and 2007 using private sector consultants with oversight and review provided by state auditors. To date, these school efficiency reviews have identified more than $23 million in recommended savings.

Early Childhood Education

Recognizing the critical link between early childhood and lifelong learning, the Warner administration was guided by the vision that every child should enter kindergarten healthy and ready to succeed. Governor Warner’s Early Learning Council developed recommendations to enhance opportunities for early childhood learning, including the creation of a public-private partnership to enhance public awareness of early childhood services.

The Governor’s Education for a Lifetime initiative strengthened childcare regulations and granted $1.5 million for community partnerships to improve early childhood readiness and professional development for childcare providers. In addition, the Governor focused on boosting enrollment in the Virginia Preschool Initiative, which distributes state funds to schools and community-based organizations to provide quality preschool programs for at-risk four-year olds not served by Head Start. During the Governor’s term, the state doubled the number of kids enrolled in that initiative.

Partnership for Achieving Successful Schools (PASS)

Launched in the summer of 2002, the PASS initiative started with the premise that every school could succeed if given the right tools. The PASS program broke down the competitive barriers between school divisions, and enlisted the private sector in the work of improving achievement for children in low-performing schools. In its first four years, the program raised student achievement in low-performing schools by creating partnerships between schools, communities, businesses, and faith-based groups. It brought the resources of the private sector, and the expertise of Virginia’s best schools to schools at the greatest risk of failure.

PASS initially included 32 schools that consistently had failed to meet Virginia’s accreditation standards and faced federal school improvement sanctions under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). As a result of PASS, 18 of the original PASS schools – the most challenged – became fully accredited. By 2004, 14 of the 32 original PASS schools “graduated” from the program by meeting (NCLB) benchmarks for increased achievement in reading and mathematics for two consecutive years.

Project Graduation

Project Graduation was launched to prepare high school students in danger of not passing standardized tests that would become requirements for – or barriers to – graduation in 2004 – the first accountability deadline in Virginia’s Standards of Learning program. Project Graduation provided remedial instruction in reading, writing, and algebra and enabled 4,817 members of the high school classes of 2004 and 2005 to meet the Commonwealth’s rigorous diploma standards.

The success of Project Graduation was essential in sustaining support for Virginia’s standards-based reform during a critical period. Unlike other states, Virginia did not back away from rigorous graduation requirements. In 2005, the first year that these standards had a direct impact on whether or not a student graduated, 94.6% of 12th grade students earned a diploma – virtually unchanged from prior years.

Senior Year Plus: Reforming Virginia High Schools

Whether headed to college or straight into the workforce, high school seniors often “check out” in the final year of school. Senior Year Plus, the high school component of Education for a Lifetime, bridged the gap between secondary and post-secondary education and training, while offering new opportunities for students to get a jump on their college education or career. The two major components of the Senior Year Plus initiative were the Early College Scholars Program and the Path to Industry Certification for students headed directly into the workforce

Early College Scholars The Early College Scholars program enabled students in their junior or senior years to complete their high school diploma and concurrently earn a semester’s worth of transferable credits (15 credit hours) that could be used towards a college degree. Participating students agreed to maintain at least a “B” average, complete the requirements for an Advanced Studies Diploma, and earn at least 15 college credits before graduation.

Virginia high schools report that a total of 28,279 students signed Early College Scholars agreements during the 2004-2005 school year. 6,718 students in the class of 2004 and 6,177 students in the class of 2005 earned the Early College Scholars distinction.

The program has a direct financial benefit, too, saving students the average $5,000 cost of a semester of college instruction.

Virtual AP Courses

Making college level courses available in every Virginia high school required making more Advanced Placement courses available through satellite and online means, as well as forming new partnerships with community colleges. The Virtual AP courses had a dramatic impact even for students not pursuing the Early College Scholars designation.

The Virtual AP School began in 2004 as an expansion of the Virginia Satellite Educational Network, and ensured that students in all Virginia high schools had access to a variety of AP courses that count for college degree credit.

More than 600 students completed courses through Virtual AP during the 2004-2005 school year. The number of Virginia public school students taking at least one AP examination has increased by more than 26 percent since 2002. The number of African-American and Hispanic students taking at least one AP examination increased dramatically as well. Since 2002, participation by black students increased by 35 percent, and it increased by 50% for Hispanic students.

High school students who aren’t headed to college but have identified a career can dramatically boost their earning power with an industry certification in such fields as nursing, computer support and building trades. Under Governor Warner’s leadership, the Commonwealth offered to pay for a semester at a Virginia community college or other state-approved training providers if a student was on track toward that career and earned a Standard or Advanced Studies diploma. The Governor also created a Career Readiness Certificate, which informs all employers that the Certificate holder has reached an employer-recognized level of workforce literacy. Basic skills included reading, math, writing, and locating information.

When the Virginia Department of Education began identifying industry credentials in 2002, only 22 percent of Virginia students were enrolled in courses with the potential for achieving an industry credential. In 2006, 98 percent of career and technical education courses offered training for one or more industry credentials, and more than 7,700 credentials were awarded to career and technical education teachers between 2004 and 2007. During the 2006 – 2007 school year, 13,325 Virginia students earned industry certification or state licensure.

Teacher Retention and Recruitment

Education for a Lifetime initiatives on teacher quality, retention, and recruitment have expanded the pool of qualified applicants for teaching jobs. The programs have also reduced turnover through incentives for experienced educators and mentoring for teachers new to the profession. These efforts were funded through Governor Warner’s $13.5 million Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant, federal No Child Left Behind funds, as well as other funds for teacher mentoring programs to assist schools designated as hard-to-staff.

• A pilot program providing incentives in hard-to-staff middle and high schools in Caroline County and Franklin City reduced vacancies and turnover in two school divisions with historic difficulties recruiting and retaining highly qualified teachers. The program paid bonuses of $15,000 to highly qualified teachers who relocated to a hard-to-staff school and agreed to teach for at least three years. It paid $3,000 bonuses to highly qualified teachers who stayed in these schools. Caroline County showed exceptional results, with teacher turnover in the participating schools cut 50 percent. Incentives offered through the pilot program also enabled the small rural school division to hire five highly qualified teachers. The Warner administration also funded a third program in Petersburg.
• Six school divisions and regional groups representing 26 other districts also piloted mentoring programs designed to reduce attrition among new teachers.
• The Virginia Middle School Teacher Corps directs highly qualified mathematics teachers in middle schools with low student achievement in mathematics. By 2006, 25 teachers had been placed or were in the process.

School Leadership

The turnaround specialist program is a leadership program designed to develop a cadre of principals trained to “turn around” consistently low-performing schools. The program uses tried-and-true business principles of turning around failing businesses, and uses top faculty from two top-ranked Virginia graduate schools: the University of Virginia’s Curry Schools of Education, and Darden Graduate School of Business Administration.

The turnaround specialist program trained two groups of 10 principals in 20 schools. Seven of the 10 schools led by principals in the first group of specialists trained by the University of Virginia partnership for leaders in education met all achievement benchmarks for 2005 under NCLB, and four of the ten schools became fully accredited.

This innovative program launched by Governor Warner has gained national attention. In July of 2006, the program included 25 turnaround specialists from Chicago, Philadelphia, and Broward County, Florida, in addition to participants from Virginia. A fourth cohort of turnaround specialist principals entered the program in the summer of 2007, including participants from Louisiana and Indian schools in North and South Dakota.

Race to GED

More than 700,000 working-age Virginians do not have a General Educational Development (GED) certificate or high school diploma. Having one of the two can more than double a worker’s income.

The Governor established the Race to GED program, which allowed men and women to earn a GED certificate in much less time than in traditional programs. A major marketing effort in partnership with NASCAR and NASCAR racing teams urged workers to “accelerate” their earnings and created “Fast Track GED” programs – intensive, three-to-four month GED training programs.

Between the time Race to GED was created and the end of the Governor’s term, 35,000 Virginians obtained a GED certificate, an increase of 28 percent.

Middle College

In 2003, the Warner administration also launched Middle College in the state’s community college system. The program serves as a jumpstart to education for young adults without a high school degree, allowing them to increase their income and employability. The program allows students, age 18 to 24, to pursue the GED, a community college degree, and a workforce certification simultaneously – and all in a college environment.

Currently, Middle College programs are offered at J. Sargeant Reynolds, Danville, Germanna, New River, and Southside community colleges. In the first two years, 89% of the students completed a GED, and 76% of these students enrolled in a degree-seeking or certificate program.

Strengthening Virginia’s Colleges and Universities

The Commonwealth’s institutions of higher education are consistently ranked as among the best in the nation. Public investments in higher education have helped fuel economic growth and have contributed to the Commonwealth’s rich cultural life.

As Governor, Mark Warner understood this, and he took bold steps to revitalize Virginia’s commitment to higher education – commitment that had been questioned as state support declined as an overall percentage of institutional budgets. The 2004 budget reform success included $262 million in additional funding for higher education, the second largest increase in the nation that year.

In addition, Governor Warner shifted the focus in higher education from enrollment to the actual number of degrees awarded. The number of degrees conferred increased each year under Governor Warner’s administration, growing from 46,963 in 2002 to 55,033 in 2006, an increase of 8,070 in a year-to-year comparison.

Higher Education Bond Referendum

One of the Governor’s first educational achievements was to win voter approval in 2002 of a long-overdue bond referendum to support capital projects on Virginia’s college campuses. This $900 million bond issue addressed the most pressing construction and renovation needs at Virginia’s four-year institutions and community colleges. At the time of its passage, it was estimated that the bond issue would create 14,000 new jobs and generate $1.5 billion in economic activity. Most importantly, it would make Virginia’s institutions of higher education more efficient, productive and attractive to generations of scholars.

Higher Education Board Appointments

Early in 2002, Governor Warner created a commission to review candidates for appointment to Virginia’s university governing boards. The commission helped to ensure that merit – and not political connections or ideological tests – were the chief criterion for appointment to college and university boards. The move helped to reverse the undue politicization of board appointments that had grown sharply during the administration of the Governor’s predecessors. In 2005, the General Assembly made the commission a requirement under state law.

Strengthening the Commitment to University Research

To remain competitive in a rapidly changing economy, states have had to increase investment in scientific research and development. Such investments help attract the nation’s top scholars, make a region more attractive to new and expanding industries, and improve quality of life.

Thanks to passage of Governor Warner’s 2004 budget reforms, the Commonwealth increased research expenditures at public institutions of higher education from $517 million to $717 million during his term, an increase of 38 percent. In his final budget to the General Assembly, Governor Warner proposed an historic new $255 million investment in university-based research and development. Because this new state funding required matching funds from university sources, the total value of the investment exceeds $500 million. Funds included in the initiative were applied to the most promising areas of research at leading institutions.