Gov. Janet Napolitano receives a warm welcome from NAU President John Haeger at last week's meeting of the P-20 Council. Photos by Melissa Grimes

Governor urges improvements
to state education system

Gov. Janet Napolitano brought a message of urgency to Northern Arizona University's Flagstaff campus last week, appealing to educational leaders from across the state to put the "pedal to put the metal" and improve Arizona's student performance.

Napolitano met Friday with members of
her P-20 Council, which includes NAU President John Haeger and representatives from the Arizona Board of Regents, community college presidents and members of the state Board of Education.

"We have a million children to educate, and they all deserve the right not only to quality education but the right to empowerment and to go on to succeed," Napolitano told about 100 people at a luncheon in Ashurst Auditorium. "We need to create a sense of urgency in this state—put the pedal to the metal. It's too easy to become complacent."

The P-20 Council is a governor-appointed group that includes representatives from all levels of education, from preschool through graduate college. Its goal is to improve education in Arizona as well as to ensure more students graduate from high school, succeed in college and are ready for the workforce.

Napolitano said the state must get away from its "woe is me" feeling, demonstrated by low rankings in virtually all measures of achievement. "Kids need higher expectations," she said.

"The governor has proved herself time and again to be the 'education governor,'" Haeger said after her talk. "With the collaboration of educators, government representatives and parents, Arizona can create a robust educational system that will address 21st century issues."

Napolitano suggested a multifaceted approach to Arizona's current system, including new testing requirements, shared data to track student progress, strengthened high school core curricula and "credits that count."

"The AIMS test is a 10th grade exam, and some students think once they pass that, they're finished," Napolitano said. "It doesn't measure whether someone is ready to graduate. We need to institute another test, whether it's the SAT or some other."

She also said that courses taken at one Arizona institution should transfer smoothly—she seems to detest the word 'articulate'—to another. "A credit needs to count, and not just for general education but for majors," she said. "Students can't afford to spend seven or eight years to get bachelor's degrees."

The governor, who told the audience "I'm not happy with the pace of improvement in the state's educational performance," gave a "homework" assignment to leaders of the P-20 Council. She wants reports of accomplishments and recommendations for improvement by the next meeting, scheduled for October.