Governor-elect Scott Walker visited the University of Wisconsin campus Thursday morning to emphasize his goal of creating jobs and a balanced budget in Wisconsin with members of the UW System Board of Regents.
Despite the busy week he has had, Walker spoke at the beginning of the meeting and addressed topics concerning the future of Wisconsin and what the UW System’s role should be in shaping it.
Walker stressed the severity of the state budget and the challenge Wisconsin has ahead of it. He added the state is looking at a deficit approaching $3 billion, so the UW System and the state will have to find ways to meet their goals without asking for more money.
He said he was, however, optimistic for the future.
“Great challenges bring great opportunities,” Walker said. “It is not always going to be easy, but we need to find ways with flexibility, innovation and creativity to meet our state goals.”
Walker added it is more important than ever to add more college graduates to the state to help meet the budget goals and avoid additional budget challenges in the future.
Walker said the colleges, universities and technical schools of the UW System must continue to achieve success in order to tackle the state’s financial issues.
“We must involve the UW System in the job creation process,” said Walker. “The members at the higher education level are valuable parts of reaching our goal of 250,000 new jobs.”
Walker said more people working jobs would create more resources in the state necessary to tackle future challenges.
UW System spokesperson David Giroux said he was encouraged by what Walker had to say.
“He talked about a lot of things, but the most striking was his job-creating pledge to have the university and technical college representatives at the table when we develop the state’s economic strategy and engage with other states,” Giroux said.
Also at the meeting, the Board heard a report from the UW alumni which showed the majority of UW System schools’ students stay in Wisconsin after graduating instead of working elsewhere.
Of all the alumni who were Wisconsin residents when enrolled in a UW school during 2003 to 2004 or 2004 to 2005, 81 percent of them remained in the state, according to Heather Kim, UW System associate vice president of Policy Analysis and Research.
The Board also discussed the K-12 Common Core State Standards Initiative, which focuses on the responsibility of elementary and secondary schools across the state to prepare our youth for post-secondary achievement.
The CCSS provides comparable expectations and establishes clear and consistent goals in the subjects of English, language arts and mathematics, according to UW System President Kevin Reilly.
The standards of the initiative will also mandate the student learning outcomes for every grade level and will consistently test students to ensure their success and improvement.
Wisconsin State Superintendent Tony Evers said the state needs to have international benchmarks to compare to the highest achieving countries in the world.
“The state of Wisconsin developed academic expectations of their students 150 years ago and we are trying to improve upon them today,” Evers said.
