Gov. Rick Snyder delivered his fourth State of the State address to a crowded House chambers. In his address that lasted just over an hour, the governor touted many of his accomplishments in his first term and argued that Michigan is the "comeback state" and there's more yet to come.

Of particular interest to MEMSPA members are Mr. Snyder's education references. His list of recommended action items for the year were encouraging schools through additional resources to adopt year-round school calendars; creating a statewide definition of truancy in order to provide a more consistent approach toward that issue; passing legislation adopting school safety drill changes; develop a system of early warning with local communities and school districts to anticipate financial trouble; increase investment of $65 million in pre-school education to eliminate the current waiting lists for pre-k programming; and adopting recommendations and legislation to implement educator evaluations.

Mr. Snyder didn't shy away from the tricky topic of K-12 funding arguing that since he took office education funding has gone up by $660 per pupil. To this claim, Democrats and the school community took exception. Some claimed that this is a reinterpretation of the numbers and doesn't really spell out the reality of K-12 funding over the last three years.

The governor also briefly addressed the issue of the surplus that has been reported since the January Revenue Estimating Conference. Mr. Snyder cautioned lawmakers over the temptation to spend every dollar on programs or tax cuts arguing, "It's not about a government that simply says, 'Let's spend everything,' or it's not about a government that simply says, 'Let's do a tax cut about everything.'"

The Michigan Court of Appeals has ruled that Michigan has violated neither the Constitution nor contractual rights of employees of public schools when laws were enacted that required employees to pay 4 percent of their salaries into their basic retirement plan to stay in the system and 3 percent of their salaries into retirement health care.

This decision was unanimous and upheld the Court of Claims decision on the matter. PA 300 of 2012 was passed to replace an earlier 2010 law which was ruled unconstitutional. As a result of ongoing lawsuits, the state has held in escrow $508 million contributed by employees waiting for the decision of the courts on whether this money was collected legally or must be returned to school employees.

As part of the resolution that allowed the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) to go forward with the implementation of the Common Core State Standards, MDE was required to submit to the Legislature a report on available assessment programs. That report was presented to a joint committee of the House and Senate education, K-12 and policy committees.

The report revealed that the Smarter Balanced assessment was, for the most part and the near future, already in place. This was not welcome news to many lawmakers who had concerns with the Smarter Balanced assessment to begin with. Some argued that because of MDE's involvement in the Smarter Balanced Consortium, the department's report was written in order to give that test a good review.

Department staff, including Superintendent Mike Flanagan, stood by the report and testified that this route would be what's best for the students of Michigan and that Michigan does in fact need one single assessment that is administered statewide. Michigan has already signed a contract for the administration of the paper version of the Smarter Balanced Assessment and the final contract for the on-line version is 'getting close.'