Yesterday, Bill hit the campaign trail hard an unveiled the first major plank of his "Arkansas Excellence" plan which focused on the need to achieve educational excellence in order to build and attract new and better paying jobs.

Amy Somers, a third-grade teacher at Pike View Elementary School - who is a two-time Teacher of the Year among other honors -- was kind enough to let us into her classroom.

Bill called for a $5,000 pay-raise over 5 years.  When one reporter asked Bill if that wasn't significant enough, Ms. Somers whispered to me "it sure would be significant to me."  Ha!  In fact, Arkansas would be on the path to go from 37th in average teacher pay among all states to within the top 20 under Bill's plan -- in only 5 years! 

We'll take her word for it, along with some of the other teachers whom we've spoken with over the past several months that this is a significant investment toward attracting and retainging more teachers in Arkansas.

Lost in some of the press accounts are tuition reimbursement plans that Bill is calling for to help get more teachers where they are sorely needed:  in critical subject areas like math, science and foreign languages, as well as in econmically distressed school districts.  For each year an Arkansas college or university graduate with a degree in one of these subject areas teaches in an Arkansas public school, one year of their tuition is forgiven.  If they teach 4 years, their complete tuition is forgiven!  Now that should help get some more teachers in these subject areas. 

And let's talk about getting more highly-qualified teachers in Arkansas' "high-priority" economically distressed areas. Bill's plan offers teachers with a Master's Degree a $5,000 per year bonus.

Finally, if you would like to get an education degree in an Arkansas college or university, and then you teach in an Arkansas public school, one-quarter of your tuition will be forgiven over the course of four years.

Overall, it was a good day talking about issues that matter to Arkansans.  But it was only the beginning!  Bill has many more ideas he'll be sharing with us soon.