Governor Tom Vilsack today signed into law a package of education initiatives that boosts the pay for Iowa teachers by over $210 million over the next thre years and — for the first time — establishes state high school graduation standards.

“This is a red letter day for the children of our state and for all the people of the state of Iowa,” Vilsack says. The governor calls it a “momentous” package of bills that also starts the state on the path to linking teacher pay with classroom performance and allows schools to give “signing bonuses” to math and science teachers. “All of the people of Iowa are going to benefit from today’s legislation,” Vilsack says.

One of the bills provide a four percent increase in general state aid to schools for the school year that starts in the fall of 2007. Another requires schools to have a teacher librarian on staff. “I’ve been privileged to be the governor of this state for almost eight years and I have signed a lot of bills in my lifetime and I’ve been involved as a legislator in crafting a lot of pieces of legislation,” Vilsack says. “I believe this is the proudest day I’ve had as governor of the state.”

Vilsack later today will sign a bill that commits more state money to preschool programs.

Vilsack’s staff organized a bill signing ceremony for 8:45 this (Thursday) morning on the steps of East High School in Des Moines. About three dozen students stood on the front steps as a backdrop for the governor and had to wait 25 minutes for him to arrive. One of the students collapsed during the ceremony because her legs locked up.

Vilsack apologized for being late and told reporters afterwards why he was tardy. “I was walking the dog,” Vilsack said. The governor revealed that his wife usually wakes him up in the morning, but she’s gone and he woke up late and had to walk the dog before he went to work.

Governor Tom Vilsack has directed his staff to release a report from his Department of Administrative Services that reviewed the actions of state workers caught up in the scandal over a central Iowa job training agency. The Central Iowa Employment and Training Consortium is at the center of state and federal investigations after revelations that its top managers were paid exorbitant salaries.

Vilsack had his top personnel managers review the actions of state employees in the Iowa Workforce Development agency who were connected to CIETC and a report was delivered to the governor a few weeks ago. Vilsack denies he had a hand in denying access to the document when reporters from the Des Moines Register requested it yesterday. “I was out of the office yesterday,” Vilsack told reporters this (Thursday) morning during a brief question-and-answer session. “I was out on the road and I was not aware of the press inquiry.”

Vilsack’s communications director told the Register on Wednesday that the report would not be made public, citing an exception to Iowa’s open records law when documents contain personnel information. Vilsack has overridden that. “It’s important for people to know and so it’s going to be released by the end of the day,” Vilsack said.

While Vilsack’s staff has had a copy of the report for a couple of weeks, Vilsack himself has not read it. “I’ve seen it on the sense that I’ve seen it on a table, but I’ve not read it,” Vilsack said. “It was an investigation that was conducted and actually disciplinary action has been taken as a result of the investigation.”

On May 18th, the interim head of the Iowa Workforce Development agency fired an administrator who he says should have known about the executive pay scandal at a central Iowa job training agency. Iowa Workforce Development interim director Dave Neil decided two other workers who were placed on administrative leave earlier this spring had done nothing wrong — including the secretary caught tossing documents in the wee morning hours — and the two workers returned to their jobs.