Dave Long is California's secretary of education.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's State of the State address Tuesday painted a clear picture of the budget challenges California faces over the coming years. While the administration could allow a lack of funding to impede education reform altogether, the governor has always maintained that our education system needs more than money to succeed.

The governor's bipartisan Committee on Education Excellence has dedicated the past two years to creating a comprehensive report that details new strategies to promote student achievement through the preschool and K-12 public school system. Over the next year, the governor will hold hearings statewide to discuss a framework for education reform with the purpose of developing solutions and a long-term action plan.

However, as Schwarzenegger emphasized in his speech, our education system must act now to ensure that students have the skills and knowledge needed for success; that parents, teachers and policy-makers have access to accurate educational data; and that classrooms have highly qualified teachers.

Currently, 98 of California's school districts - representing approximately one-third of the state's public school students - are not meeting No Child Left Behind student achievement targets. California is required to implement this federal law and, while there is much to debate about the act, there is no debating the urgent need to improve student achievement in under-performing school districts.

To support these districts, the governor proposed reforms that value local control and assist school districts based on their needs. The governor and I are working with State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, teachers, administrators, parents and elected officials to identify whatever changes are needed to ensure improvement in student achievement.

Educators agree they need accurate and complete data to enable teachers to respond to the needs of their students with better instruction and curriculum. To ensure California's data systems meet the diverse needs of students, parents, teachers and administrators, the governor will create a nine-member Education Data Commission to make policy recommendations for an education data system. The governor will also follow through on his commitment in last year's State of the State address to launch the California School Finder Web site. This Web site, created in partnership with Microsoft and Google, will allow users to compare schools side-by-side. It will include information about test scores, enrollment, curriculum and other points of special interest to parents.

Finally, the governor pointed out that California is facing a critical shortage of qualified teachers. Over the next decade, the state is expected to lose more than 100,000 teachers to retirement, fully one-third of the teacher workforce. Shortages will be particularly prominent in special education, math, science and high school English.

To ensure public schools have the 100,000 new teachers they need, the governor will propose a number of new initiatives to expand the market for teacher preparation and recruitment. One proposal will allow any institution - public or private - with a high quality program approved by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing to issue credentials to teachers. The governor has already taken steps to offset the teacher shortage, including the launch of the EnCorps Teachers Program in June 2007. This program brings retirees into classrooms by working with private companies to recruit, train and place employees who want to become teachers after retirement. The governor proposes expanding programs such as EnCorps and continuing to create new routes to obtaining teaching credentials.

These initiatives are the beginning of a focused, long-term effort to work with our partners in education to identify other opportunities to make positive changes. We must continue to ensure that improving student achievement remains at the top of our public policy agenda.