Outgoing NGA Chair to Keep ‘Innovation’ Push Alive

Traverse City, Mich.

Even though her stint as chair of the National Governors Association ended this week, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano is forging ahead with her national “Innovation America” initiative by forming a new foundation and convening a task force to recommend ways of reshaping public schools to help students better compete globally.

“This is my innovative way of keeping the agenda going,” Ms. Napolitano, a Democrat, said in an interview. “Now we’re looking at really tying innovation into the economic future of the states. The vast majority of governors are now engaged in this subject.” The subject of innovation is, indeed, a broad one. The initiative’s education and technology agenda focused on states’ building strong, competitive K-12 systems with a heavy emphasis on math and science. Ms. Napolitano worked on getting colleges and universities to better connect with their state and regional economies. And she tried to get business leaders involved in the conversation. Earlier this month, six states—Colorado, Hawaii, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia—won $500,000 each from the NGA to create science and technology education centers.

Ms. Napolitano explained Saturday that her initiative tries to answer this question: “How does the U.S. maintain and grow its place in the world as a place where new developments are conceived of and moved to market...