While President Barack Obama’s third State of the Union address Tuesday focused primarily on familiar themes of economic recovery, the president tipped his hat to some new policies that could have a major impact on states, specifically education reform, infrastructure and hydraulic fracturing.

Nationally, more than 7,000 students become dropouts every school day. That’s more than 1 million students each year that will not graduate from high school. Only 27 percent of students complete a postsecondary degree, even though 85 percent of students hold a high school diploma, according to 2010 statistics from the U.S. Department of Education. That’s not enough to keep America competitive.

When Barbara Cooper was a teacher, she made sure she knew the parents of her students.  That’s especially important in urban schools, she said, where children have to worry about crime in their neighborhood as much as learning their ABCs. Cooper should know: She taught school for 42 years—35 of them in Memphis City Schools—before she was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives 14 years ago. But her interest in schools, especially urban schools, remains high.