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The
silly season in anticipation of the upcoming General
Assembly session is now in full swing. With the
state budget falling flatter than the NASDAQ and
former Gov. Jim Gilmore stating that “there’s
plenty of money in the Virginia budget,” his Republican
minions are floating trial balloons filled with one
part bad math, several parts hubris, and a huge dose
of hypocrisy.
An
example of such thinking is a plan, coming from the
House Appropriations Subcommittee on Elementary and
Secondary Education, which, if enacted, would
irreparably harm governor’s school programs across
the Commonwealth. Some members of this committee
wish to convert several categorical grants to local
school divisions into block grants on the pretext of
giving localities more flexibility in how they spend
the money. The legislation would require school
divisions to raise their contribution for each student
in a Governor’s School program by about 25
percent. During a time of fiscal crisis, diverting
more funds to the governors schools would expose
local school boards to cries of favoritism.
Through
a fiscal sleight of hand, budget-cutting Republicans
also would use the block-grant mechanism to decrease
per-capita funding for K-12 education.
By leaving untouched the standards which
localities are expected to follow, and by failing to adjust for increased enrollment and
inflation, per capita education spending actually
would drop.
Maintaining
Governor’s Schools is important to the future
educational achievement of Virginia’s college-bound students.
A recent study undertaken by Arizona
State
University
concludes that states utilizing high-stakes testing,
such as Virginia's Standards of Learning, have a
negative impact on college-bound students.
Over half of the students examined in this
study, focused on Texas and Massachusetts, saw
outright declines in SAT, ACT and Advanced Placement
Tests, even as scores on the state-mandated tests
rose. As
centers of educational excellence with standards far
surpassing the SOLs, governor’s
schools offer gifted students a haven from the
SOL-driven mediocrity.
The
Right side of the aisle often espouses the virtues
of school choice. Attendance at all
Governor
School
programs is voluntary. At the Maggie Walker
Governor’s School in Richmond, there are normally 750 applications for 150 slots.
President Bush is right. Good schools should be
funded because they will attract top students. I
thought that was a Republican principle.
It
appears as if the Gilmorites on the committee have
forgotten their economics. They need a lesson in the
concept of economies of scale. It is far cheaper to
put gifted students from many districts in one place
than for each school division to try and meet their
needs on a case-by-case basis. This duplication of
programs would create a burden on those districts
who now spend most of their funds to raise the
minimum competency or SOL scores. In fact, in the
name of fiscal sanity, the legislature should
require school districts to utilize in-place
Governor School programs rather than establish
duplicative “specialty centers.” There is much
waste in these specialty programs, and gifted
students are better served in complete programs
geared to their needs where they can study
everything from the constitution of the Third
Republic of France to multivariate calculus to the
biology of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
Full-time
Governor Schools are an aid in economic development.
In a state not generally known for well funded K-12
education, governor schools are a definite asset in
attracting high value-added companies and their
staffs to Virginia. When relocating, executives and their spouses
always ask about the quality of education available.
Full-time
governor schools also take pressure off the
state’s university system and their parents’
pocketbook. Many students who complete these
programs finish university in three, not the usual
four, years. With the state university system
looking for explosive growth in population over the
next decade, this should be an important
consideration in continuing to fund full-time
governor schools.
Why
do Republicans have such problems with such
programs? The governors schools seem to meet their
criteria for public education. Is the Taliban wing
of the Republican party afraid that smart people
just might see them for the hypocrites and
anti-intellectuals they really are?
--
January 6, 2003
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