Confronting
Sprawl and Education
The
Washington Post
masqueraded as a Bacon’s
Rebellion North last week, posting provocative
columns and online chats about two critical Virginia
issues, sprawl and education.
Marc
Fisher got the
sprawl ball rolling with the almost allegorical tale of
Prince William County crab shack owner Tim Bauckman’s
blissful co-existence with progress--until his property
became the target of irresistible development forces:
Working
under the old rules, Bauckman made his place into the
most popular spot along this stretch of the Potomac…
If
Bauckman didn't get all the right permits, the county
wasn't much of a stickler for that sort of thing. But
then the big developer of "a master-planned golf
community" of thousands of houses came along, and
everyone's pockets stood to become that much plumper.
Suddenly
last spring, the county's agents descended on Tim's like
locusts, and they were shocked, shocked to find that the
zoning wasn't quite right and the parking was
insufficient and the water lines didn't meet code and
the deck was structurally questionable and on and on--16 county offices were involved …The game was up.
Prince
William’s Cherry Hill peninsula, where Bauckman’s
business is located, soon will be known as Harbor
Station, as a major developer builds a concert hall,
conference center, retail shops, golf, and upscale
housing. A
way of life will be pushed further into the Northern
Neck, until the next big development pushes it further
still.
The
implications
of development like that at Cherry Point and in
already urbanized areas was the subject of an online
chat with Post
reporters D’Vera Cohn and Peter Whoriskey.
Affordable housing and traffic gridlock in the
Northern Virginia area were hot topics, just as they
have been as long as most folks can remember.
Cohn offered a 20- year-old quote from a politico
saying he’d rather have his picture in the newspaper
under the caption “indicted” than under a caption
reading “Affordable Housing Advocate.”
Affordable housing is still controversial as
homeowners jealously guard their property values and
middle income workers struggle to find reasonably priced
homes. As for
gridlock, early 1970 transportation maps showed Metro
extending to Centerville in Fairfax County—in 2004
it’s still miles and thousands of townhouses short of
that destination.
Whoriskey
offered a transportation history summary:
It
seems to me we've gone through three eras of
transportation thinking since World War II. First, we
built highways to move people around. Then we turned to
new rail systems, such as Metro. Now we've entered what
seems like the Malaise Era, where there is no consensus
on how best to address the problems.
Trying
to find some transportation consensus—and whether that
will include some anti-sprawl components--may be the
most contentious issue in the 2005 General Assembly.
Education
policy received a needed shot of innovative
thinking when the Washington
Post’s Jay Mathews found support for a lonely
battle he has long waged: high schools that challenge
the maximum number of students with Advanced Placement
and International Baccalaureate programs best prepare
their students for college.
This applies to all student ethnic groups,
regardless of whether the students pass the tests for
college credit before they graduate.
Mathews
also released his challenge
index that rates high schools in the Washington
Metro area. Six
Virginia high schools were in the top ten.
Prince William County became “one of the first
large school districts in the country in which the
number of college-level tests taken in every high school
exceeds the number of graduating seniors.”
Mathews took questions online, defending his
index: “I have had it reviewed by statisticians and
testing experts, and they say it does measure something
valid and important. I would love an academic to do a
full-bore study.”
Here’s
an assignment for education reporters in other parts of
Virginia: Let’s get challenge indexes for as many
Virginia high schools as possible and analyze what they
tell us.
Wait
a Minute
There
seems to be no end to the Republican eavesdropping
scandal, as commentators far and wide trip over
themselves in expressing outrage. Bob
Gibson of the Daily
Progress is the latest pundit trying to keep the
story alive, even after the just-announced out-of-court
settlement.
Along
comes Becky Dale, a Freedom of Information Act expert.
In a Virginia Lawyers Weekly column,
she challenged the whole premise of the “crime.”
When is a phone an “intercepting device?”
Is an access code an “intercepting device?”
Reading her analysis, it’s hard to disagree
with her: “This case is creating strange law.”
Two
Sides of Pork
First
District Republican Congresswoman Jo Ann Davis generated
controversy when she voted against a spending bill that
contained numerous “goodies” for her district, then
took credit for them. In
the Daily Press,
David
Lerman quoted her rationale of protesting the federal
budget process while having supported the local projects
in preliminary bills. Gordon
Morse of the Press
dryly observed, “In other words, you might say, Davis
voted for it, before she voted against it.”
Campaigning
Isn’t FREE
The
Richmond Times-Dispatch offered a Sunday
“two-fer” on campaign contributions.
Jeff
Schapiro tried to rekindle the dispute between
Republicans and Virginia FREE, a corporate advocacy
group. Many
Republicans are boycotting Virginia FREE because of its
legislative rating system and Virginia FREE supporters
hope business interests will withhold campaign
contributions for anti-tax Republicans.
Meanwhile, Pamela
Stallsmith, who covers the campaign cash beat for
the paper, promised to keep readers informed in the
upcoming election season about who’s giving to whom
and what it might say about the donors—and the
recipient.
All
You Need to Know About Kaine v. Kilgore
The
2005 gubernatorial campaign has barely begun, but the
storyline—a bitter, negative campaign-- is already in
place. The
headline writer for Ray McAllister’s Times-Dispatch
column
captured this journalistic meme best, “Cain and
Abel.”
Don’t
Blame the Teacher
Bob
Gibson paid tribute to William H. Wood, the retiring
leader of the Sorenson Institute of Political Leadership
at the University of Virginia.
Under his tenure, nearly 400 students graduated,
including nine who later were elected to the
legislature. “Delegates who went through Sorensen’s
political leaders program credit Wood with fostering a
belief in working together for good government,"
Gibson wrote, even as he frequently chastises
politicians for failing miserably at “working together
for good government.”
Warner’s
Sleeping Elixir
Hugh
Lessig of the Daily
Press spoke with Gov. Mark R. Warner recently,
eliciting some mild criticism of legislators who voted
against tax increases. Lessig
thought Warner would offer really pointed criticism of
those that voted against the budget, yet asked for new
spending. The
Governor’s “internal filter” kicked in, however,
and all he would say is, “I just don’t know how they
sleep at night.”
--
December 13, 2004
|
