Category: Education (K-12)
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Virginia Democrat Wants SOLs Offered in Foreign Languages
by Kerry Dougherty Hey Virginians, remember that $1.2 billion surplus in the state budget that Gov. Glenn Youngkin has been trying to return to taxpayers? Unsurprisingly, Democrats in Richmond are finding ways to spend it. All of it. Take State Sen. Barbara Favola, for instance. Please. Sheโs introduced SB753, a measure guaranteed to cost a…
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In Defense of Mark Warner
by Paul Goldman I find the attacks against Senator Mark Warner on this site most hypocritically amusing. It seems you are all afraid to appropriately criticize President-elect Trump, Elon Musk, and the GOP House majority. Despite you all claiming to be such great defenders of fiscal responsibility. Let’s review some facts.ย (1) Under his watch,ย President…
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Cut Scores and Lies of Omission
by Todd Truitt Virginia is in the process of raising the minimum cut scores for passing English and math Standards of Learning (SOL) exams — scores that the U.S. Department of Education (USED) declared in 2021 were the lowest in the nation. A USED official publicly testified in 2022 that Virginia’s cut scores were not…
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A Voucher by Any Other Name
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Governor Youngkin has included in his proposed budget $50 million to provide $5,000 “Opportunity Grants” to 10,000 students from low-income families to apply against the cost of attending private schools. While this limited voucher program avoids the primary objection of being a subsidy to rich families who send their kids to private…
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Weapons Scanners, It Appears, Are Not Enough to Stop School Stabbings
๏ปฟ by James A. Bacon Last week a Henrico High School student was hospitalized after being stabbed at school. Needless to say, many students are upset. โSeeing the aftermath of it all โฆ the poorly cleaned up crime scene and still seeing the dried-up blood on the pavement and on the door โฆ as I…
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Will Helicopter Dollars Improve Virginia Schools?
by James A. Bacon Governor Glenn Youngkin is dumping money into Virginia’s public education system like a liberal Democrat. He’s not putting the funds to work in the quite same way — there’s more for accountability measures and Lab School Partnerships — but it’s hard to see a big difference. I don’t know if he’s…
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Still Crucial to Shine Light on Educational Disparity
By Chris Braunlich, More than 70 years ago, black and white students in Virginia received separate and very unequal educations. In They Closed Their Schools, author Bob Smith writes that in Farmville, a city not unlike the rest of Virginia, the white public school built after a 1939 fire โhad a gymnasium, cafeteria, locker rooms,…
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Rolling Back “Protections” — What Does That Even Mean?
by James A. Bacon “He who controls the language controls the masses,” left-wing activist Saul Alinsky famously wrote in his 1971 book, “Rules for Radicals.” A modern-day example is how cultural elites have smuggled their language about the transgender movement into popular discourse. Axios Richmond had this to say this morning about a change in…
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Is Newer Necessarily Better?
by James A. Bacon Governor Glenn Youngkin will propose $290 million in extra funding for new public-school construction in the 2025-26 fiscal year, the Governor’s Office announced yesterday. That will bring the total amount of construction dollars in the biennial budget to $700 million, and the total allocated since Youngkin took office in January 2022…
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Virginia Education Press Needs Intensive Support
by Todd Truitt If you were expecting any humility after the Virginia education press ran with the false claim for months that 70%+ of Virginia schools would be in the bottom two of four summative categories (Off Track, Needs Intensive Support) of the new accountability systemโ-when it was actually in the 30sโthink again. The Washington Post is…
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New Accountability System Supports Advanced Math Learners
by Todd Truitt Virginia’s new accountability system incentivizes schools to provide valuable middle-school math pathways, resulting in more opportunities for Virginia students, especially the most underprivileged. It will also counter the non-evidence-based, anti-acceleration ideology of certain discredited thought leaders in K-12 math education who have had a corrosive effect on Virginia K-12 math education. Why…
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NOVA School Districts Attack English Learner Civil Rights
by Todd Truitt The eight large Northern Virginia school board chairs have released a joint letter asking for a โdelay of at least one yearโ on the new accountability system until a new governor is in office, claiming that a three-year development and implementation period is โrushedโ (i.e., they may need five years or more).…
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End Federal Control of Our Schools
by Derrick Max While the U.S. Department of Education is only a small fraction of total education spending โ accounting for less than 10 percent of education spending in the United States (9 percent in Virginia) โ it has a huge impact on how states and localities spend their own money on schools, on how…
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Did School Battles Hurt Dems in Liberal Strongholds?
Did local school-board issues in Loudoun County boost turnout for Republicans and discourage Democratic Party turnout in the 2024 presidential election? A New York Times article explores that possibility. Money quote from Austin Levine, a Republican-leaning independent who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016: Mr. Levine said he remains disappointed by what he sees as…