Category: Education (K-12)
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What Do They Want?
Are Rockingham County leaders fabricating numbers and seeking more power just because they can? by Joe Fitzgerald Travis McGee once mentioned a particular type of no-see-um mosquito that swarmed but did not bite. He said the evolutionary question was, “What do they want?” The difference with the Rockingham County School Board is that we can…
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Well, Maybe Not Full Responsibility
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Governor Youngkin is again showing that he’s “all hat and no cattle.” The latest example is his fawning response to the President’s actions to gut the U.S. Dept. of Education. In it, he declares, “Virginia is ready to take full responsibility for K-12 education.” That sounds impressive, but I thought that Virginia…
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Virginia is Ready to Take Full Control of Education
by Derrick Max Last night, as promised repeatedly during the campaign, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education (the Department). The order also ensures the continued delivery of essential services such as federal student aid and…
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An Obtuse Angle on the Honesty Gap
by Dale Chu Virginia’s latest bid to raise academic standards took center stage at last month’s state board of education meeting, where policymakers debated the future of the state’s proficiency benchmarks. At the heart of this discussion is Virginia’s “honesty gap”—the misleadingly high proficiency rates reported on state exams compared to the more sobering results on…
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Unless Targeted, Extra Math Funds Will Be Wasted
by Chris Braunlich, Writing in the blog Bacon’s Rebellion, Arlington parent and self-described “Obama Democrat” Todd Truitt has come out swinging against a Virginia budget amendment to spend $12 million extra “to improve student performance in mathematics.” His argument? Without Governor’s amendments, these extra funds won’t help math outcomes and will probably hurt. Mr. Truitt’s…
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How to Spend $10 Million for Worse Results
by Todd Truitt The Virginia joint conference committee budget report contains an additional $12 million intended to bring much needed improvement to Virginia K-12 math education. The budget language is purported to be a first step to repeat the great improvements that the Virginia Literacy Act is making with evidence-based instructional methods. However, the wording…
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The Social Cost of Free Lunch
By Derrick Max After failing to pass legislation last year that would have made breakfast and lunch free for all public school students regardless of income (at a staggering cost of $201.5 million), state Senator Danika Roem, D-Manassas,) pared down that bill to focus solely on funding a universal free school breakfast program this session. Fortunately, the…
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Check the Mirror, Senator Hashmi
By Chris Braunlich State Senator Ghazala Hashmi (D-Powhatan) has written a Richmond Times-Dispatch commentary proclaiming Governor Glenn Youngkin responsible for Virginia’s education declines, a commentary astonishing for the breadth of its amnestic qualities. Senator Hashmi, who seeks the Democratic nomination for Lt. Governor, correctly notes “Virginia’s fourth-grade math scores have plummeted, dropping us from fifth…
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Biden Dumped 20,000 Unaccompanied Minors in Virginia
by Victoria Manning School districts across the Commonwealth are sanctuaries for illegal aliens. They openly defy Virginia law that requires schools to notify law enforcement when any person enrolling a pupil fails “to present a certified copy of the pupil’s birth record.” The number of English language learners has skyrocketed in Virginia schools—including nearly half…
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Waste, Fraud, and Abuse Report
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Below are two instances of waste, fraud, and abuse of federal funds that have been recently identified and dealt with in Virginia: Hurricane Helene aid—The Virginia Creeper Trail and the tourist revenue associated with it are important to the town of Damascus and the rest of Washington County in southwest Virginia. Hurricane…
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Interesting Poll on School Choice, But Timing Off
Artillery is of limited use after the battle is over. Governor Glenn Youngkin’s proposed state subsidy program for low-income students opting for a private school is dead, but a poll has just been released showing public support for the idea. The Virginia General Assembly’s 2025 session may be just days away from ending, but the end…
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Va. Lawmakers Ban Phones in School, Remove Punishment for Breaking The Law
by Kerry Dougherty In principle, legislation is usually preferable to executive orders. I’m talking at the state and federal level. They can’t be overturned with the flash of a pen by the next executive, for one thing. This is why Congress needs to act quickly to enshrine President Trump’s executive orders in law. But when…
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Virginia Students Missing Even Low Expectations
By Hannah Schmid Virginia students continued to struggle to meet national proficiency standards based on results in the recently released 2024 data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Reading scores remained stagnant among Virginia’s fourth graders while math scores slightly increased. Among Virginia’s eighth graders, scores in both reading and math declined. Every…
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White House Attacks Harrisonburg Schools
by Joe Fitzgerald The post-truth nature of the Trump White House came home to Harrisonburg today. One of Trump’s hundreds of executive orders demands that schools stop teaching critical race theory and quit indoctrinating students. The text is on the White House news site, for those who want to read the entire text. The jargon…
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Fairfax DEI Tab: $6.4 Million and Counting
Fairfax County Public Schools pay $6.4 million in salaries to support 52 employees in the “Chief Equity Office,” reports the Fairfax County Times. Chief Equity Officer Nardos King earns $258,641 annually. Data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act sometimes conflict, but the findings “paint the picture of a sprawling bureaucracy,” writes Asra Q. Nomani.…