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 place in 2019 to 22nd today. Students with disabilities and Black students have suffered some of the worst declines nationwide. And in reading, Virginia’s fourth-grade recovery is the third worst in the country.”
And then she gets political, blaming Youngkin for the decline. But that’s a little like blaming the farmer who buys acreage his predecessor planted with bad seed. The “seeds” of Virginia’s education decline were planted by previous administrations with ineffective policies Senator Hashmi was quick to support.
In fact, one of Youngkin’s first actions was to produce a 2022 report to determine where Virginia stood and to make it clear that Black, Hispanic, and low-income students were suffering most under the existing system. For his honesty, the teachers union called it a “blatant manipulation of data” and the Senate Democratic leader called it a “joke,” “dog-whistle talking points”, “outright lie, supported by cherry-picked data and warped perspective.”
After two years of resisting or voting down Youngkin’s reform proposals, this supposed “lie” is now substantiated by the Education Recovery Scorecard developed by experts from Harvard, Stanford and Dartmouth. School divisions with high concentrations of at-risk students, like Petersburg and Richmond have suffered the worst losses, as the Youngkin report said.
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