The Governor, General Assembly, VDOE and the Lenin Doctrine
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10 responses to “The Governor, General Assembly, VDOE and the Lenin Doctrine”
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Great reporting, Jim. As critical as I have been of VDOE, even I did not realize how bureaucratic, centralized, and top-down it had gotten. I can’t imagine how many administrators are needed to read, digest, and enforce this multitude of rules and regulations. The concept of local control is a sad joke.
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The General Assembly demonstrably thinks some school districts check the “yes” box on the survey and do not really comply. (I actually hope the GA is correct on this one.)
Authoritarianism has a long and bloody history.
Thus the “pilot program to more comprehensively supervise school division compliance with a subset of key standards by requiring (i) the submission of more comprehensive compliance information, (ii) selective independent verification of compliance, (iii) monitoring of corrective action implementation, and (iv) analysis of compliance trends and issues.”
That could be from “The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979).
“The foundation of the entire organization and activity of the socialist state control bodies is the theoretical principles formulated by V. I. Lenin and enriched by the experience of building a socialist state. Lenin ascribed great importance to control, which is necessary and important at all stages of building a socialist state. …
“Struggle against the mire of bureaucracy and red tape by checking up on people and on the actual work done, merciless expulsion of unnecessary officials, reduction of staff, replacement of Communists who don’t study the art of management seriously—such must be the line …” declared Lenin (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 44, p. 370).
“State control makes it possible to check systematically on the execution of the decrees of the central power, to strengthen state discipline and legality, and to study the validity of motives and feasibility of resolutions made by the central state bodies and help improve the practice of devising and adopting them.”The left in America is exactly what it appears to be.
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As someone who has been following the issue of school discipline for several years, I am particularly interested in the new laws and guidelines effecting discipline. I will be watching closely what happens in the public schools this fall.
I fear for the worst. If Black kids from dysfunctional social environments are being told that the system is racist, they are victims, and “whiteness” is oppressive; and if “whiteness” is associated with self control and orderly behavior; and if administrators are increasingly deprived of any means to discipline misbehavior, some schools easily could become anarchic and ungovernable.
If that does, in fact, happen, it will be hard for the public to know because the administrative incentives are to cover up incidents and report feel-good numbers. Given the political pressure from above, we will not get honest reporting — Virginia’s school bureaucrats will behave exactly like Russian or Chinese bureaucrats reporting numbers showing that they are meeting the goals of the 5-year plan.
The key metric to watch because it is impossible to fudge is teacher and staff turnover — especially teacher turnover. If schools become ungovernable, teacher morale will plummet, and teachers will leave. Churn is already high. It will likely get worse.
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In just 2 to 3 weeks Virginia’s teachers will be returning to prepare for school. I can only imagine what that first faculty meetings is going to be like. The list of things that must be addressed this year will make your head spin. God Bless those school teachers. There are 61 teaching jobs available in Fauquier. Seems way to high. Countless postings for bus drivers, cafe workers, custodians, and coaches.
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61 out of 963 this late in the summer is quite high. That represents the vacancies they know about. They won’t have an accurate account until the first week of school.
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Talked to a local elementary principal this morning. They have 4 vacancies and have not been able to fill the positions after many recruiting efforts. Even the retired teachers will not come back. I see a large number of provisional endorsements on the teaching license.
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http://teachvirginia.org is the VDOE’s job board for school positions across the state, but some of the postings are more than two years old. Apparently VDOE, in its striving to oversee the minute details of school division management, lacks the personnel or inclination to keep its own job board up to date.
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For an actual point of comparison, on the last run of the VDOE’s 2019-2020 Unfilled Positions by Regional Group and Teaching Assignment Area before COVID struck, Fauquier had only 13 unfilled teaching positions.
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On the one hand, you complain, and rightly so, about the poor job some school divisions are doing and want the State Board of Education, the General Assembly, or somebody at the state level to do something about it.
But, on the other hand, you complain about the “heavy hand” of Richmond and compare it to Lenin.
You can’t have it both ways–state control sometimes and little state control at others.
Now, it is perfectly legitimate to complain about the types of things for which the General Assembly wishes to hold the local school divisions to account. I agree with you that the list emphasizes the current policy focus of the majority. I would much rather that the General Assembly provide mechanisms for the state to intercede with school divisions that were failing, for whatever reason, to educate their children adequately. But, in either case, the state needs to exercise control.
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The heavy hand is in enforcement, not assistance. Doubling down on more reporting is not assistance. The SOLs tell the biggest part of the story.
No one in Virginia government needs more data from Richmond Public Schools or Loudoun County Schools to know where the problems lie.
Take action or don’t.
The rest is a paperwork drill for a power trip in support of dogma. Like Lenin. He didn’t want results, he wanted obedience.
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