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 just bowing to the political reality that Democrats control the General Assembly and he might as well claim credit for what Dem politicians would compel him to do, or whether he genuinely believes that dropping helicopter dollars onto the K-12 system is the best path to improvement.

Either way, Virginia is conducting a vast and expensive public policy experiment. We’ll find out if lack of funding is really what ails public schools.

In a press release issued last week, the Governor boasted that with additional proposals to amend the 2025-26 budget, spending on K-12 education in the Commonwealth will leap to more than $22 billion over this biennium — a 54% increase over pre-COVID levels.

“Today’s investments address the real needs of our students and families by delivering on our commitment to unleash opportunity, raise the bar for academic excellence, and keep our children safe,” Youngkin said.

To be sure, Youngkin has set his administration apart from his predecessor’s by speaking honestly about the decline in student performance, focusing on student outcomes, setting higher standards, and pushing back on woke ideology. He also supports charter schools. But he has been second to none in pouring money into the system. The press release details the increases in this biennial budget:

• $517.6 million in direct aid to localities.

• $110.7 million in support for English Learners.

• $25 million for New Lab School Partnership with Virginia’s accredited Historically Black Colleges and Universities. 

• $35 million Increase to fund high school dual-enrollment and Career and Technical Education (CTE).

• $66 Million Increase for a fully funded Student Assessment System, which will benchmark definitions of proficiency to the highest standard in the nation for all SOL tests. 

• $6.8 million increase for School Resource Officers and School Security Officers, bringing the total to $50.3 million for SROs and SSOs this biennium. 

Plus, as an added bonus, these new spending programs announced last week:

• $290 million for school construction and modernization, bringing the total biennial investment to $700 million. 

• $50 million for school performance and support framework for schools identified as in need of support to improve student performance. 

That’s on top of an 18% increase in teacher salaries.

I will say this: Throwing unprecedented sums of money at K-12 while raising educational standards is better than throwing unprecedented sums of money at K-12 while maintaining the status quo. But my sense is that the rot in K-12 runs deeper than Youngkin can reach — a dysfunctional culture arising from out-of-touch central district administrators issuing insane directives to schools and classrooms. The same people at the district level who brought us the disastrously prolonged school shutdowns during the COVID epidemic are still in charge.

Youngkin’s executive order cracking down on cell phone use in classrooms — which will cost minimal dollars — will do as much to improve academic performance as all of his spending initiatives combined. But there’s not much he can otherwise to rein in out-of-touch ideologues in district offices who answer to local school boards, not the Virginia Department of education. Will handing over hundreds of millions more dollars to the people who largely created the problem lead to improved educational outcomes?

I suppose we’ll find out.