“There is a fundamental mismatch in Virginia between the performance expectations and goals for K-12 public schools and the amount of state funding provided to meet our high expectations.”
Yesterday, I related what I would say if I had five minutes with my Senator. Today, let’s switch to the House. What would I suggest that you say to your delegate were you to have five minutes of his time?
If I had five minutes with my Delegate, I’d use my time to help advance VEA’s Legislative Agenda, and to advance the cause of public education. I’d tell him that our schools are suffering from a lack of state funding, and that this year we need to stop the cuts, and to look for ways to enhance state funding in the next biennial budget. For background, I’d hand him the recentPolitiFact showing that VEA is right when we say state funding has been cut by 16% since 2009.
Then, I
would urge him to support Delegate Plum’s teacher salary amendment providing
the state share of a 6% salary increase for school employees. The Commonwealth must
take action to attract and retain high-quality school personnel. Virginia is the 10th wealthiest
state, yet our teacher salary ranks 37th. Our average teacher salary is $7,456 below
the national average. We must do better
if our students are to continue to have highly qualified teachers. State funding is critical to the ability of
localities to make salaries of Virginia school employees more competitive.
I’d urge support for
Delegate Jackson Miller’s HB 1368, which will eliminate the misguided A-F
grading of our schools. A single
grade cannot fully represent the true measure of a school’s performance. These letter grades too often reflect the
impact of demographic factors and do little to reveal the quality of the
instructional opportunity available to students. Unintended consequences will include
exacerbating the existing challenge of recruiting high-quality personnel to
urban and poor rural schools, and negative effects on property values in these
same areas, further reducing funding sources.
I’d ask them to vote for Delegate Hugo’s HB1744. In the 2013 Session the passage of HB
2151 and SB 1223 eliminated the use of the “fact finding panel,” replacing the
panel with a “hearing officer.” VEA
will seek legislation to provide local school boards with the option of
utilizing ether option: fact finding
panel or hearing officer. Many VEA
members contend that the three-person panel leads to a more judicial resolution
of the dismissal decision.
I’d ask my delegate to support a
transparent, bipartisan redistricting process.
Four bills are before the Senate to advance this cause, and each one
addresses a part of the problem.
Then there are three measures I’d ask them to
oppose:
Delegate Lingamfelter’s HJ 526, a
constitutional amendment, transfers the decision of whether or not to have a
charter school in your school division from your local school board to the
Virginia Board of Education, a board appointed by the Governor. Let’s leave the charter granting authority closest to the
people with local school boards. The
local board best knows the needs of the children in their locality.
Delegate Lingamfelter’s HJ 536 would amend the
Constitution of Virginia to allow lottery proceeds to go to “education and
training” for veterans. The problem is
that these funds now go to fund our schools.
We should do all we can for our veterans, but not by taking funding away
from our schools.
HB324 and HB1361, these two, virtually identical
bills, create a board in the executive branch of government to govern
stand-alone virtual schools. Funding
would follow the students, with the state funding for virtual schools being the
same as what is provided for traditional bricks-and-mortar schools. The “all-or-none” approach these bills take
to virtual learning is contrary to what is best for students. Digital-based learning experiences are
essential as we prepare today’s students for the world ahead, but blended instructional
approaches, not “all-or-none” will be of much greater benefit to Virginia’s
students.