Trejbal: Ideological purity, educational mediocrity
Tough times ahead for schools
By Christian Trejbal
I recently attended a panel discussion in Richmond about how K-12 education might fare during the upcoming General Assembly session. The panelists painted a depressing picture.
The panel was part of the annual AP Day at the Capitol hosted by the Virginia AP Managing Editors, the Virginia Capitol Correspondents Association and the Society of Professional Journalists’ Virginia Pro Chapter.
December 18, 2011 - 9:18 AM
An article in the Washington Times from Nov 2009 stated Virginia’s budget drew from $21 Billion in 2000 to $37B in 2009..up 74%.
In that time period, enrollment in Va. public schools increased by 8%.
The number of state supported public school personnel positions grew by 18%.
From Virginia’s department of planning and budget website, Va. spent $7.9B on k-12 in FY 1999 and $14.98 Billion in FY 2011.
All during this time period the GOP controlled the house of delegates.
Christian, please explain the long simmering vendetta the GOP has against Va. public school funding.
Christian, you also state it’s unlikely localities will step up to fund their local public schools when both the cities of Roanoke and Salem have increased the meals tax just for that reason. Whattup widat?
Christian, you should run for public office on your platform of raising taxes. Good luck with that.
By the way, Democrats aren’t pushing for increasing taxes right now either, so they must not either.
Every article of yours I read is a chest beating tirade for higher taxes. What is it with you and taxes that you think every thing can be cured or saved by throwing money at the problem. Most studies show that the opposite is true. Increasing the amount of spending per child in education does not reward you with higher scores. Changing the way you teach and how you interact with the child does increase scores. Eliminating a tenure based system of teacher retention does effect the student performance and the level of teaching efficiency. You are the most negative person I have ever read and that is why I seldom read your articles. You offer no informed hope for a improved society only a dismal tax more and blame the GOP for all the ails of the world philosophy. In politics it is mostly a two party system and I find that neither come out smelling like a rose. I have no doubt that they know the right thing to do but they never do it regardless of the party. They let money and influence get in the way of doing what is the proper choice in all matters and that makes them all equally guilty of failing to perform thier civic duties.