Not Guy Incognito

For far too long, I've dealt with Kilgore's ridiculous proposals. Now it's time to deconstruct one of Kaine's. And it's one of his biggies: education.

Kilgore stood on Church Hill recently, overlooking the City of Richmond, attacking Kaine's record on education while Tim was Mayor of Richmond. Jerry said basically that Richmond City's school system was the worst in the state, yadda yadda yadda... Today Kaine held a widely ignored (for good reason) press conference touting his record of achievement on education as Mayor of this fine city. He basically said dropout rates fell, test scores improved, and on and on and on.

Both are right, and both are SO wrong.

While leading Richmond, Kaine was part of a "weak mayor" system. Basically, he was an elected councilman, voted by his fellow councilmembers to lead them. (I was at that vote in Richmond City Chambers, and it was a small surprise when it happened.) Compare this with the mayor at large (or the "strong mayor" system) in which Doug Wilder now rules.

As mayor, Tim Kaine had as much to do with education in Richmond as Tucker Carlson has to do with fair and unbiased reporting.

The real story of education in Virginia is about funding and feuds between City Councils (and Boards of Sups.) and the elected School Boards. The school board sets a budget, requests the money from the locality, and hopes they get what they want.

Add on to that the Standards of Quality restrictions that we have in Virginia, the absurd No Child Left Behind act, the Standards of Learning, and the plethora of other requirements like the ADA. Basically if anything has a catchy name and sounds like it's going to produce better schools, it sails through the legislature. Really, those acts are putting more restrictions on the people that matter most in education: the teachers.

With the amount of oversight and bureaucracy that we have it's no wonder that we're getting so little in results per dollar spent in education. And in many cases the results that we are getting are from playing fast and loose with statistics. Recently education leaders had the gall to say "We are not reducing the standards in Virginia" when Virginia was LOWERING THE STANDARD FOR WHAT WAS CONSIDERED A PASSING SCHOOL IN VIRGINIA.

Children who are at risk of lowering the mean are being held back a year, or are magically skipped the all important testing year after repeating the same grade. This is done solely to make the grade.

I am not making this up, folks. And it's happening all over the country.

So, what's Kaine's record on education? He voted to increase a local school budget a couple of times, and that's pretty much it.

Boiled down, both Kilgore and Kaine are wrong in their assertions about what the other has done about education. Unfortunately, these issues are far too complex to hold the voters' attention.

Throwing more money at the problem is not the answer. Increasing so-called "accountability" is not the answer either.

I still think that teacher pay is the best answer to our problems. Smaller class sizes, better qualified teachers, less oversight, and fewer tests to me seems to be the answer to our educational woes.

I'll put it this way. A friend of mine is a young teacher. She has two years of experience and can get a job literally anywhere in Virginia. She's had offers, but refused.

Her mother is also a teacher, and would like to move. In fact, she prefers teaching in the "worst" of schools. She can't get a job anywhere else because it would cost a school system more to hire her than find someone fresh out of college. This is not the winning equation. Young teachers are in such a demand because school systems would rather replace their established and experienced teachers with cheaper help. Is there any other boss that would rather have inexpensive over experience?

Think back to the teacher that made a difference in your life.

Was it the one who went by the book, and taught to the standardized test as so many are forced to do? Or was it the one who went on her own to inspire you to think critically?

I think I know the answer.