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All new episode of 8@4 has stories on a new baseball card shop, meeting a new artists and some delicious bar food to enjoy during March basketball viewing. 8@4 is presented by Massey Cancer Center from the Virginia Wayside Furniture studio.

Over the past five years, the determination to improve education in Virginia has been bipartisan.

Under Gov. Ralph Northams leadership and with both Republican majorities and then Democratic majorities, the legislature consistently invested in education, raising teacher pay, adding school counselors, coming closer to fulfilling our states obligation to fully fund schools, and more. It also focused on policies that would provide more opportunities for more students, such as expanding pre-K, rethinking how we assess students and making our community colleges more robust and accessible.

This continued under the first year of Gov. Glenn Youngkins administration, when the legislature passed Gov. Northams final budget, which included record investments in K-12 education, and unanimously passed the Literacy Act, a much-needed law to increase literacy rates across the commonwealth.

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All this is to say that, here in Virginia, weve begun to recognize that a world-class education is the ticket to upward mobility, strengthening our middle class and creating safe and prosperous communities. And although it may seem unlikely, Democrats and Republicans do want the same thing: for our children to feel safe and excel in their school environment, for Virginia to have the best public schools in the nation and to ensure that parents have meaningful involvement in their childs schooling. As a high school civics and history teacher and state delegate, I believe that further progress for our students and schools requires big, bipartisan solutions and investments.

Right now, I fear that our bipartisan consensus is being ruptured by political culture wars and unilateral right-wing policy experiments that will damage our public school system.

Last week, Gov. Youngkin participated in a town hall on CNN to address his education agenda. He says it will give parents a voice in education and put school excellence first. The problem here is that these truisms, which all Virginians, regardless of political party, want, require thoughtful policy decisions in consultation with stakeholders across the political and educational spectrums. Reforming testing and accreditation, adopting new history standards, respecting all parents and their students and raising standards in all classrooms require large-scale buy in and group effort.

But instead of seeking consultation and outreach, weve seen the opposite. Gov. Youngkin has instituted a teacher tip line for people to accuse teachers of teaching divisive concepts, crafted ideologically driven history standards in secret, attempted to defund public schools with a voucher program and then continuously accused Democrats and educators of wanting to divide communities and lower standards.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin visits a classroom at Colonial Forge High School in Stafford in September.

So lets talk about what the governor can do, in conjunction with the legislature, educators and Republicans and Democrats, to keep Virginia a national leader in education:

We should fully fund the implementation of the Literacy Act through eighth grade, which the governors budget proposal failed to do.

Adopt large portions of the Senates budget proposal, including uncapping the amount we provide localities for support staff and continuing to give teachers pay raises. Both were not included in the governors budget in order to give corporations a tax cut, and both are necessary to keep our school systems on a positive trajectory.

Work collaboratively, rather than secretively, on assessment and accreditation reform to get the large-scale bipartisan support needed to ensure both can be fully implemented with political, communal and educational buy in.

Adopt the history standards proposed by professional educators who specialize in history that married the initial proposals with Gov. Youngkins proposals. This work, which was done over two years with hundreds of stakeholders all over the commonwealth, can be approved with the governors suggested edits rather than thoughtless wholesale replacement.

Drop attempts to privatize our public schools with voucher programs and think about how we can add career and technical education programs, magnet schools and other forms of curriculum and school diversity within our public schools. Thats a much better way to serve the many different educational needs of our students, rather than private-equity experimentation. The county I represent and teach in, Henrico, does an excellent job of providing students with options while being accountable to taxpayers.

All this would require transparent, public and bipartisan collaboration. After last weeks national town hall, I hope that the governor is more inclined to have these critical conversations with community members and leaders for the betterment of our childrens future and the commonwealth. Its time to stop playing politics with our kids education and get to work theres too much on the line.

Rodeo

04-18-1986 (cutline): A rodeo clown's job is to protect cowboys, but ometimes they get in trouble.

Rodeo

07-22-1982 (cutline): Wally Terry (right), Clint Corey, and Marty Terry (left), all from California, takes hatts off to music of 'America the Beautiful' at the rodeo.

Rodeo

04-02-1977 (cutline): John Gilstrap is a laugh-maker and a life-saver, all rolled into one. Such is the double life of a rodeo clown.To the unsophisticated viewer, he's just another funny man with a painted face, silly wig and baggy clothes. But to the bull-riding cowboys on the rodeo circuit, Gilstraph is the difference many times between life and death.

Rodeo

03-25-1973 (cutline): Bobby Rowe, horse man for rodeo and one of this subjects.

Rodeo

03-23-1973 (cutline): Rodeo veteran takes practice turn around barrel race course. Mrs. Jackie Thompson wears lucky garb as she rides 'King Penn.'

Rodeo

03-21-1973 (cutline): Some of the 100 riders and 175 animals who'll be competing in the Loretta Lynn Longhorn World Championship Rode that will begin tomorrow at the Richmond Coliseum have already settled into town. The riders will be competing for about $12,000 in prize money and championship points of the International Rodeo Association.

Rodeo

03-23-1973 (cutline): Mother-daughter duo drove from Texas to compete in rodeo here. Mrs. Thompson will Ride 'Penn,' Mrs. Sondra Gill, 'Mighty Barrs.'

Rodeo

05-27-1972 (cutline): Mrs. Helen Panzella waits to perform. Rodeo star is also nursing student.

Rodeo

05-28-1972 (cutline): Bill Keating tried not to comply with the creature's wishes yesterday as he participated in a steer wrestling competition in the Acca Temple Shrine Rodeo at City Stadium. The rodeo winds up its three-day stint today.

Rodeo

03-24-1972 (cutline): The World Championship Rodeo at the Richmond Coliseum.

Rodeo

03-23-1972: World Championship Rodeo at the Richmond Coliseum

Rodeo

03-22-1972 (cutline): Mrs. Nola Freeman is rodeo secretary.

Rodeo

04-18-1986 (cutline): Mini-cowboy at work--Animals part of show too.

Link:
Column: Culture wars, right-wing experiments will damage schools - Richmond Times-Dispatch