Fewer Students, Lower Scores, More Taxpayer Dollars
by James A. Bacon
You’d think that with K-12 enrollment declining, the overall cost of educating Virginia’s children might start declining as well. The number of school-age children is sliding down a long slope (see graph above), and there is no indication that the exodus of 44,000 or so pupils during the COVID pandemic to private schools and home schools is about to reverse itself. Yet In his proposed biennial budget (fiscal years 2026 and 2027), Governor Glenn Youngkin asked for $600 million more, bringing the two-year total to $22 billion.
And Senate Democrats say it’s not nearly enough.
The latest argument is over how much more money to spend for “support staff” — school nurses, school social workers, school counselors, bus drivers, custodians. In other words, people who don’t actually teach. For that chunk of the biennial budget, the General Assembly budget crafted by Democrats wants to add $223 million more. Youngkin wants to dial the number down to a $85 million increase.
“We’re talking about … folks who keep our schools running,” Sen. Jennifer Carroll Foy, D-Prince William, told 8News.
“By eliminating $130 million of K-12 funding, all he’s going to hurt is a lot of locals that are desperate for that money right now,” said Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax.
Surovell and Foy are only warming up the spending machine. They have a lot more in mind.
Last November, the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee identified another $3.6 billion in near- and long-term needs.
To the “progressive” Democratic mindset, every social problem calls for more government and more money. In Virginia, that proclivity is reflected in a fixation on “inputs” — employees hired, facilities constructed, dollars spent — rather than “outputs,” or actual results. The most critical inputs can’t be measured in dollars.
Have Surovell and Foy ever called for setting higher expectations and more exacting standards, from classroom grading to Standards of Learning scores?
Have they ever re-thought “progressive” paradigms for teaching English, math, and English as a Second Language?
Have they ever acknowledged the colossal disaster of extended school shutdowns during the COVID-19 epidemic?
Have they ever admitted that an underlying cause of poor student performance and low teacher morale is disorder in the classrooms, and that much of the disorder is the consequence of the therapeutic, “socio-emotional learning” model for maintaining discipline?
Have they ever once conferred with the leaders of the Comprehensive Instructional Program to see how it has turned some poor rural school districts into top-performing districts in the state, as measured by Standards of Learning pass rates?
Has the thought ever crossed their minds that, maybe, just maybe, schools would benefit from fewer administrative and support staff, fewer rules binding teachers, and fewer time-consuming staff meetings?
Not all Democrats think alike. Todd Truitt, a frequent contributor to Bacon’s Rebellion, makes a lot of sense, and he insists that many other Democrats share his views.
But Democratic legislators and their educrat allies consistently support: (1) eroding standards to obscure differences between high- and low-performing students; (2) tolerating higher levels of disorder and learning disruption; (3) blaming unequal outcomes on systemic racial “inequity”; (4) spending more money to hire more teachers, staff and administrators; and (5) blocking vouchers and charter schools so no one can escape the system.
Educating our youth is one of the most critical things that state/local government does. Democrats will try to make this fall’s elections a referendum on Donald Trump. Republicans should make it, at least in part, a referendum on public education.
