School board reckoning?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When have Republicans ever advocated for education? You elected a guy running on lowering taxes and school vouchers-both which are not good things for public schools.

I know. We are screwed. The Democrats current lip service to equity and “ issues” is a huge problem and I hate it and all the educrats they empower, too, but charter schools are like a sign for end of times.

Black parents support school choice. SJW parents of Langley kids do not. I wish I could afford private school and be done with this nonsense. Public schools are failing in urban areas and teachers unions are the biggest problem when we consider what is the true source of systemic racism and the achievement gap in America.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:McAuliffe won Fairfax County by a whopping 65 - 35, so there's no reason for them to not double down.

The state DoE, however, may tread a bit more cautiously.

+100.

-100. If democrats want state wide office, they need wider margins in Fairfax.

Agreed. If you're a Dem and you only get 65 percent of the vote in Fairfax, you've got problems. I saw a lot of Youngkin signs around where I live in Springfield. I saw one McAuliffe sign.

I do agree that the schools issue is more than CRT. I could care less about CRT. I'm still livid we went thru DL for all of last year when the kids and teachers could have safely returned to the classroom using social distancing and masks. And I hate the fact that our reading curriculum for lower-elementary is so weak. I didn't vote for Youngkin because I think he's terrible. But I guarantee you I will vote for almost any Republican who runs for the school board.

Republicans didn't make the school board any better when they were on it. Maybe instead of electing politicians from major political parties, we should put full-time educational professionals in charge. Or perhaps have NO major party involvement.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1999/10/28/fairfax-county-school-board-at-large/594ad308-d942-4333-89ce-4a4f0c8f7274/

Frye-D, Brickner-R, Thomas-R. 2 AA operating as non woke. Full time pro educators can have pedagogue issues. FCPS has a high FARMS/ESL school that was a major success story. Core Knowledge, phonics, literature. spelling, traditional math. Better stuff in instruction than at the vast majority of FCPS elementary schools. What happened? Use it as a prototype? No. Scrap heap by educrats with different opinions on instruction.

Professional Education Pedagogues https://www.todos-math.org/assets/docs2016/2016Enews/3.pospaper16_wtodos_8pp.pdf
Cited articles stretch even back to 2000. Meanwhile that high FARMS-ESL elementary school was high performing. Unfortunately that objective performance metric didn't fit the narrative.

Nor does the new NAACP language arts initiative. NAACP as the opposition leader to the liberal educrat pedagogues! How weird is that? Maybe some people who matter finally looked at the crap their kids got in school.

[Anonymous]

I don't know if anyone else is interested in this - but I would really like to get back to the school board being non partisan. No endorsement of any candidates on the sample ballots.

In theory, we do have a non-partisan School Board.

Quit allowing party endorsements. No ballot lists handed out at elections--that's how people vote, unfortunately.

[Anonymous]

It’s amazing how many posts and threads there are about the election results but so little indication the local Democrats are going to engage in any serious self-reflection. Guess we’ll have to vote them out, too.

[Anonymous]

SNL making fun of VA election and the parents voting for youngkin:

https://youtu.be/CU-WdnXJabs

[Anonymous]

More ribbing of va voters on snl.... Anyone else embarrassed that we elected a guy that was heavily supported by uneducated white women?

https://youtu.be/08zeLYx6j7Y

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SNL making fun of VA election and the parents voting for youngkin:

https://youtu.be/CU-WdnXJabs

If they wanted to have an impact, they should have run the skit before the election. Maybe they under-estimated some people, dunno.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:More ribbing of va voters on snl.... Anyone else embarrassed that we elected a guy that was heavily supported by uneducated white women?

https://youtu.be/08zeLYx6j7Y

Why? We’re you embarrassed when McAuliffe got votes from blacks even less likely to have college degrees?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read an interesting interview with two of the top campaign people for Youngkin where they were asked about the respective campaigns of McAuliffe and Youngkin.

Their response was that McAuliffe offered very few affirmative reasons to vote for him, and ran against Youngkin as if Youngkin was running for national office (i.e., to be elected to the Senate), whereas Youngkin ran a disciplined campaign that remained focused on the types of local issues like education, crime, and attracting business that people expect a governor (but not necessarily a House or Senate member in Congress) to address.

That seemed to make sense, and I think we see the same thing with the FCPS School Board. These folks were elected to focus on the most local of issues - the administration of a county's public school system - and yet from day one they've acted as if they hold or aspire to hold national political office. Cohen and Frisch weren't in office for more than a few weeks before they were holding fundraisers for Democratic candidates, and the "all equity, all the time" rhetoric of most of them sounded as if they thought they were personally responsible for some type of great national reckoning. And then even the ones whose rhetoric wasn't as overblown demonstrated that they had a tin ear and next to no sensitivity to local concerns.

So while the Ds still got most of the votes in NoVa, the Ds on the current school boards in NoVa have all the flaws of a Terry McAuliffe, and would be very stupid if they don't think they are going to be extremely vulnerable in an election that focuses primarily on their own performance (or lack thereof). They have two years left to clean up their act, but it seems unlikely that they have the smarts to do so. McLaughlin has been the only one who has demonstrated any sensitivity to what her constituents want from a School Board member; the rest seem too ideological, too dense, or too lazy to right the ship.

I don't know if anyone else is interested in this - but I would really like to get back to the school board being non partisan. No endorsement of any candidates on the sample ballots.

If Ds and Rs can put people on the ballot, is there any reason a group of bipartisan parents can’t develop a mission statement, vet candidates in a truly bipartisan way based on their experience and the mission statement, amd get them on the ballot with a parent endorsed sample ballot?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SNL making fun of VA election and the parents voting for youngkin:

https://youtu.be/CU-WdnXJabs

Who is doing the trump impersonation now - he did a pretty good job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:More ribbing of va voters on snl.... Anyone else embarrassed that we elected a guy that was heavily supported by uneducated white women?

https://youtu.be/08zeLYx6j7Y

No - I am embarrased that this is what a lot of Ds think. That's why people think the Ds are elite and why we lost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When have Republicans ever advocated for education? You elected a guy running on lowering taxes and school vouchers-both which are not good things for public schools.

I know. We are screwed. The Democrats current lip service to equity and “ issues” is a huge problem and I hate it and all the educrats they empower, too, but charter schools are like a sign for end of times.

Black parents support school choice. SJW parents of Langley kids do not. I wish I could afford private school and be done with this nonsense. Public schools are failing in urban areas and teachers unions are the biggest problem when we consider what is the true source of systemic racism and the achievement gap in America.

You are pretty arrogant speaking for all “black parents.” You are also spectacularly misinformed if you think the root of educational woes in America is “teachers unions.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When have Republicans ever advocated for education? You elected a guy running on lowering taxes and school vouchers-both which are not good things for public schools.

I know. We are screwed. The Democrats current lip service to equity and “ issues” is a huge problem and I hate it and all the educrats they empower, too, but charter schools are like a sign for end of times.

Black parents support school choice. SJW parents of Langley kids do not. I wish I could afford private school and be done with this nonsense. Public schools are failing in urban areas and teachers unions are the biggest problem when we consider what is the true source of systemic racism and the achievement gap in America.

You are pretty arrogant speaking for all “black parents.” You are also spectacularly misinformed if you think the root of educational woes in America is “teachers unions.”

And the people who are outraged that there are AA who vote Republican are not arrogant? Let's be real, the people who are shocked that minorities voted for the Republican Party, who had two minorities on the ballot for high level positions, are arrogant. the Democratic Party should not automatically get the votes of all minorities because of it's positions. For the record, I am a registered Democrat.

Historically, Democrats controlled the Southern States during the Pre-Civil Rights era. The shift from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party in the South came when President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act in 1964, he even said that he was going to be costing the Democratic Party those votes for the next generation. A lot of the Civil Rights legislation was designed to eradicate laws and policies that had been voted in by Democrats in Southern States.

And the notion that an entire block of people should vote for the Democratic Party because the Democrats have policies that should better serve those people is arrogant. Especially when it is hard to see how the lives of poor people in the rural or urban areas have improved with Democratic Leadership. Democratic policies on poverty, education gaps, and the like have not exactly been knocking it out of the park. The focus at the local level has been on ridiculous crap and not actually addressing the systemic issues that parents of impoverished families face. Maybe look at PreK programs that run in the hours that poor families need them, meaning for longer then the school day, so that parents have an incentive to actually use them. Or Before and After care at Title I schools that is free and opens when parents need it. You could use those programs to provide meals for kids as well as work on targeting educational gap areas.

I am happy to see schools names being changed, I think that makes sense, but it does nothing to actually help the kids learn. Let's focus money on before and after school programs that help kids who are behind catch up. Hire tutors who can work with kids after school. Develop programs that engage the kids and make them want to stay at school instead of heading home where they might not have supervision. Pay Teachers and Aides enough that they want to work in those schools. Pay subs and tutors enough that they want to work in the after school programs. If we have HS that are under enrolled in impoverished areas, use that space to hire more Teachers and cut down class sizes in the remedial classes so kids have a better chance of making up ground. Find out what classes the kids would want to stay in school for and offer those, votech classes? Trade classes?

Whatever we are doing right now is failing so do something different. But to expect people to vote Democratic simply because the Democrats are more woke is stupid. Vote for the party that you think is going to address your needs, right now, I don't see either the Democrats or Republicans addressing the needs to POC.

[Anonymous]

You are pretty arrogant speaking for all “black parents.” You are also spectacularly misinformed if you think the root of educational woes in America is “teachers unions.”

SP. Not addressing the "black parents" part as I am not Black and cannot speak as a Black parent. However, I can speak as a teacher who agrees that teachers' unions are a significant root of educational woes.

Teachers' unions care about the unions. They are run by people who have left the profession to become political activists. It has been that way for years. They have no understanding of the day to day experience of teachers and care even less about the students.

I had experience in three schools--two different systems and this was true there. I also have watched from a parental experience what goes on in FCPS and this has not changed my opinion.

And, for those who say that FCPS does not have a teachers' "union," just think of the power they wield as an "association." Do you really think the power of the as a "union" will not be even more?

[Anonymous]

08:47 here.

And, who could forget the picture of Kimberly Adams getting the vaccine shot? Teachers were able to go in first group. And, then the rules changed again. Kimberly did not want schools to open until kids were vaccinated. Schools remained closed until it became obvious that parents were livid.