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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Why Cristol?  I feel like she hasn't done her time working on Arlington committees, and I'm feeling like that makes her a wild card.[/quote]

Cristol supports charter schools. I know that the county board isn't responsible for schools, but the fact that she is an educational consultant and this is the conclusion she's drawn makes me think her judgment is too poor for her to have any sort of responsibility.[/quote]

Where do you get that she supports charters?

"I'm always glad to have a conversation with neighbors and fellow progressives on charter schools; I think there's some interesting debate within our party right now. The short answer is that I'm anti-bad charters, and think that districts and states that grant charters freely and then don't move quickly to shut down poorly-performing charter operators are violating the public trust; and I'm pro-good charters, because they've demonstrated a powerful counterexample to the tired trope that "poor kids/kids of color can't learn" and forced us to have some difficult conversations about what it would take to close achievement gaps at scale.  If anyone wants to hear - or share - more, shoot a note to my team and me at info@katiecristol.com - let's talk!

But the more relevant answer to this campaign is that our County Board has little, if any, role on the authorization of charter schools in Arlington - that role is specifically delegated to School Boards under Virginia's current charter laws - and I'm absolutely NOT looking to expand the County Board's influence on the issue or push the School Board in any direction. (If folks have particular hypothetical County Board situations or votes in mind, I'm happy to respond to them).

Regarding the Arlington Educators Association endorsement: I can't speak for them, but I think they had great candidates to choose from and that a lot of folks in Arlington are making hard decisions - and congratulations to Peter and Christian on earning their endorsement. I CAN tell you that charter schools didn't come up at all in our conversation or in their questionnaire (and if the AEA is comfortable, I'd be happy to share my answers to that questionnaire publicly on BlueVirginia)."

http://www.bluevirginia.us/showComment.do?commentId=47276[/quote]

I'm a new poster.  I agree that her election doesn't mean that there's going to be a push for charter schools in Arlington.  I didn't vote for her, though, and I remain concerned about her views - or lack thereof - on schools.  I'm a mom with small kids, so I'm obviously focused on school issues.  But I'm troubled by her strong support for policies that would add a lot of new residents - whether through affordable housing, or by making it easier to subdivide single family homes - without any mention (that I could find) of the school capacity issues we're facing.  I really am a supporter of affordable housing.  But the other candidates at least seemed to be cognizant of the issues we're having with lack of space in schools and use of public lands.  I know she wasn't running for school board, but the county board does have a role to play in funding our schools, and in facilitating the use of properties on which schools can be built, and it just doesn't seem to be something she is interested in.  I've been disappointed that the county board and school board seem to not work together on these issues- it seems like the county board has been approving development right and left, and then leaving it to the school system to figure out what to do with all these kids.  I voted for other candidates who seemed to recognize that.  But we shall see![/quote]

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