Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since 2009 -- have we all forgotten the Great Recession, followed by the sequester, which hit Virginia hard financially and economically? If the money's not there, the money's not there.

The money is there, but it's decidedly not there for public education. The money is there for ridiculous amounts of standardized testing ($37-46 million annually) and technology that expires in 2-3 years, but it's not there to lower class size. hmmmmm The money is there for a multitude of remedial classes to prepare for the SOLs, but not for electives of art, music, languages.... hmmmm The money is there for the new requirement of "Personal Finance" class for graduation, but not for vocational education. hmmmm In other words, the money is there, but our politicians are not spending it in ways to really benefit children, they are spending it on private interests.

Next on the list for taxpayer hand-outs are Charter Schools with the Obenshain amendment. If OA passes the General Assembly, local districts will be forced to take charter schools, who have no accountability to the tax payers or state education policies. The local districts will have to foot the bill for charters. Charter Schools do not educate all kids, they pick and choose those without IEPs and ELL learners at taxpayer expense. They are partially staffed by unqualified teachers and even the qualified teachers earn less at charter schools. So....who would benefit from this financial outlay? The charter school companies.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't agree with charter schools but agree with the other spending matters. SOLS were decreased and the plan is to decrease them further. The amount given for them is not very high. quote]

The SOL committee reduced SOLs by 5. The average VA student takes approx. 70 standardized tests from K-12 and about 7 standardized tests per year. That does not include WIDA for students learning English or remedial testing for students who failed an SOL and some students will take as many as 150 standardized tests from K-12. Check the Testing Calendar on any School Division website, add up the tests and practice tests, some of which last several days. Then add up the classroom time spent on preparing students for the tests. Add up all the time that classroom teachers are pulled from the classroom to administer tests or test Kindergartners on PALS. It amounts to weeks of lost instructional time and a whole lot of stress for the students and teachers. ASK any teacher, if there is too much testing and they will agree 100%. Ask parents with school age children how the testing effects their child and they will report all kinds of anxiety, illness and depression and "hating school".

The cost to the taxpayer is astronomical and there are figures between $37-$46 million annually. The budget is buried deeply. But every time a student takes a test, it is money for Pearson or Scholastic or the vendor testing company. Furthermore in 20 years of SOL testing, the achievement gap persists. The standardized testing mandate has not benefited students, but it sure has benefited corporate interests.

There are 1,284,680 students in Virginia. Even at $46 million, the state would be spending $36 per student on testing for the year.