No one saw this coming.
The Republicans had a 32-seat advantage in the 100-seat House of Delegates.
The districts were gerrymandered to keep them in Republican Control.
On Tuesday, the Democratic wave came close to capturing the House of Delegates.
A few races are being recounted because they were so close.
As Winston Churchill said, in the face of what seemed to be impossible odds:
“Never give up. Never. Never. Never.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Educators won!
“Schuyler T. VanValkenburg, a high school government and history teacher, defeated longtime Henrico Republican leader Eddie Whitlock to claim the seat opened by the retirement of Del. Jimmie Massie, R-Henrico.
“I think people are ready for change,” said Rodman, an assistant professor of anthropology at Randolph-Macon College and one of 10 women newly elected to the House, for a total of 27. “They’re sick of divisive politics, and they’re ready to unify.”
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“The political shift also will make it much tougher for Republicans to pass legislation to expand “school choice” through voucherlike programs to shift public per-pupil funds to private schools or to establish more charter schools.
“I will fight every day to protect our public schools, expand access to affordable health care, and create an economy that works for everybody,” VanValkenburg said in his victory statement.”
If the Republicans do retain their majority and try to pass charter-choice legislation, Dr. Northam will veto it just like Governor McAuliffe did.
It’s a new day for Virginia’s public schools!
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Almost everything you say is true. Even if the legislature passes school choice, Mr. Northam will veto any such proposals.
It is NOT a new day for public education here in VA. We are going to see four years of the same old (expletive deleted).
Without school choice, the public schools have no incentive to innovate or compete, nor change anything. The public schools here are in a “take it or leave it, but we still get your money” mode.
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That’s very silly, Charles. People compete on the sports field, they don’t compete as schools. Public schools are the glue that hold communities together
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I do not get your comment. There is all kinds of competition, political, economic, etc. Your statement “people don’t compete as schools”, does not “catch” me. I do not understand.
And I do not understand your glue analogy.
Some communities have multiple schools. Some communities have “magnet” schools. Some communities have cross-town bussing for racial balance, which makes any notion of a “neighborhood school” superfluous.
Universities and Colleges compete for students. Why not K-12?
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Most public schools are community schools. They don’t get better by competing with other schools. They get better by having a stable staff, adequate resources, and a dedicated community.
Families don’t compete. I don’t trade my children for better children. I don’t kick out the ones with low scores and try to lure children who are better behaved and get higher test scores.
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I have thought often of an “educational common market”, where school district lines could be crossed by students. Even across county and state lines. Permitting children from Prince George’s county Maryland to attend public schools in WashDC ,etc. All of the money stays in the public schools, and no private entity is involved. In Texas, some school boards have abolished district lines. Also, Arizona has virtually eliminated school district lines.
And competition has improved almost every field of human endeavor: telecommunications, energy, retail stores, etc. There is no reason to believe that having schools compete, and permitting schools to offer programs and learning experiences, which are more individualized, would not benefit students.
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Charles,
Have you ever heard of community or neighborhood?
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Charles: competition among communities is as old as Louisville vs Cincinatti in the flatboat days, and just about as useless. Schools that are perceived as the best are often inundated by parents moving into their communities to gain access to them. This causes the most stark example of the self-fulfilling prophecy ever. Hundreds of parents got the idea that one East Tennessee county had great schools some years ago. It caused a boom in real estate. They did have great schools, but it was because all the kids came from families that could afford to send their kids there and to live in inflated value housing. Meanwhile, all the voters in that county continued to,send legislatures to Nashville who voted to keep taxes low. Thus education in the rural and inner city areas suffered because of those great schools. As long as my kid gets an education, I am ok with the way we do education. This is not a productive model. We should provide for all kids, even the ones who give us a tough time.
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Charles, I have to echo Diane’s “Have you ever heard of community or neighborhood”? and “Most public schools are community schools. They don’t get better by competing with other schools. They get better by having a stable staff, adequate resources, and a dedicated community.”
I am fortunate to live in a community which is actively engaged in running its public schools via elected school board. BOEd meetings are highly attended & broadcast live on local cable. Financially, the entire community (not just parents of school-aged children) is invested in maintaining good-quality schools, because that maintains our property value. Socially, nbrhd public schs are the platform for getting to know our nbrs, building community interest/ investment/ involvement in local politics – running our town.
‘School choice’ is built into our district. We do not want to lose students because their needs are not being met– we might have to pay for them to go out of district!– so we continually expand as best we can w/n our budget to meet all needs. We offer everything from AP/G&T to SpEd to ‘Bridge pgm’ for devptlly-delayed, & more recently, autistic primary (so far, K & 1; will expand).
This is possible in my community because it is relatively wealthy. But IMHO it’s the model to scale up in lower-income communities. ‘School choice’ can never succeed as an alternative for lower-income communities, because there is no economy of scale. Divvying up a too-low property-tax budget into multiple tiers of schools will obviously result in admin redundancies, resulting in either higher costs or lower quality. The idea of choice ramping up quality is a fantasy: competitive multiple choices retail-style is a contest w/winners & losers, incl schools closing mid-year, schools which sacrifice quality to profit, etc– the losers are kids, & the whole concept relies on a pubsch sys as back-up to take in the newly-arrived, the rejected & suspended, & those whose needs could not be met by the pubsch alts– & meanwhile that backup sys is depleted in capability to serve the losers, as its enrollment funds are siphoned off by the pubsch alts.
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Well stated!
I might add, too, that school choice is logistically impossible in rural areas. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska articulated this well during the Betsy DeVos hearings. These communities want better funded public schools & not choice.
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Charles, I do agree with you that much of the same old in Virginia will carry on. Schools will still promote things like STEM. And LOTs of technology, pushing things like Twitter as “innovation.” And SAT and ACT scores. And Advanced Placement.
But your comments represent a real misunderstanding – or willful ignorance – concerning what public education is and why we have it.
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Q Have you ever heard of community or neighborhood? END Q
The answer is yes. So what? I have lived in communities and neighborhoods, all of my life. Are you trying to make some point?
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@ Ray: Another reason to abolish allocating property tax revenue for public education expenses. The exact point was made in a book called “Savage Inequalities”.
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Somehow I don’t believe you have ever read anything by Jonathan Kozol. He doesn’t agree with you about anything. I know him.
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What you choose to believe is your own business. I agree 1000% percent that financing publicly-operated schools through property taxes, is an abomination. Rich neighborhoods get excellent public schools, poor neighborhoods get terrible public schools. You need not be a “progressive” to see the tragedy.
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Q I might add, too, that school choice is logistically impossible in rural areas. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska articulated this well during the Betsy DeVos hearings. These communities want better funded public schools & not choice. END Q
Why do you say that? If one school system can operate in a rural area, then additional schools can operate in rural areas. And what is “rural” anyway? There are non-public schools operating now, in areas with a low population density (I am a former employee of the US Census Bureau). Furthermore, parents in rural areas, can home-school their children. How can you speak for communities, and claim unilaterally that they all want more funding, and no choices in their children’s education? If rural parents want their public schools to spend more money, then they should encourage their elected representatives to increase their taxes, accordingly.
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Churchill is remembered for his pugnacious attitude that took on the Nazi onslaught with determination. We have forgotten what an imperialist he was. There is more to governance than winning. Four times the Parisians won the fight only to lose the battle for the rights of man.
In the midst of all this winning, we should begin to wonder what we will do when we come out on top. Will we have a plan?
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Without courage, we lose hope.
Without hope, we have no will to survive.
Roy, no one is talking about going to war. Talking about survival and the will to go on.
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The Republicans won the presidential election, and control both houses of congress. They could not even repeal Obamacare, arguably the worst legislation ever enacted in the history of mankind. They are now going to attempt tax reform. It is dead on arrival, as well.
Democrats need to take a lesson from the opposition. Don’t “win the war, and then lose the peace”.
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The republicans have talking points but no solutions
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I think we should begin to talk about policy. Positive things that we can do to make people have better lives. In education, let us begin by throwing out all but diagnostic tests. That is what I meant by havin a plan for when we come out on top. Concrete suggestions.
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There are some seats in the VA house of delegates, which are still undecided (as of 0800am Mon Morning 11/13). There are some recounts underway.
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