The Washington Post reports that more than half the school districts in Virginia are defying Governor Youngkin’s order to eliminate mask mandates.
Youngkin boasted on a conservative radio program that only a small percentage of districts were not complying with his belief that masks should be optional.
But a Washington Post analysis shows that the majority of Virginia public school districts — enrolling more than two-thirds of the state’s students — have opted to disobey Youngkin’s mask-optional order. As of Wednesday, two days after the order was supposed to take effect, 69 districts, or 53 percent, are still requiring masks for all students inside schools. Cumulatively, those districts enroll 846,483 students, or about 67 percent of the state’s public school student population. The divide falls along partisan lines, although not perfectly: Almost every district that opted to make masks optional is in a locality that voted for Youngkin in the 2021 gubernatorial election.
The widespread defiance suggests Youngkin will have enormous difficulty in enforcing his mask-optional mandate, which is already the subject of two lawsuits: one from parents in Chesapeake, and one from seven school boards that oversee some of the state’s largest, most prominent school districts. A hearing on the second suit is scheduled for next week. Youngkin has said he will use every tool at his disposal to carry out his order as those cases wind through the court system, and his spokeswoman did not rule out disciplining disobedient districts by yanking their state funding…
Frederick Hess, a senior fellow and director of education policy at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said he thinks Youngkin should stay the course on his masking policies, while vigorously fighting back against the two lawsuits challenging the executive order.
If parents prioritize the health and safety of their children, they will tell them to wear a mask in school and wherever groups of people congregate.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Even Youngkin’s Hometown Richmond, VA tells him to GO FLY A KITE.
The Man-Lifting Type and Remain Air Borne Please.
“RIchmond Public Schools, along with Alexandria City, Arlington County, Fairfax County, Falls Church City, Hampton City and Prince William County, collectively serve more than 350,000 children in the Commonwealth.
Their legal action defends the right of school boards to enact policy at the local level, including policies that protect the health and well-being of all students and staff.”
This election of Youngkin was rigged and should be investigated for voter fraud.
Absolutely Correct. Massive amounts of money, foreign and domestic, bankrolled the Youngkin stage play that some VA voters bought hook, line and sinker. Emphasis on the sinker.
VA. voters did not blindly buy into anything. Trump voters motivated by grievance came out in record numbers while Biden voters did not. A suicidal death cult does not need issues, they will invent them. It was an off ,off year election. The same happened on Long Island and the inverse happened in 17 and 18 when Trump motivated Democrats to show up in record numbers.
Seriously??!! Pulling out the trump playbook for the left to use is all you’ve got? I seriously doubt that there was “voter fraud” in any election. Bait and Switch on the part of Youngkin….but that’s dirty politics. Things won’t get better until SCOTUS overturns Citizens United.
“Things won’t get better until SCOTUS overturns Citizens United.”
Excellent point. As everyone who voted for the Democrat in 2016 knew. And those who were content to let Citizens United stand — either because they knew Citizens United helped the right wing political agenda that they supported, or because they were content to have things stay just like they were and didn’t care about making them better, did not vote for the Democrat in 2016.
Unfortunately, overturning Citizens United is likely to take a very long time now, thanks to Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett.
All we can do now is continue to fight to prevent things getting even worse and keep voting to empower the Democrats (while fighting for our preferred candidate in the primaries) until there is such a huge democratic majority in the Senate and House with a Democratic president so that that destructive Citizens United decision becomes moot.
I was being ironic. How many Republicans do we hear protesting Youngkin’s election?
also: the Democrats put up a known corporate player to oppose Youngkin — an aging White male known to stick to old policies. What might have happened had the voters had a true choice to make…?
Just some facts: Virginia voters did have a true choice to make. Virginia held a Democratic primary, in which there were very good choices. In fact, Jennifer Carroll Foy raised a lot of money, too (not as much as McAuliffe, but it was certainly far more than most other winning candidates who were able to defeat well-funded primary opponents). Foy had the endorsement of Gloria Steinem and Katie Porter and former NAACP president Ben Jealous. I didn’t notice any endorsements from young prominent progressives like AOC or the squad fighting for her to be the nominee. But Foy did get endorsements from Emily’s List and People for the American Way and many labor groups (although many others endorsed McAuliffe).
But when given a “true choice”, the voters in the Democratic primary chose McAuliffe. It wasn’t even close. Terry McAuliffe won over 62% of the votes. Foy came in 2nd with less than 20% of the vote. Another woman who seemed like an excellent candidate, too, received 11%.
The Republicans annointed Youngkin at a convention-type vote. No primary.
Youngkin won for one reason. Because the Republicans used their massive propaganda machine to tell lies about McAuliffe and too many people who claimed not to be Republicans helped legitimize and amplify those lies about McAuliffe. Likes like “McAuliffe should not have done XXX so it’s his fault” (even though McAuliffe didn’t actually do XXX). Lies that involved blaming the victim like “if only the Democrats had given voters a different choice.”
If we want to stop the wholesale destruction of our democracy, we have to stop INCENTIVIZING those lies. Always blaming the losing Democrats for doing something that caused them to be victimized by Republican propaganda. They did not. They just happened to be the last person standing between the Republicans and their victory at that point, and nothing was going to stop that propaganda. But that propaganda would have had no power if that propaganda had been called out as the lies it was. Instead it was given credibility. Instead the mainstream media legitimized that propaganda, agreeing that the democrat did something bad and blaming the victim. So did too many people who weren’t Republicans whose embrace of that right wing narrative gave it a legitimacy it did not deserve.
When you make casual comments that blame the democrats for not giving voters a “choice”, you reinforce the right wing’s favorite narrative about how there always something wrong with that Democratic party. Never with the reprehensible and corrupt and dishonest smear campaigns of the Republicans. No wonder the Republicans keep up that winning strategy. When the story of the end of democracy is written many decades from now, people will be shocked at how many “good Americans” kept repeating the fascist lies as if those lies were true.
Voters liked McAuliffe in the primary. By election day, democratic voters were less motivated to come to the polls after a non-stop smear campaign – legitimized by the media and some who blamed the victim. Youngkin’s voters were even more motivated — after all, the smears against McAuliffe were even being repeated by people who weren’t Republicans, so they must really be true. They weren’t.
“If parents prioritize the health and safety of their children, they will tell them to wear a mask in school and wherever groups of people congregate.’
“If” is a big word. For sure, there are too many brain damaged QAnon followers that are not only parents but anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers in Virginia.
I think when parents that are not MAGA morons prioritize the health and safety of their children know the school district their child attends is allowing children to come to class without a mask, they should keep their children’s home.
In fact, everyone that prioritized their health ans safety and the same for their families that lives in one of Trump’s MAGA controlled RED states should just stay home, and shop online with porch deliveries.
Once corporations that depend on brick and mortar stores (restaurants, theaters, et al.) see profits falling like a rock dropped from 30,000 feet, who will Trump’s ass kissers listen to, the lunatic MAGA voters they are catering to or the billionaires and corporations that donate to their election campaigns?
We who wear masks and are vaccinated, outnumber the MAGA mob about five to one.
That’ll be it for Youngkin and public school students in Virginia- after he promotes the two culture war issues using their schools, it’ll be full time promoting, funding and marketing charter schools.
They won’t see much of the Youngkin Administration going forward. Public school students will no longer be politically useful, so all work on their behalf will cease.
If there’s one constant in states run by ed reformers it’s this: no effort is expended on public schools or public school students. You’ll get charters! You’ll get vouchers! But “improvements” to public schools? No. Unless you count silly, politically-motivated campaigns to ban masks and “CRT”.
And I don’t believe that Youngkin can legally yank state funding from those school districts defying his mask optional mandate?
Since the start of “school choice week” The 74 has run 5 articles promoting charters and vouchers and 0 positive articles on public schools. In fact, every single article that either touches on or is even remotely relevant to public schools is negative. Oh, and one article that just opposes labor unions in general- all labor unions.
Lavish praise and promotion of charter schools and vouchers, no criticism of any kind on charter schools or vouchers, 100% negative coverage of public schools and a blatant anti labor union posture.
To call this “propoganda” is too generous. It’s just straight-up, ordinary product marketing, and the product is privatizing the K-12 system.
Boy, ed reform funders really get what they paid for- they bought an echo chamber and they have one.
https://www.the74million.org/
Perhaps the concerned teachers and parents of these VA(all) districts need to bring this to the streets . “keep your deranged suicidal cult out of my children’s class.” “drop dead on your own dime not mine ” “kill your grandma not mine” . “Little Nazis not welcome here” …… If any of that sounds over the top; ask yourself if the right cares. In fact they revel in the culture wars . Trump gained votes after “Access Hollywood” even among Republican Woman.
I thought Fred Hess could not be any denser or more despicable than he already was. His comments in the article cited here prove me wrong.
Here’s a new story in The Post on the reverberations from Youngkin’s bad mask order:
“I n Virginia Beach, a mother is sending frantic emails to her school board, begging them to reverse their mask-optional policy to protect the life of her 14-year-old daughter who has a heart condition. In Arlington, a teenage girl broke down sobbing this week as she asked her parents for help navigating the suddenly thorny social dynamics between masked and unmasked friends — leading her mother to pull her from school for a mental health day.”
“And in Chesapeake, Va., on Tuesday, the first day her school district stopped requiring masks in accordance with Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s mask-optional executive order, ninth-grade English teacher Amanda Lambert awoke unsure if she would go to work. Lambert was thinking about what her doctor told her: that, because of her blood-clotting disorder, she was unlikely to live through “the next round” of coronavirus variants if she contracted the illness and had to go on a ventilator. ‘Being intubated,’ she thought to herself, ‘is signing your own death certificate.’ “
“ Above all were thoughts of her son in sixth grade, and how badly she wants to see him graduate, get a job, get married. “
“ ‘When I was in the Navy, I signed on the dotted line to put my life at risk and I understood that,’ Lambert, 41, said. ‘This is different.’ “
“All across Virginia, similar scenes of fear, division and chaos played out this week, as teachers reentered classrooms where children were suddenly allowed to appear maskless. The change in rules is due to Youngkin’s controversial executive order, issued on his first day in office but which took effect Monday, asserting that parents have the right to decide whether their children wear face coverings in school.”
“A Washington Post analysis found that, as of Friday, more than half of Virginia districts had opted to ignore the governor’s order — which is already the subject of two lawsuits, one from parents and one from school boards — and keep requiring masks. But in the 59 districts that did adopt mask-optional rules, teachers, parents and approximately 400,000 students have had to grapple with the fallout from a directive that many said felt like a poorly thought-through political ploy with profound health and academic consequences for Virginia’s students and teachers.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/01/28/va-mask-order-schools/
Youngkin’s children attend private schools in DC where masking is required. Youngkins children attend college prep private schools where social justice is a big topic. Try looking up the curriculum of the private school that the Youngkin children attend. Try having the parents at that school demand the school avoid certain topics by upon parental preference.
The biggest selling point of all of the college prep private schools in DC is that their safety school is George Washington University.
Georgetown Prep has a mask mandate, vaccination mandate and mandatory testing every week (all students and educators). Youngkin is free to pull his son out of Prep if he wishes….but he doesn’t. He is fine with it.
Youngkin played the moderate, right of center, “I’m not trumpy” during campaign season and Democrat McAulliff was status quo and then ran his mouth and pissed off many parents. Youngkin won. Youngkin is now playing to his base and giving them what they want….what they elected him to do. The problem is that those swing voters are now regretting their decision and realizing that they got bamboozled. Politics is a dirty business if one wants to stay in the game for the long run.
Notice the right wing framing. McAuliffe “ran his mouth”.
Terry McAuliffe “ran his mouth” because he made a strong defense of public schools being allowed to include books that right wing Trump supporting parents don’t like.
Terry McAuliffe “ran his mouth” for daring to stand up to right wing Trump-supporting parents who say they should be able to tell schools what they are and are not allowed to teach.
The reason the mainstream Democratic party often seems afraid to stand up for things that progressives want is because they get attacked with these kinds of dishonest mischaracterizations. McAuliffe stood up for something that any non-racist progressive would support, and it is turned into something “bad” he did — he “ran his mouth”. He pissed off parents. He should have shut up.
No one listening to McAuliffe when he spoke thought that McAuliffe “ran his mouth”. They thought he made a strong statement supporting public schools and pushing back against right wing Christian fundamentalist parents who believed they should be able to tell schools what to teach. In fact, all the parents listening to McAuliffe APPLAUDED because they did not want a small number of well-funded Trump-supporting right wing parents to be able to control what their public schools taught their kids, and they actually thought that what McAuliffe said was good.
McAuliffe said something that offended no one except right wing Trump supporting parents. But the propaganda took a single phrase and said that phrase meant something that it didn’t, and even when it was pointed out to them that the phrase was part of a longer sentence that parents APPLAUDED, they still say that it’s all McAuliffe’s fault for saying something so bad.
It’s easy for those helping the right wing agenda to “piss off parents” if they have no integrity nor moral compass and they tell those parents lies that they believe. It’s easy to “piss off parents” and make them hate someone, if you keep presenting an out of context phrase said by that person and present it as having an entirely different meaning than it does. That’s what the right wing did to McAuliffe when they took a statement that got much applause from parents and used a shorter phrase and claimed it meant something it didn’t.
I suggest everyone listen to that entire statement by McAuliffe that was a strong defense against those who objected to high school juniors and seniors reading Toni Morrison’s Beloved and believed that their group of right wing parents should be given the power to decide what public schools are allowed to teach.
Shame on anyone demonizing this as running at the mouth. It did “piss off” right wing Trump supporters, who lied about it in order to “piss off” other gullible parents who don’t bother to think for themselves and believe whatever they read on conservative media platforms.
The fact that it worked isn’t the fault of the victim. It worked because no one called it out at the time. That was bad enough, but continuing to push that false narrative now is inexcusable.
McAuliffe made a massive mistake of telling white parents (but not others) to sit down, shut up, and do what they are told. McAuliffe could have easily came out against many of the policies being considered by Virginia school boards such as doing away with tracking and AP/IB classes.
superdestroyer,
Find a direct quote for this. Because usually folks that claim this happened use the same out of context phrase that was part of a sentence that got loud applause from a group of parents of all races – is that okay with you that it wasn’t ALL white but that there were white parents and parents who weren’t white who all liked what McAuliffe said?
If you can find some direct quote of McAuliffe that supports your narrative of McAuliffe “telling white parents (but not others) to sit down, shut up, and do what they are told”, please cite it.
If you can’t find anything, no problem, that’s what I thought. And your silence confirms that McAuliffe said no such thing.
NYC PSP…The full quote is not really necessary. It was the perception that the audience and parents garnered from a portion of the quote that mattered. McAuliffe pulled an Arne Duncan 2.0 plain and simple…in tenor and tone. All parents heard was that McAullife knew better about the State’s children than the parents who brought them into the world. I hold no religious affiliation but even I get offended when people/politicians condemn others for trying to protect their children from what they they feel is morally wrong.
The whole “Beloved” debacle was just a wack a doodle scheme. It was laughable and most people turned a deaf ear to it. It didn’t work.
LisaM,
I am glad you wrote that all down for the record.
You seem to be acknowledging what actually happened. McAuliffe stood up to those right wing parents who believed high schools should not be able to teach books they find objectionable, like Toni Morrison’s Beloved. The video shows that the audience of parents applauded. It’s really simple.
So it is troublesome and revealing that you wrote “It was the perception that the audience and parents garnered from a portion of the quote that mattered.”
The video establishes that the perception of parents in the audience who heard the statement was support and applause. If their perception mattered, why are you erasing their applause for McAuliffe’s statement from your narrative?
The parents who weren’t in the audience and believed the false narrative of their right wing media sources had a false perception because their information sources wanted them to have a false impression. An edited phrase didn’t just garner into their heads. Their perception didn’t come from attending the event or watching the video in context. Their sources wanted to mislead them.
When you have video evidence that makes it clear that someone’s “perception” is entirely false, most ethical people are outraged at the people who are deceiving the public, not blaming the victim.
It’s not complicated at all.
Sofia Ongele has done coding work to dismantle tools similar to Youngkin’s tip line, including a similar auto-generator for contacting officials in support of the Jan. 6 insurrection last year.
“If I, at 5 years old, am old enough to experience racism, then someone at 10 years old is old enough to learn about it,” Ongele said. “Most of Gen Z agrees with this sentiment, I think, and that’s why it’s gone viral. Instances like this Virginia tip line are not a stand-alone incident.”
Ongele already has her eyes on another state. “There is a senator in Mississippi who has a phone number tip line to report ‘critical race theory’ in schools too, and I’m posting something that I hope will make that phone number unusable,” she said.
Qasim Rashid, a Virginia parent and human rights lawyer, views the young people fighting this tip line with great admiration. “The kids are alright. “That’s all I can say. I mean it’s phenomenal — when you look at some of the nation’s greatest historical icons, they were in their teens when they first got involved, and that’s what these kids are doing. They’re the next Rosa Parks, Dr. King, Malcolm X. And they’re utilizing the tools of today in a really effective manner to demand accountability and push back against hate.”
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stefficao/virginia-critical-race-theory-tip-line-trolled?utm_source=dynamic&utm_campaign=bfsharecopy
My nose hurts. Wearing a heavy duty N95 mask all day while working my jaw to project my voice to a classroom with students spread out to the back corners, the windows and doors open, and the fans running pulls the metal nose strip down on the bridge of my nose something fierce. It’s well worth it.
It’s Friday. Hooray! I get to spend this weekend knowing I did everything I could to do to help protect and inspire the young, the progress toward. I can rest easy. Youngkin cannot. He cannot rest easy. He will never be able to, for the rest of his life. I feel sorry for him. My nose hurts. Big deal.
Thank you. It is so important to be reminded of how good people with integrity think.
We hear from people with no moral compass so frequently that people start to believe their selfishness and me-first attitude is normal.
In so very many of these right-wing induced situations, the same logical response tactic applies. Be consistent. They cannot possibly fire everybody.
Why aren’t Republicans screaming election fraud?
They have done their own research.
They have learned that all elections that Republicans win have no fraud and all elections that Democrats win are full of election fraud.
However, having done their own research, Republicans have a very nuanced view of this complex issue. This nuanced view is that even in the same election, where there are different political races on the ballot, there can be “half-election-fraud”.
Republicans found appallingly high instances of “half-election-fraud” in states like Pennsylvania in 2020. “Half-fraudulent” ballots contained an absolutely fraudulent vote for Biden and an absolutely legal vote for a Republican running for state legislature.
It is so important to elect Republicans to keep fraud out of our elections and find all the fraudulent ballots, which can be identified by their failure to mark a vote for the Republican.
Thanks! This makes it perfectly clear.