Jefferson Journal: Raising the Price on School and Road Construction
Virginia faces billions in expenses for road, bridge and school repair. Why are so many politicians willing to raise the cost of that construction so less construction can be done?
Jefferson Journal: Equal Access for Teachers?
Should Virginia teachers hae equal access to any legitimate employee association offering professional support, insurance and other benefits, so they can find the best deal for their money? Senator William DeSteph thinks so. The teacher unions prefer to maintain their monopoly.
The Jefferson Journal: Want to Honor Barbara Bush? Read to a Child.
“So there’s a reading circle and all the kids have a book and they’re passing the book kid to kid and they passed it to me and I couldn’t read.” That’s a dyslexic Neil Bush, describing the moment his mother took on the challenge of literacy and reading.
Meet Isaac …
Today, more than 3,300 at-risk Virginia children receive more than $10.6 million in scholarships from the Education Improvement Scholarship Tax Credit to attend a better school. Want to know how it works? More than 210,000 Virginians have watched this short video laying it all out — and telling you how you can get involved! Click […]
Fight to Help Underserved Children Playing out in Richmond
Virginia’s public school system is among the nation’s best, but there remain geographic pockets of underserved children. Of the 94 schools denied accreditation, 55 percent are in just five school divisions. Eleven schools have repeatedly been denied accreditation — one of them for 11 years! To help solve the problem, Delegate Steve Landes and Senator […]
Jefferson Journal: Why Virginia Needs a Charter School Amendment
Senator Mark Obenshain and Delegate Rob Bell have proposed a Virginia constitutional amendment permitting the State Board of Education to authorize p[ublic charter schools. If passed this year by the General Assembly, it goes to the voters for approval in November. Because charter schools remain relativesly unknown in Virginia, it’s important to understand how they […]
Helping Children, Saving Tax Dollars
In 2014-2015, the Education Improvement Scholarship Tax Credit offered nearly 1,400 low and moderate income students the opportunity for a better educational placement. At the same time, it saved the Commonwealth of Virginia nearly $3 million in Standards of Quality funding as those students left the public system to attend a private school. With a […]
Choice for Pre-K Students
Today, there are more than 7,800 unfilled slots in the Virginia Preschool Initiative (VPI) program offering early childhood learning services to at-risk children. They aren’t filled because local governments can’t match the funds or because they simply have no space. Chris Braunlich, vice president of the Thomas Jefferson Institute, offered a solution to the General […]
Jefferson Journal: School Choice Comes to Virginia
In 2013, the Virginia Education Improvement Scholarship Tax Credit (EISTC) finally cleared all the hurdles to become the Commonwealth’s best mechanism for creating new opportunities for educationally at-risk students. So, two years later, National School Choice Week (January 23-31) seems an ideal time to examine the effects of that law, the kind of students its […]
Jefferson Journal: After The OEI
The recent state court ruling that the Opportunity Educational Institution (OEI) is a violation of the Virginia Constitution leaves thousands of Virginia schoolchildren consigned to schools with decades-long records of failure. It’s a missed opportunity, but one that can and should be corrected next year. Here’s one way.