YES! I want to attend the Thomas Jefferson Institute’s “Excellence in Education” conference to learn more about innovative education ideas.□ I have enclosed my registration fee of $25, payable to the “Thomas Jefferson Institute.”□ I am interested in visiting the original Jamestown excavation site. Please send me more information when this is confirmed.NameAddress_City_State_ZipOffice Telephone__Home Telephone_FaxEmailAre you a...
Foreword The normal business cycle downturn that was impacting state revenue worsened after the September 11th terrorist attack on our country. The budget “short fall” in the state budget will require true leadership by our state officials. It also opens up opportunities to take creative budget management actions that can reduce costs but...
The Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy is anon-partisan research and education organization devoted to improving the lives of the people in Virginia. The Institute was organized in 1996, and was the only state and local government focused public policy foundation in Virginia based on a philosophy of limited government, free enterprise and...
While Virginia’s economy continues to grow and garner accolades such as the 2019 CNBC Best State to Do Business, threats to Virginia’s prosperity loom. Each year more and more proposals are introduced to meddle in the employer-employee relationship, mandate additional employee benefits, and increase the cost of doing business in the Commonwealth. To address these...
Senator Mark Obenshain and Delegate Rob Bell have proposed a Virginia constitutional amendment permitting the State Board of Education to authorize public charter schools. If passed this year by the General Assembly, it goes to the voters for approval in November. Because charter schools are relatively unknown in Virginia, it’s important...
1/9/2011 – Local school boards are understandably drooling over the possibility of getting out from under the poorly-devised accountability rules of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). That federal system has annually moved the “finish line” of educational success further and further down the field until, this year, 342 Virginia schools...
A part of Governor Bob McDonnell’s trio of education improvement laws this year was the establishment of procedures for local school boards to contract for virtual school programs -opportunities for students to work with their curriculum and teachers over the Internet, rather than in a traditional classroom. But the vast majority...
12/15/2011 – Shortly after I was elected to the Fairfax County School Board in 1995, a gentleman rose at a school budget meeting to ask, “Can’t we charge these kids for their textbooks?” The legal answer was, “No, not without losing all your state aid.” The larger answer, however, dealt with...
One of the hottest topics in education today is the growth of online learning or virtual schools. Today there are more than a million enrollments in K-12 online courses nationwide … and more than 200,000 of these are full-time students in full-time online schools. The ability to learn is no longer...
Judging from the platforms of both gubernatorial candidates, Virginia’s Standards of Learning exams may be in for a tougher time next year. Both Ken Cuccinelli and Terry McAuliffe have called for a commission to review and revise the SOLs and SOL exams, even though the Standards are regularly benchmarked against the...
