What’s at stake in the battle to improve Virginia’s charter school law is more than $350 million. It’s a question of whether we will do whatever we can to ensure that every child in the Commonwealth has an opportunity to achieve the best they can.
The General Assembly is struggling with how to close another $2 billion in the next two year budget. Hopefully they are also concerned about how to avoid these huge problems in the future.
Government should use the current economic recession to re-evaluate its purpose, prioritize its programs, re-structure its employee compensation and permanently restrict the growth of future spending. If not, we will be right back year in a few short years.
While the potential exists, if renewable sources are to provide energy in Virginia they have a lot of growing up to do. Questions surrounding commercial viability, cost and integration make it unlikely that they are a near term option.
If Virginia wants to continue to be the number one business friendly state we need to plan for and implement a strategic energy plan. A daunting task if not for the potential of Generation IV nuclear reactors.
Public safety is one of the primary responsibilities of government; however, if the legislature doesn’t adopt reforms, corrections costs will devour ever larger portions of the budget. The challenge is finding economies in the justice system while keeping the public safe, something conservative legislators in other states have been able to accomplish.
Government seems to plod along in the same basic rut. Taxes are collected and the same old programs are funded without much thought as to why. Governor-elect McDonnell needs to take his electoral mandate and move government away from the past and into the future.
The race to become governor of the Commonwealth may be drawing to a close, but for the winner, the journey is only beginning. Whoever is elected governor must see Virginia through an age of uncertainty and address serious issues in transportation, the budget and education.
The Virginia Information Technology Authority’s handling of its ten year, $2.3 billion IT contract with Northrup Grumman should not curb Virginia’s desire to engage in Public-Private Partnerships. Commonwealth policymakers should recognize that challenges occur and focus on fixing problems, not politicizing them.
In 1998, the first year of SOL testing, only 2 percent of Virginia’s schools received full accreditation. This year, the State is bragging that 98 percent of Virginia’s schools are accredited. What they don’t tell you is that both the State and the schools cheated to get those scores.
