In 2014 the Henrico County Board of Supervisors enacted a 4% meals tax, promising to dedicate the money to county schools. This year, voters approved $272 million in renovations and other capital projects for the school system, funded largely by meals tax revenues.
When the projects are completed, parents no doubt will be pleased to send off their children to bright, shiny new school facilities. But one must ask: Will better buildings do anything to improve the caliber of education? A quotation from Matthew 27:23 comes to mind:
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.
Despite Henrico County’s success in raising new funds for its school division, the Virginia Board of Education denied state accreditation to seven Henrico schools — the first time in the division’s history that more than one of its schools failed to meet the state benchmark for student achievement, reported the Richmond Times-Dispatch over the weekend.
Now Henrico County officials have announced a town hall forum to update the public how how the school division is addressing the problems. “Our No. 1 hope is to have a very productive dialogue,” said spokesman Andy Jenks. “We hope to be up front about what we’re doing well and where there is more work to be done.”
I expect school officials to talk about the challenges of serving neighborhoods with large populations of minority and economically disadvantaged students. No doubt they also will have something to say about the state’s tougher Standards of Learning Tests, which caused SOL scores to plummet across the state, putting dozens of schools across the state under accreditation pressure.
But will school officials be “up front” about the discipline policies enacted after the Virginia ACLU and the Obama administration condemned the county for disciplining African-American students at higher rates than other racial/ethnic groups? Suspensions have declined significantly (at least they had the last time I checked) in Henrico schools. Some three years have passed. Now it’s time to take an honest look at the effectiveness of the new policies, including their impact on African-American students whose education is harmed by the disruptive behavior of a small number of kids acting up in class.
Has disruptive behavior improved or gotten worse? Are problem students more or less likely to cut into teaching time? Are teachers more or less frustrated by their inability to teach, more or less likely to transfer out of the low-achieving schools?
Will Henrico parents get honest answers, or politically correct answers?
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