Fairfax County Public Schools
DEI: Which is a more accurate definition? |
School Spending Soars... while Test Scores Crash!
But voters apparently want more of the same!
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Public Edu: Epoch Times: Examining Education in the United States -- a series by Alex Newman
FCPS Watch: Blog: Fairfax Schools Monitor - the latest "wokeness" from FCPS
FCPS ClgBd: FCPS College Board Reports for 2017,2018,2019,2020,2021,2022,2023
Note FCTA had to FOIA these reports, as FCPS does not post them on its web site.
2024-03-26: WJLA: Fairfax Co school staff vs teacher salary data, by Nick Minock
The top 25 FCPS employees earn more than $200,000. The 'Chief Experience and Engagement Officer' earns a salary of $239,468. Teachers start at $56,000 with a bachelor's degree, rising to $80,000 after 15 years of experience.
2024-02-20: FXX Now: FCPS wins TJ admissions 'racial diversity' battle, by Angela Woolsey
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology's current 'racial diversity' admissions policy will remain in place after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider a lawsuit alleging that it discriminates against Asian students.
2024-02-13: FXX Now: FCPS seeks 10.5% budget increase from taxpayers, by Angela Woolsey
With the FCPS already gobbling 53% of the budget, I guess [FCPS Superintendent Dr. Michelle Reid] must think that taxpayers will be held hostage to the mantra our "world class schools" require more and more support staff and "innovation" as in electric buses. -- Comment from reader.
2024-02-13: FCTA: Fairfax Co Schools - Spending More and Teaching Less, by Arthur Purves
As FCPS spending goes up, achievement goes down. Over the past 5 years, per-student cost is increasing, from $16K to $21K, while SAT scores are falling, from 1218 to 1181. Never in half a century have FCPS SAT scores seen such a precipitous decline. And FCPS wants a 10.5% budget increase for that?
2024-01-17: Cardinal News: Va school enrollment to drop faster than expected, by D. Yancey
The biggest percentage decreases will come across Southwest and Southside, but the biggest drops in terms of actual number of students will be in Fairfax County. More than one-quarter of the projected statewide enrollment decline will come from Fairfax County, which is currently losing population for the first time since the 1820s.
2023-10-17: WT: Our public schools are a national disaster, by Stephen Moore
Perhaps what's most distressing about the latest collapse in high school test scores is that no one seems to be very distressed. You've probably heard the news that ACT scores have fallen for the sixth straight year. Our high school kids are less equipped for a job or college than at any time in three decades.
2023-08-16: FCPS Monitor: FCPS Defies Virginia's Transgender Policy, by Mark Spooner
After leaking its closed-door decision to transgender advocates, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) announced on August 15 that it would ignore the Virginia Board of Education's recently issued transgender policy. In other words, parents will be kept in the dark about any gender identity issues involving their children while at school.
2023-08-15: FCTA: Reasons to Oppose 2023 $435M School Bond Referendum, by Arthur Purves
Since 1994 Fairfax County and Schools have spent $360M (plus interest) on four projects that were so controversial that the supervisors were afraid to put them up to referenda. The latest massive $435M proposal is even less justified, as schools have an excess $190M, and interest on bonds adds over $200 to the average real estate tax bill.
2023-07-07: Fx Times: A back seat for academics in FCPS, by Valerie Waddelove
While SAT test scores have declined by 27 points since 2018, the Fairfax County School Board promotes the shiny new object called equity -- including a SEL curriculum, and yes, CRT under different names. A new School Board is desperately needed if were are going to see the changes most parents want, and a return to the focus on academic excellence.
2023-06-29: Patch: School Board gives itself a 50% raise!, by Emily Leayman
In a Monday meeting, the School Board approved pay raises for School Board members. Members' salaries will increase from $32,000 to $48,000, while the chair will get an extra $2,000. The salaries will be effective Jan. 1, 2024, which is when the new term begins for members elected in the November general election.
2023-06-11: WMAL: Larry O'Connor interviews Springfield FCSB candidate ... Debra Tisler (R)
"I'm a former teacher for Fairfax County Public Schools; I'm a mom of four," Tisler said. "I've witnessed first-hand what works and doesn-t work -- from the classroom to the central office and also as a parent." Tisler said the ongoing decline of Fairfax County's public, government-run schools was a major factor in her decision to run: "They're on a road to where it's no longer excellence for students, it's mediocrity; it's politics versus partnership with parents -- I said enough is enough."
2023-04-05: Bacon's Rebellion: More Discouraging News for Virginia Student Test Scores
As recently as 2015, the percentage of Virginia high school graduates qualifying for college credit on at least one Advanced Placement test ranked third in the nation. In the 2021-2022 school year, according to data released by the College Board, Virginia's percentage had fallen to 11th in the country.
2023-03-07: AMAC: College Industrial Complex's Left-wing Lies, by Betsy McCaughey
Families saving for college and encouraging their kids to aim for the top are getting scammed by the left-wing college industrial complex. Colleges distort and outright lie about who gets accepted, education quality, and what it costs. They'd be in jail if they were selling auto loans and used the same deceptive tactics.
2023-02-27: WT: Young professionals struggle to adapt to workplace, by Sean Salai
Most recent college graduates are emotionally unprepared to survive in the 9-5 workplace, according to a survey that experts say confirms a growing trend. Parental rights advocates blame decades of trends toward soft parenting and falling academic standards, which they say COVID-19 school closures accelerated.
2023-02-17: FCTA: Query/Response to FCPS on Falling SAT Scores
2023-02-16: WT: Va Dems kill all 12 gender-switch bills, by Valerie Richardson
Virginia Democrats have now killed all 12 so-called "anti-trans" bills, including Sage's Law requiring parental notification of in-school grooming, and bills barring cross-sex hormones and surgeries for minors and barring biological males from girls' sports. These bills all passed in the Republican-controlled House, but failed in the Democrat-led Senate.
2023-02-10: Fx Times: Fx Co schools SAT scores fall 27 points since 2018, by Arthur Purves
Fairfax County public schools 50 years ago were touted to home buyers as "excellent". Today, not so much. Between 2018 and 2022 the average FCPS SAT score fell 27 points, from 1212 to 1185. The last time FCPS SAT scores decreased over a five-year period was 1989-1993, and the decrease was one point. And there is no sense of alarm, which itself is alarming.
2023-01-31: AP: Virginia's Error Leads Local Schools to Overestimate Aid
The Virginia Dept of Education acknowledged an error in a mathematical formula it provides to local K-12 school divisions led some schools to expect more state funding than they are set to receive -- an "overly generous" difference of $201 million between expectation and reality statewide over two fiscal years.
2023-01-30: LawLiberty.org: Freedom from Public Education -- book review by Henry Edmondson
As Neal P. McCluskey's book, The Fractured Schoolhouse points out, public education no longer serves to unite; rather it divides, so much so that schools have become cultural battlegrounds with school children the collateral damage. Accordingly, 2021 was dubbed "The Year of School Choice" as almost half of the fifty states have either expanded existing programs or created new ones.
2023-01-10: Fx Times: Parents question FCPS promoting Kendi Race-Hustle, by Nomani, Zwicker
Late today, FCPS Superintendent Michelle Reid admitted to problems with "internal practices" that have led to the withholding of National Merit awards from students and their families, as local community members raise questions about $513,500 in local contracts that have disseminated controversial ideas, including race-hustler Ibram Kendi's promoting of reverse racism to rectify "past discriminations".
2023-01-07: Fx Times: Not just TJ withholding National Merit Awards, by Nomani and Zwicker
While FCPS Superintendent Michelle Reid claims the principal at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology withheld National Merit awards from students in a "one-time human error", parents at Langley and Westfield also got a surprise. So the 'One Woke Fairfax' drivel continues to promote equal outcome (lowest common denominator) at the expense of equal opportunity (be all that you can be).
2023-01-03: Bacon's Rebellion: FCPS Pays $455,000 for 'Equal Outcomes' Consultant
Virginia's Fairfax County Public Schools reportedly paid almost half a million dollars to a firm whose "Equity Imperative" is that all students' academic performance result in equal outcomes. Once considered anathema in education and elsewhere, expecting equal outcomes has become more and more popular as a facet of anti-racism training.
2022-12-02: AMAC: What's The Matter With Young Voters?
Sixty years ago, American students consistently ranked at the top of international comparisons in math, reading, and science. But since then, their performance has plummeted to truly dangerous levels. The so-called "elites" have worked long and hard to make sure young voters support politicians who don't have America's best interests at heart.
2022-11-xx: IMPRIMUS: Education as a Battleground, by Larry P. Arnn
Adapted from remarks delivered on November 3, 2022, at a Hillsdale College reception in Santa Clara, California.
2022-11-21: Patch: Supreme Court Rejects Fx Schools Sexual Assault Lawsuit, by M. O'Connell
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review a 2017 lawsuit regarding the school system's response to a sexual harassment incident. "The 4th Circuit got it right ... What a shame the School Board wasted taxpayer dollars asking the Supreme Court to adopt positions the 4th Circuit and the Dept of Justice have called 'absurd.'"
2022-11-16: FCTA: How FCPS Got Extra $100M to Teach 10,000 Fewer Students, by Arthur Purves
Presentation to FCRC: School board replaced one-time Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief(ESSER) COVID relief funding with a $100M real estate tax hike and a $90M increase in state funding.
2022-10-24: Epoch Times: CRT Being Taught in US Schools, Despite Denials, by Mimi Nguyen
The Left claims CRT is only being promoted in the universities. But K-12 schools are indeed uncritically promoting or passing off the assumptions and narrative of contemporary left-wing racial (and gender) ideology as 'settled' truths.
2022-10-20: Fx Times: FCPS to pay former equity officer $56,000 as a Wokeness Consultant
On August 5, a Fairfax County Public Schools official quietly signed a contract with the school district's recently-departed chief equity officer, Lisa Williams, to pay her at least $56,000 - or the equivalent of a new teacher's annual salary - for "strategic coaching" and "guidance" of school board members on issues of wokeness.
2022-10-14: Fx Times: FCPS puts teachers through new woke 'Equity Dialogue' training
Fairfax County Public Schools this week required staff to go through new teacher training to learn "Culturally Responsive and Equitable Teaching Practices," including "New Nation" fourth-grade social studies curriculum that asks students: "Did our founders and founding documents protect liberty or slavery?"
2022-10-10: FCPS Monitor: FCPS to Vote on Pro-Indoctrination Resolution, by Mark Spooner
The Fairfax County School Board will vote on October 20 to undercut the school system’s long-standing policy requiring teachers to be objective and neutral when addressing controversial issues in the classroom. The so-called "Truthful Education" resolution seeks to "dismantle White supremacist dynamics" and to promote the Marxist Critical Race Theory (CRT).
2022-09-29: The Federalist: Groomers-R-Us -- Madison HS sophomores get the "Fingers"
A Madison High School teacher in Vienna recently read aloud to her 10th-grade English class the poem "Fingers", an explicit account of a young girl masturbating -- excerpted from "The Poet X", a provocative coming-of-age novel by Elizabeth Acevedo. This despite last spring's passage of a Virginia law requiring advance notification of explicit sexual content.
2022-09-17: FCPS Monitor: Youngkin Revamps Model Transgender Policies, by Mark Spooner
In 2020 the Virginia legislature enacted a statute addressing the treatment of transgender students in public schools. FCPS followed the accompanying Model Northam Policy in how that statute ws defined. The new Model Youngkin Policy unwokes the previous policy. Biological sex is reinstated, pronouns are out, and parental permission is now required. The only question is whether FCPS will follow this new Model.
2022-08-26: Fx Times: SOL scores start slow climb upward, by Kristin Johnson
Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) test results were released last week. They show Fairfax County, and the state have begun, what most educators believe will be, a multiyear recovery plan to return students to pre pandemic academic standards.
2022-08-24: Examiner: Fairfax Co Teachers Trained to Bypass Parents, by Jeremiah Poff
Fairfax County Public Schools in northern Virginia are requiring all teachers to complete a training program that says parental permission is not required for students who seek to be addressed by different names or pronouns. (Welcome to 'Grooming 101'!)
2022-08-11: WR: Arizona a bright beacon for educational freedom, by Keri D. Ingraham
When Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed HB 2853 into law on July 7, more than 1.1 million K-12 students within the state were provided school choice. Opening the Arizona Empowerment Scholarship Account to all students is the landmark expansion of school choice -- the largest in the nation. No other state comes close. As a result, Arizona has been dubbed the "gold standard" of educational freedom.
2022-07-10: Fx GOP: Luke Rosiak on Failures of Public Education -- video(51:50)+transcript
Fairfax GOP's Srilekha Palle interviews Daily Wire investigative journalist Luke Rosiak on the crisis of American K-12 education. Rosiak is the author of Race to the Bottom: Uncovering the Secret Forces Destroying Public Education, a book that Chris Rufo calls "a road map for returning to sanity in our schools."
2022-07-09: Fx GOP: TJ Math Teachers Note 'Lowering of Standards', by Asra Nomani
A May 31 Wapo article tried to vindicate the Fx Co school board's failed policies with America's No. 1 high school. But, days later, parents, students and alumni are sharing a frank email that TJ trigonometry teachers sent to students this past Thursday that keeps things real: "These scores are deeply disappointing, and are the lowest scores we’ve ever seen as Math 4 teachers on a Final Exam."
2022-07-01: Fx GOP: Fx Co Schools Seek to Eradicate Viewpoint Diversity, by Mark Spooner
The Fairfax County School Board has nearly finished a two-year revision of its Controversial Issues Policy, which would endorse a race-based curriculum that emphasizes the role of "privilege", "power", "institutional racism", and "identity" in American history and governance. It would also authorize teachers to encourage students to become activists in "social justice" causes.
2022-06-30: WAMU: Fairfax Co Schools Swamped with FOIA Requests, by Margaret Barthel
One has to read between the lines in this FCPS-friendly article to deduce the problem as the total lack of transparency by the school board -- including at Luther Jackson MS hearings -- due to their covering up their One Fairfax wokeness agenda. After all, if FCPS actually stuck to teaching rather than indoctrinating, there would be no FOIA problem.
2022-05-19: WT: Public schools slammed for deceiving parents on test scores, by Sean Salai
A Virginia Dept of Education report released Thursday accuses the state's public schools (and itself under past administrations) of lowering academic standards to avoid being honest with parents about worsening test scores and racial achievement gaps for K-12 students. In 2019, Virginia fourth- and eighth-graders achieved only 35% reading proficiency on national testing (NAEP), compared to 75% on state reading tests.
2022-05-18: Daily Caller: FCPS Recommends Gender Identity Curriculum In Elementary Schools
A FCPS committee composed of three transgender advocates is slated to recommend that a Virginia public school district include gender identity in sex education curricula beginning in fourth grade. Revamped Family Life Education would include the "inclusion of the gender spectrum in the elementary" and 10th-grade curricula, according to the recommendations draft.
2022-05-04: TBE: Woke Gov't Schools or School Choice?, by FCTA member Lou DiLeonardo
Democrat-led public school systems across the country are indoctrinating our kids with Critical Race Theory and transgender nonsense, forcing parents to switch to homeschooling and private schools. So why are taxpaying parents still required to pay into this broken system? (In Fairfax County, that 53% of your real estates taxes feeding this monster could be spent on schools of your choice.)
2022-04-19: FL DOE: 2021-2022 K-12 "Woke Math" Instructional Materials Not-Recommended List
Here's the list of those 54 (of 134 submitted by publishers) mathematics textbooks the Florida Dept of Education rejected for "wokeness" -- in the form of "included references to Critical Race Theory (CRT), inclusions of Common Core, and the unsolicited addition of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in mathematics." Percentage of materials rejected: 71% for grades K-5; 20% for grades 6-8; 35% for grades 9-12.
2022-04-01: AP: 4th Circuit reinstates woke Va. school board's 'equity' initiative at TJ
A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a ruling Thursday that Fairfax County Public Schools can continue to use its new "racial balancing" admissions policy at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, reversing the February ruling by U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton.
2022-03-11: Daily Caller: Parents Chant 'Racist' during FCSB meeting, by Chrissy Clark
Parent activists in northern Virginia chanted "racist" at a public school board meeting while a mother shared an anti-critical race theory book about the district's wrongdoings, according to video footage of the encounter. The book, Luke Rosiak's "Race to the Bottom", includes an investigation into the board's role in lowering admissions standards at TJ to lower the number of Asian students admitted.
2022-03-06: Epoch Times: American Children Losing Motivation and Creativity, Teachers Say
Creativity and enthusiasm define childhood, but American children seem to be losing these gifts, teachers say. When teachers compare today's children with their peers from only a few years ago, there's a clear difference, according to an Indiana teacher with 24 years of experience.
2022-02-25: Daily Mail: Judge strikes down woke Va. school board's 'equity' initiative at TJ
Judge Claude Hilton ruled that Fairfax County Public Schools' new admission policy at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology left Asian American students 'disproportionately deprived of a level playing field'.
2021-12-18: Fx Times: Yes, Virginia - there is CRT in our schools, by Elizabeth Schultz
School districts across Virginia have been expending resources, directing staff time, and hiring consultants to address "equity" in curriculum delivery and for professional development of teachers and other employees. Fairfax and Loudoun, the two largest counties in the Commonwealth, have set the lead in driving the changes in education and embracing critical race theory and "anti-bias" in their respective divisions.
2021-11-25: JWR: FCPS OKs 'Lawn Boy', 'Gender Queer' in school libraries
... following a review into complaints that the books contained sexually explicit language and scenes that weren't appropriate for a juvenile audience.
2021-11-04: Twitter: School Admin Torches "CRT Not Taught In Schools" Claim, by Tony Kinnett
Parents, when we tell you Critical Race Theory isn't taught in our schools, we're lying. Keep looking!
2021-10-04: Ron Paul: Parents Should Control Education, but Terry McAuliffe disagrees!
Virginia Democrat gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe doesn't think parents should have a say in their children's education. They think parents should obediently pay the taxes to fund the government schools and never question any aspect of the government school indoctrination program.
2021-09-24: Asra Investigates: Fx Co School Board Puts the X-rated in #Fairfaxxx
At last night's Fairfax County School Board meeting at Luther Jackson Middle School, brave mom Stacy Langton revealed porn and pedophilia in FCPS library books. The board cut her mic and fled, but I was able to record Stacy (6:40 video). Parents yelled, "Shame!" at the board for turning the county into #Fairfaxxx.
2021-09-08: WCSI: FCPS directing $20M+ toward 'equity', 'social and emotional' programs
Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) is planning to spend millions in coronavirus relief money on so-called "equity" training and woke indoctrination in the form of "Social and Emotional Learning" (SEL) initiatives. It entails an SEL "screener" through Panorama Education, a private contractor that's received investment from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
2021-08-16: 1776unites.com: Open Letter to Local School Boards
The prevailing narrative of racial grievance has been corrupting the instruction of American history and the humanities for many decades, but has accelerated dangerously over the past year. The most damaging effects of such instruction fall on lower income minority children, who are implicitly told that they are helpless victims with no power or agency to shape their own futures.
2021-07-21: Bacon's Rebellion: Yes, CRT Is Being Taught in Schools, by Hans Bader
"Many high schools and middle schools are assigning" Ibram Kendi's book Stamped to students, notes George Mason University law professor David Bernstein, even though this "book associated with Critical Race Theory" is filled with factual errors, and contains "bad history". For example, Amazon spent $5,000 to distribute hundreds of copies of Ibram X. Kendi's book "Stamped" to Virginia public school students in Arlington, Va.
2021-07-20: Epoch Times: Montana AG provides legal basis for rejecting CRT, by Matthew Vadum
Republican attorney general of Montana Austin Knudsen has written a legal opinion about whether Marxist-invented critical race theory (CRT) violates the U.S. and Montana constitutions as well as various federal civil rights laws. The opinion comes as public resistance to CRT grows and intensifies among parents in communities across the country who are fighting back by protesting and taking over local school boards.
2021-07-16: ZeroHedge: "Let Them Die", says Fairfax PTA/NAACP officer to anti-CRT parents
" Let's deny this off-key band of people that are anti-education, anti-teacher, anti-equity, anti-history, anti-racial reckoning, ... [plus 17 more 'anti's] people. Let them die. Don't let these uncomfortable people ... deter us from our bold march forward." -- Michelle Leete, VP at Va and Fx Co PTAs and 1st VP of Fx Co NAACP.
2021-07-02: JWR: Silly people vs. serious people, by Jonathan Rosenblum
The battle between China and the U.S. for world leadership will largely be determined by technological superiority, which in turn will depend on our respective educational systems -- with the U.S. is deliberately hamstringing itself. Rather than identifying our top students and fostering their development, we have declared war on standards and all the ways in which students once distinguished themselves.
2021-06-25: Daily Caller: Woman Blasts Fx Co Sch Bd For Sneaking CRT Into Teacher Training
"For the many parents in the community who say, 'FCPS does not teach Critical Race Theory,' I want to read from this ['Stamped' study] guide [which is the assigned summer professional development for Chantilly High School teachers]," she added. "Do you, as leaders of our school system, believe in America? Do you believe in meritocracy?"
2021-06-18: Fx Times: Yes, there IS Critical Race Theory in our schools, by Eliz. Schultz
Despite protestations of school boards in Fairfax and Loudoun that they are not "teaching" it, there has been a comprehensive, deliberative, and manipulative effort of school staff and the school boards, underway for years. The tactics have been advised and funded by outside progressive consultants, groups, and money - then intentionally expanded statewide - to embrace and deeply-embed critical race theory in our schools. (also ... Schultz in the Daily Mail on 05/20/2021.)
2021-06-13: FCTA: Full Text of English-Lit Classic Books in Fx Co, circa 1962, by D. Swink
These works taught us life's lessons and provided valuable perspective from human history in Western civilization. (Wonder if these are still required in FCPS.)
2021-06-12: Free Beacon: Critical Race Theory Opponents Win Board Elections At T.J.
A slate of four anti-CRT candidates this week won seats on the governing body of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology -- the nation's top high school -- after campaigning against the school's racially driven admissions practices. The County School Board had earlier adopted a quota system to boost black and Hispanic enrollment numbers at T.J.
2021-06-08: Bacon's Rebellion: Educators Play Semantic Games to Befuddle Voters [wrt CRT]
Under assault from irate parents, Northern Virginia educators have been at pains to say that they do not teach Critical Race Theory to students. But FCTA's Arthur Purves has documents showing 400 of Ibram Kendi's CRT books purchased by Glasgow Middle School and 675 for Oakton High school. Who are they handing them out to -- the cafeteria staff and school bus drivers?
2021-06-03: AMAC: Dems' iCivics org'n aims to "iWoke" American history and civics education
A little-known nonprofit called iCivics is increasingly emerging as the driving force behind Democrats' crusade to impose "woke" civics education in classrooms throughout the country -- a crusade hostile to the core principles upon which this country was founded.
2021-05-26: SunGazette: Marxist propaganda has no place in Fairfax schools, by Edward Wenzel
Letter sent to Fx Co Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay: "[E]ncourage the School Board and Superintendent Scott Brabrand to pull the plug on the racist, anti-white Critical Race curriculum that is being forced on county taxpayers and schoolchildren. ... [W]hy haven't you [Fx Co Supervisors] shut this garbage down?"
2021-05-21: AMAC: Fmr AG Barr Argues Left-Wing Brainwashing in Schools Is Unconstitutional
In an address to Alliance Defending Freedom, Bill Barr argued that "the greatest threat to religious liberty in America today" is "the increasingly militant and extreme secular-progressive climate of our state-run educational system," and may well have reached the point of being unconstitutional. He describes the decline in three phases, and we are in the third phase.
2021-05-12: SunGazette: Fairfax School Board leaving carnage in its wake, by Jo-Anne Sears
Fairfax County Public Schools was once known as a place where we nuture learners to excel at all levels. The pandemic has shown parents on both sides of the political aisle that this is not the case -- that the Schools Board is mostly made up of unaccomplished politicians and self-professed do-gooders who are in way over their collective heads.
2021-05-12: FCTA: FCPS Entertaining Ibram Kendi's "Critical Race Theory" -- 3,200 books?
"It's offensive to the taxpayer that they would be asked to fund Critical Race Theory, that they would be asked to fund teaching kids to hate their country and to hate each other." -- Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fl) on 05/21/2021
2021-05-11: FCTA: Public Schools: Learning or Critical Race Theory?, Purves FCPS testimony
FCTA is concerned about Fx Co Public Schools literally "buying in" to the Marxist Critical Race Theory espoused by Ibram Kendi, and the 3,200 books purchased throughout the school system. In truth, the only racism is being practiced by FCPS itself, in denying proper reading and math (and now US history) instruction within its schools.
2021-04-23: Fox News: Virginia to dumb down math courses in name of 'equity', by Sam Dorman
The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) is moving to eliminate all accelerated math options in government schools prior to 11th grade, effectively keeping higher-achieving students from advancing as they usually would in the school system.
2021-04-13: Bari Weiss: A Parent and a Teacher Slam Woke Indoctrination -- letters
In the first letter, a New York father is referring to a private all-girls school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where prospective families have to take an "anti-racism pledge" to be considered for admission. In the second letter, a Manhattan high school teacher speaks of his teaching environment, with striking similarities to Mao's Cultural Revolution.
2021-04-13: Epoch Times: Weaponizing Schools With 'Critical Race Theory', by Alex Newman
Mao's regime sought to "Destroy Four Olds," -- to eradicate China's old ideas, culture, habits, and customs. In today's America, 'Critical Race Theory' is a similar attempt to eradicate America's ideas, culture, habits, and customs. This "Woke Supremacy" is increasingly infiltrating our government schools, indoctrinating our children to hate this country.
2021-03-19: Connection: Lawsuit Challenges TJ's "Kim Crow" Admission Changes, by M. Hobson
The party of Jim Crow has done a similar racial number on the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, known as "TJ". The Pacific Legal Foundation has now filed a civil suit against the Fairfax County School Board and its Superintendent, Dr. Scott Brabrand for discriminating against Asian-American students.
2021-03-17: WT: Woke Loudoun Co teachers blacklist, dox parents critical of race teachings
A group of teachers and others in Loudoun County, Virginia, compiled a blacklist of parents who they felt disagreed with the school's teaching of critical race theory (CRT), in an effort to humiliate them online and to "expose these people publicly," the Daily Wire first reported. (Could Fairfax Co parents be next?)
2021-01-xx: 1776 Report: President's Advisory 1776 Commission, to unwoke American history
The declared purpose of the President's Advisory 1776 Commission is to "enable a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States in 1776 and to strive to form a more perfect Union." This requires a restoration of American education, which can only be grounded on a history of those principles that is "accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling."
2021-01-26: FCTA: Public Schools: No Taxation Without Education, FCPS testimony by Art Purves
FCTA has three observations: 1) During Covid lockdown, about $400 million has been spent on non-working employees, but you're now asking for a $43 million increase; 2) Continued school lockdowns are not justified by the extremely low Covid mortality rate for age group 65 and under; 3) "Whole word" reading method should be discarded complete in favor of phonics.
2021-01-21: Sun Gazette: The educational hypocrisy reaches new heights -- editorial
The leadership of Northern Virginia teacher "unions," never fail to find reasons why they don't want to go back to class -- and behave like schoolyard bullies to those who hold other points of view. Of course, if we had School Boards and superintendents locally who put the needs of students first instead of groveling and kowtowing, we wouldn't have spent nearly a year already with faux-learning.
2020-12-xx: NewEnglishReview.org: A One-Party Fairfax County Goes for Woke, by Eric Rozenman
In Fairfax County, VA, the increasingly oxymoronically-named Democratic Party mimics the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's dystopian 1984, seeking to scrub the past (historical markers) and the present (dumbing down at TJ, critical race theory, et al).
2020-10-27: ZeroHedge: The "Wokeness" Wars Comes to Loudoun County, by Philip Giraldi
The Loudoun County school board has spent $422,500 on a consultant to apply Critical Race Theory (CRT) to a new program of instruction that will be mandatory for all employees and will serve as the framework for teaching the students. When schools eventually reopen, all kindergarteners, for example, will be taught "social justice" in a course designed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and "diversity training" will be integrated in all other grade levels.
2020-10-21: Sun Gazette: White House weighs in on Fx teachers' union virtual-learning stance
The Fairfax County Education Association put out a statement two weeks ago advocating for the remainder of the 2020-21 school year to remain virtual. Now, two weeks before the presidential election, the group's stance appears to have grabbed the attention of the White House.
2020-10-04: FCTA: Racist Democrats Dismantling Thomas Jefferson H.S., by "Happy Person"
State and local Democrats use "Critcal Race Theory" to justify dismantling TJ's merit-based student collection criteria, in an attempt to draw attention from their utter failure in running the rest of the school system.
2020-09-30: The Federalist: FCSB spent $24,000 for CRT Books for U.S. History Classes
Fairfax County spent $44,000 on promoting critical race theorist Ibram X. Kendi for this one event -- almost an entire year's salary for a first-year teacher. An Oakton HS teacher gushed upon the arrival of 675 copies of Kendi's "Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You" with a tweet, "Here they are!"
2020-09-29: Epoch Times: Nonprofit Aims to Deradicalize American History, by Matthew Vadum
Rejecting what he said is a false, cynical version of American history taught in elementary and secondary schools across the country, President Donald Trump recently unveiled a new nonprofit that's tasked with designing educational materials aimed at accurately depicting the nation's history.
2020-09-29: Epoch Times: Schools Using Fake 'History' to Kill America, by Alex Newman
Americans educated by government today are, for the most part, hopelessly ignorant of their own nation's history -- and that's no accident. They're beyond ignorant when it comes to civics, too. On the history of the rest of the world, or the history of communism, Americans are generally clueless as well. This was all by design, of course.
2020-09-24: TRS: FCPS paid $20K to Critical Race Theory guru Ibram Kendi, by Shaun Kenney
Leading critical race theory (CRT) proponent Ibram X. Kendi received $20,000 from Fairfax County Public Schools for a one-hour talk. This dovetails with the plan by FCPS this summer to water down the admission standards for Virginia's TJ magnet school.
2020-09-11: NR: Fairfax County Is Running Empty School Buses, by Kyle Smith
This is like something out of some kind of Soviet central-planning misadventure: Fairfax County, Va., wants to keep paying its school-bus drivers even though its schools are operating online. The solution? Send the drivers out to drive anyway. Likewise with food service workers in the empty schools: Zero layoffs.
2020-08-21: CNS News: Schools Closed; Parents Charged Extra for Day Care, by Lindsey Burke
Some public school districts, including Fairfax Co VA, refuse to open their doors for in-person learning -- citing safety risks -- but they are able to open these same school buildings to charge overworked and tired parents for day care. This is double-dipping into parents' pocketbooks, and it likely runs afoul of state constitutions.
2020-08-12: American Thinker: FCPS says hiring tutors is unfair to others, by Thomas Lifson
Had any doubt that hard-left ideologues run government school systems in most places? Fairfax Co educrats have advised parents there not to hire tutors or organize informal homeschool "pods" to replace the shuttered schools because some parents cannot afford to do so, and that would be "unfair". Everyone must descend to the lowest common denominator in the interest of "equity".
2020-07-23: WT: To avoid endangering children, reopen schools now, by Martin & McDonald
Not allowing schools to reopen for in-person instruction in the fall is a greater danger to the students than keeping the schools closed. "I'm of the point of view as a public health leader in this nation, that having the schools actually closed is a greater public health threat to the children than having the schools reopen," said CDC Director Robert Redfield last week.
2020-07-23: Sun Gazette: Will FCPS abandon the community? -- scathing editorial!
The sensible desires of parents, teachers and students -- even some school-system leaders -- often find themselves trampled by the most amplified voices of discontent. In the "Woke Olympics," the most shrill get the gold. They likely will here, too. Alas, the Trump administration's "get back in class" broadside of last week suddenly made it a badge of honor among partisan Democrats to reflexively oppose the idea, no matter its merits.
2020-07-21: AP: Fairfax County schools to remain closed -- Teachers win, parents lose!
FCPS has backtracked on its original plan for two days a week of in-person instruction in the fall, in favor of online only. Roughly 60% of families had chosen in-person learning, while 52% of teachers said they wanted to teach online only. (So taxpayers are forced to fund schools that remain closed until after the November elections.)
2020-07-19: Free Beacon: Virginia Urges Slavery Lessons for Kindergarteners, by Chrissy Clark
Loudoun County is adding "social justice" to the mission of teaching elementary school students reading, writing, and arithmetic. LCPS has teamed up with the far-left SPLC in restructuring history and social studies classes to emphasize slavery as fundamental to American society for students from kindergarten to the fifth grade.
2020-07-18: WT: America burns while our schools hold the match, by Everett Piper
Ideas matter. What is taught today in our classrooms will be practiced tomorrow in our culture. Our culture is collapsing right before our eyes, and it is clear where the responsibility lies. Our nation's educational establishment is to blame.
2020-07-15: WT: Public schools grooming children to be sexualized, by Rebecca Friedrichs
If we as a society are so disturbed by the actions of Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and an untold number of others, then why are we allowing America's public schools to groom our children to be sexualized? Leading this despicable charge are unions posing as teachers and the deceptively named Healthy Teen Network.
2020-07-15: Sun Gazette: Fairfax school leadership is failing community, by Larry Allen
Indecision has consequences. My high-school children are losing out on learning that will never be able to be replaced because the school system can't get it together. It is beyond the pale that we continue to pay property taxes that fund services we either won't receive, or won't receive in a manner that actually results in learning.
2020-07-07: Free Beacon: FCPS Develops New SPLC 'Anti-Racist' Curriculum, by Alex Nester
Southern Poverty Law Center, known for including conservative organizations on its list of "hate groups", created Teaching Tolerance to promote "anti-bias" and "social justice" education in classrooms. Now FCPS is adopting this model that includes teaching students that "the United States was founded on protecting the interests of white, Christian men who owned property."
2020-07-06: WT: NEA focuses on wokeness instead of wages and teaching, by Rebecca Friedrichs
The NEA supports sanctuary cities, abolishing ICE, the normalization of an endless number of genders, lenient discipline policies, ousting police, Black Lives Matter trainings in K-12 schools and many more divisive political issues, which have nothing to do with wages, benefits or working conditions. This so-called teachers' union is not a legitimate American labor union.
2020-06-24: AP: School Board votes to rename Robert E Lee High School ... Who's next?
Fairfax County Superintendent Scott Braband proposed possible alternative names for the school, including John Lewis, Barack Obama, Mildred Loving, Cesar Chavez, Legacy and Central Springfield. (What? No Ronald Reagan or Donald Trump offerings?)
2020-06-22: NAACP: Inequity in How Arlington (and Va) Teach Reading, by Julius D. Spain, Sr
The Arlington NAACP president assails Arlington (and all of Virginia) for poor reading instruction -- without "phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension". He points out that Black and Latino students suffer disproportionately when not taught to read using evidence-based practices based on the science of reading.
2020-05-16: ZeroHedge: School Closures are a Big Threat to the Power of Public Education
As the list of amenities we once associated with schooling gets shorter and shorter, households at all income levels will start to wonder what exactly they're paying for. Stripped of the non-academic side of things, public schools now must sell themselves only as providers of academic skills. Many parents are likely to be left unimpressed, as they can finally see exactly what is being taught to their children.
2020-05-12: FCTA: Public Schools: Learning or Social Studies?, FCPS testimony by Art Purves
Please spend our $3.1 billion on learning instead of a futile attempt to replace family and church. Return the curriculum to the pre-John Dewey teaching methods that worked for a hundred years and abandon the current methods, which produce mediocrity, poverty, and inequality.
2020-04-24: FRC: Sex Education and LGBTQ Indoctrination in Public Schools, by Cathy Ruse
Most of us remember what sex education was like when we were in school. Admonitions to be careful, respect others, and save sex for marriage. Things are very different today. In Fairfax County, Virginia, they teach: abstinence until your next steady boyfriend or girlfriend; your right to an abortion; and transgenderism as a healthy sexual identity. In other parts of the country, things are even more perverse.
2020-04-21: Choice Media: Equity & (Not) Going Digital in NoVa Schools, by Maria Keffler
The educational solution to the quarantine problem is to create a system that meets the needs of most students, then to craft a secondary plan to address the needs of those who struggle with the primary system. School systems -- public, private, and homeschool -- that are more focused on academics than on social justice crusades have already figured this out.
2020-04-16: WT: FCPS postpones distance learning due to app glitches, by Sophie Kaplan
When the school district's 189,000 and their teachers tried to use the remote learning app Blackboard on Tuesday, many could not log in due to increased online traffic. Superintendent Scott Braband cancelled distance learning on Thursday and Friday, and remote instruction will resume on Monday.
2020-04-15: Epoch Times: Why American Youths' Such Distorted View of America, by Fred Eckert
More an indoctrination manual than a history textbook, "A People's History of the United States," by radical Marxist Howard Zinn and released in 1980, has sold more than 2.5 million copies. No other work matches its influence on how today's youth view America or on how our heroes, traditions, and values that were for so long cherished have in recent years become demonized.
2020-04-12: Fx GOP: FCPS's One Fairfax "Equity" in the Time of Corona, by Steve Knotts
One month into the coronavirus outbreak, FCPS has left parents wondering why one of the self-proclaimed "top school districts in the country" is failing to lead the way in distance learning. The Board's assenine One Fairfax policy to provide identical access for all students is delaying educational instruction to all students.
2020-03-17: Fx GOP: The Public School Model Needs to Change, by Maria Keffler
Public school is no longer a safe place for children. Curricula and policies that oppose many families' values, a system that enforces no consequences for wrongdoing, and the understandable exodus of family-oriented decision-makers has created a monolithic and ethically vacuous monstrosity of our public schools.
2020-03-12: WaPo: Montgomery County fails to teach children to read, by Karin Chenoweth
Reading and writing are enormously complex activities. Teaching children how to do them requires a great deal of knowledge on the part of teachers and principals. But just about all children, no matter their background, can learn to read. The fact that Montgomery County, with all its resources, fails to do what we know works is -- frankly -- embarrassing.
2020-03-10: WT: Leftists invaded education long before the coronavirus, by Sam Sorbo
There is, after all, the strong potential of recovery from the coronavirus, but the disease of liberalism -- intolerance of the truth, and a reluctance to learn (all promoted in our government schools and institution of "higher learning") -- is much more threatening. It poisons its victims with dangerous assumptions about political correctness, unearned self-worth, and gender confusion.
2020-02-29: WT: How modern education has destroyed next generation's soul, by Everett Piper
Hardly a day goes by that you don't hear the question: How did we get in this mess? Where did this lunacy come from, and how did it all happen so quickly? It is because of our local schools, colleges and universities. When you relentlessly work to remove the next generation's soul, you should not expect your culture to stay out of hell.
2020-02-27: Epoch Times: 93 Vermont Towns Have No Public Schools, but Great Education
Ninety-three Vermont towns (36 percent of its 255 municipalities) have no government-run school at all. In these "tuition towns", the funds local governments expect to spend per pupil are instead given directly to the parents of school-age children. This method gives lower- and middle-income parents the same superpower wealthy families have always had: school choice.
2020-02-27: Patch: NoVa School Districts Pay Teachers The Most, by Mark Hand
As the most affluent region in the state, Northern Virginia school teachers are paid more on average than teachers in the rest of Virginia, ranging from a high of $81,129 in Arlington County to a low of $39,567 in Grayson County Public Schools, a school district in southwestern Virginia. Fairfax County averages $77,985 in 2020, with starting salaries at $55,000.
2020-02-18: AP: JEB Stuart uses videos nixing minimum wage, climate change, by Matt Barakat
A federal judge's appearance at JEB Stuart High School was a collaborative project between Fairfax County Public Schools and a group called Izzit.org, which provides educational materials and videos to students across the country. One video questions the rationale for minimum wage laws, while another downplays man's role in climate change.
2020-02-12: Connection: School Board wants +5.8% for "Tremendous Needs", by Mercia Hobson
On Feb. 6, the new all-woke School Board approved a motion to adopt the Advertised Budget of $3.2 billion, a 5.8% increase over the FY 20 Approved Budget. There was lots of blather about "neediest kids", "conversations regarding equity", and "the value of our teachers", but no mention of fixing the woeful educational curriculum.
2020-01-27: FCTA: Public Schools: An Investment in Mediocrity, by Arthur Purves
The "One Fairfax" policy is a stunning admission of public school failure. Its "progressive education" favors affluent white and Asian students, who learn phonics and arithmetic drill at home while discriminating against low-income predominately Hispanic and African American students, who do not have that advantage.
2019-12-12: Sun Gazette: U.S. students falling behind (some more) -- Editorial
Results of an international exam suggest U.S. schools are not doing enough to prepare young people for the competitive global economy. Meanwhile, our local and quite self-satisfied school boards across Northern Virginia are busy patting themselves on the back for all their social-engineering blather.
2019-11-24: WT: What today's educational ruling class gets wrong, by Everett Piper
You [parents] are the antique. You are the ones who "don't know what is best for your kids." Your "views and religious beliefs" are "misguided, bigoted and archaic." This, my friends, is your local public school. This is the face of the 21st century "teacher class".
2019-11-21: Epoch Times: Inoculating Our Children Against Socialism, by Jeff Minick
For the first time in our history, many politicians and candidates label themselves socialists, as if that title were a badge of honor. The bloody history and economic failures of socialism -- here I include fascism -- and of communism in the 20th century should rebuff the starry-eyed. So how do we combat that disease, other than in the voting booth? Here is one small way to begin: education.
2019-11-04: Daily Caller: School Districts Push A Return To Busing, by Luke Rosiak
School boards in Howard County, Maryland, and Fairfax County, Virginia, are pushing plans to bus students to equalize schools' poverty rates. But their own data show no correlation between the performance of individual impoverished students and the demographics of the students that surround them.
2019-11-02: Video: Fairfax County plans to rename 31 schools (4:41)
JEB Stuart down, 31 to go, with names of former slaveholders or Confederate soldiers. On the WOKEing block: TJ, Madison, Fairfax, Langley, Lee, Chantilly, Hayfield, Mount Vernon HS, Lanier MS, and 21 elementary schools with innocuous names like Clermont, Fairview, Gunston, Hybla Valley, Mantua, Oak Hill, Woodlawn, Spring Hill, and Shrevewood.
2019-10-28: Bacon's Rebellion: Fx Co School Board Election Really Matters, by James Bacon
Ideological Progressives have many attributes, but humility is not one of them. Despite a decade's worth of policies promoting diversity and inclusion, the racial gap in academic achievement in Fairfax schools has gotten worse, not better. But Progressives are doubling down on failed policies. Progressivism is the problem, not the solution.
2019-09-01: Epoch Times: Ontario's Sex-Ed Curriculum Now Includes Marriage, by Peter Mitchell
Including marriage education in sex-ed will seem strange to some people. But marriage education empowers students to make informed decisions about their future. The new Ontario curriculum could hardly be considered marriage education, but at the very minimum, it grants permission for a conversation. That's progress.
2019-08-24: Concerned Parents: 2019 One-Page Flyer to Opt Out of Sex Ed
2019-08-23: The Plight of Hispanic Students, by Fred Costello-229
2019-08-22: Sun Gazette: Put the focus squarely on student achievement -- Editorial
Elected and appointed school leaders, in Virginia and elsewhere, need to either get more aggressive in addressing the issue, or get out and turn the situation over to those who will. Otherwise, another generation of students will come and go, ill-served by the educational system that should have its best interests at heart.
2019-08-22: Should You Trust the Fairfax County School Board (FCSB)?, by Fred Costello-228
2019-08-06: Epoch Times: New York's Cultural Revolutionary Education Reforms, by C. Humphrey
All U.S. citizens should be aware of what is going on in New York. They should understand this new vision of education because it describes what the board considers an excellent human being, and that description reveals the way progressives hope to transform the entire American regime.
2019-08-01: Video: The Truth About 'One Fairfax' School Reboundarying (5:25), by The Rosiaks
"The notion that we would identify a child, or the neighborhood the child lives in, and target them for a boundary change based on the color of their skin or the size of their parent's bank account is a frightening prospect on legality alone. Considering the amount of legal issues this Board has, I don't understand why we're going there. We're going to consider moving or busing children based on their characteristics instead of delivering to them the services that they need where they are. That should be the role of the Board." -- sane Board member Elizabeth Schultz
2019-07-29: WT: Teacher unions endorse politics & power, not quality education, by Lance Izumi
Rather than spending time on vital core subjects like reading and math, AFT boss Randi Weingarten said, "we need more civics participation," which she said includes "the fight for social justice." In other words, less math and reading, more time for political indoctrination.
2019-07-24: Epoch Times: Santa Barbara Parents Fight 'Implicit Bias' Curricula, by Matt Vadum
Concerned parents in Santa Barbara, California, are moving forward with a lawsuit in state court against a nonprofit and the local school board over taxpayer-funded "implicit bias" instruction, which falsely portrays the United States as a cruel, oppressive, and racist country.
2019-07-23: WT: Why college is a waste for many high school graduates, by Peter Morici
Across the country, millions of families are preparing to send their 18-year-olds off to college -- for many, this will be the worst thing they ever did to their children. For half the students who give college a try, it will prove a lousy investment.
2019-07-23: Reston Now: Protesters Criticize School Board's 'Social Equity' Plan
Dozens of protesters showed up last night to the Fairfax County School Board's work session on a proposal that would change how local school boundaries are adjusted. Throughout the meeting, protesters in the room waved signs saying "Communities Build Great Schools NOT Boundary Changes" and "Education Excellence NOT Social Engineering."
2019-07-19: FCTA: School Board to Vote on "Bussing" -- July 22, 2019, by Paul Bolon
The Fairfax County School Board is meeting on Monday, July 22 to discuss proposed changes to the opaquely-named "Boundary Policy 8130.7". The policy says, astoundingly: when redrawing school boundaries in the future, the opinion of residents and a negative impact on quality of education may not be taken into account.
2019-07-14: Fx News: School Board May Erase More Confederate School Names, by James Hood
In a nod to politcal correctness, the Fairfax County school board is said to be considering a plan that would scrub Confederate names from the county's schools. First to go was JEB Stuart. Next up: Robert E. Lee HS, Mosby Woods Elem, Sidney Lanier MS, and likely a few others that frighten the "tolerant" Left. (In a few years, the Founding Fathers will likely be on the block.)
2019-07-08: Daily Caller: Here are Details on California's Sex Education, by Mary M. Olohan
"If I were to show that material to a child, I would be brought up on charges," said a California parent. "But somehow our public schools are allowed to teach this to junior high and high school kids."
2019-06-25: Connection: Great Falls Residents Fired Up on School Issues, by Andrea Worker
Retiring School Board member Jane Strauss (Dranesville) had her hands full when she met with a standing-room-only crowd at Forestville Elementary in Great Falls on June 19. The County needs to redraw school boundaries to balance school capacity, but its "Obama One Fairfax" social equity policy leaves residents in doubt about more sinister motives.
2019-06-23: FCTA: John Dewey's Destruction of America's Schools, by Arthur Purves
John Dewey, an atheist in the early 1900's, wanted to promote socialism. His "progressive education" has been a boon to the teaching industry, where remedial education is much in demand. But it's been a disaster for students, who are no longer properly taught to read, write, or cipher (arithmetic). But Dewey has succeeded in graduating socialists, or as the Fairfax County School Board puts it, "global citizens".
2019-06-06: Improving Public-School Education, by Fred Costello-223
2019-04-09: FCTA: Presentation to BOS on the School Quality and Budget, by Arthur Purves
Arthur Purves, FCTA president, addresses two topics: Excellence and equity in Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) and the need for $112M in raises.
2019-03-26: PJ Media: Fairfax Co Schools Awards Student for Anti-Semitic Art, by J.C. Adams
A South County High School student was given an art award for a drawing portraying a hook-nosed Jewish person carrying a money bag and entitled "Jewish People".
2019-03-04: Sun Gazette: Arlington per-student spending to top $20,000, by Scott McCaffrey
Already the highest among the Washington suburbs, Arlington Public Schools' per-student cost would rise 3.4 percent to a record $20,012 under the FY2020 budget proposal. (FY2019 rates: $19,348 for Arlington, $18,544 for Falls Church, $17,606 for Alexandria, $16,281 for Montgomery Co, $15,293 for Fairfax Co, $14,260 for Loudoun Co, $14,093 for Prince George's Co and $11,633 for Prince William Co.)
2019-02-26: Connection: Kevin Cyron - Outstanding Teacher of American History, in McLean
Kevin Cyron, a social studies teacher at Saint Luke School in McLean, was presented on Feb. 19 with an Outstanding Teacher of American History Award by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR).
2019-02-13: Epoch Times: Educational Malpractice on a Massive Scale, by Mark Hendrickson
My colleagues and I have lamented that the students coming into our college classrooms have had increasingly poor writing skills over the past few decades. One reason for this is that students are being taught climate-change hokum instead of the basic skills that would serve them so well in their adult careers. Education should teach youngsters how to think rather than indoctrinate them into what to think.
2019-02-04: Jacobin: Cory Booker Hates Public Schools, by Eric Blanc
From this Leftist publication: According to Booker, the education system is the main cause of our society's fundamental problems, rather than, say, inequality and unchecked corporate power. As he explained in a 2011 speech, "disparities in income in America are not because of some 'greedy capitalist' -- no! It's because of a failing education system."
2019-01-28: Fairfax Co Public Schools - High Taxes for Low Achievement, by Arthur Purves
Since 2000, Fairfax County real estate taxes for the typical homeowner have increased more than three times faster than household income. Meanwhile, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) spending has increased five times faster than enrollment (122% vs. 23%).
2019-01-12: Epoch Times: An 1897 Text Explains Why Johnny Can't Write, by Annie Holmquist
Why are American students such terrible writers? Several answers to this question appear in an 1897 text by Dr. Edwin Lewis, titled "A First Book in Writing English". 1) They don't read high-quality literature; 2) they skim, a practice which diminishes thought and understanding; and 3) they don't memorize, which would stimulate thinking and increase one's command of words.
2018-12-03: Epoch Times: Virtues, Values, and Education, by Paul Adams
If there is no objective basis for virtues, then what culture and faith have taught us through the King James Bible and the great texts of our civilization in the West -- the works of Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare -- are no longer sources of wisdom, inspiration, and moral insight. Our schools and colleges, with few exceptions, do less to form character and educate in the virtues than to inoculate the young against their cultural heritage.
2018-12-03: Epoch Times: The Case for an Education Based on Virtues -- Series of Articles
2018-10-11: FCPS: School Board Passes Resolution on Global Warming Action ???
"FCSB should stay out of politics and concentrate on improving the education of kids in Fairfax. They never explain why half the seniors who aspire to go to college are considered by their test scores not prepared for college and what should be done about it." -- FCTA's Tom Cranmer
2018-08-15: Regnery: Get Out [of Public Schools] Now, by Mary Rice Hasson, Theresa Farnan
Subtitle: Why You Should Pull Your Child from Public School Before It's Too Late. Almost overnight, America's public schools from kindergarten through high school have become toxic -- morally, intellectually, and politically -- and parents are left with a hard choice.
2018-06-15: WTOP: FCPS passes proposals to modify sex ed, dress codes, by John Domen
The Fairfax County School Board passed a proposal to change the school district's dress code to gender-neutral language and adopt a more inclusive sex education curriculum.
2018-06-15: Stream.org: FCPS Votes to Tell Boys They Might be Girls, by Austin & Cathy Ruse
The ten board members, whose names are listed below and who should go down in infamy, voted for children to be taught that they aren't really male or female, that biological sex is meaningless, that they can transition to a different sex than the sex "assigned" to them a birth. And they will be taught this without their parents' permission.
2018-06-10: WT: Deconstructing young minds, by Robert Knight
Animus toward country and free market capitalism begins in elementary school.
2018-06-05: Changes Needed to the FLE Program, by Laura Miller, Vienna parent
Dear Fairfax County School Board: As I have been reviewing the FLECAC Recommendations, I have noticed a strong bias in favor of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) ideology and strong encouragement for pre-marital and unhealthy sexual activity that is an affront to most of your population.
2018-05-16: FCPS: Sex Ed Curriculum Recommendations to the School Board, by FLECAC
The review of FCPS's Family Life Education (sex ed) by the Curriculum Advisory Committee (FLECAC) is complete. Now parents and the public can review the recommendations and comment (with subject line "FLECAC report"). Check out the Dissenting Opinions from members of the committee in Appendix B (page 16).
2018-05-12: FCRC: Parents Must Reassert Control Over Public Education, by Tim Hannigan
The Fairfax County School Board is dragging us into their Brave New World -- with $3B of your money at their disposal. But do parents have the primary role in their child's education or is it a governing School Board of 12 members detached and removed from all known objective truth and reality? The answer, of course, is the parents.
2018-05-12: FCRC: FCPS SexEd Recommendations: The Dissenting Opinion, by Murphy Zanotti
The FCPS Family Life Education Curriculum Advisory Committee (FLECAC) has been strongly in favor of the Far Left's view of what should be taught in Sex Ed. The FLECAC Board has silenced opposing viewpoints, underrepresented parents, omitted key medical facts, ...
2018-04-21: Free Conference: "Kids, Sex, and the Public Schools - Healthy or Hurtful?"
Program Description: A consortium of local groups are hosting a free conference from 8am to noon on Saturday April 21, 2018 to raise awareness of the many controversial issues that currently pervade the Fairfax County Public Schools regarding sex, safety, health, and well-being of children.
2018-04-11: WT: SexEd Sit-Out to protest 'graphic, gender-bending' -- April 23 (Earthy Day??)
Parents are pulling their children out of public schools for a day to protest sex education that they say has become graphic, hedonistic and ideological under the influence of pro-choice and gay rights groups. The April 23 protest is a grass-roots effort spearheaded by mothers who said they are disturbed by the "pornographic" content that has made its way into the classroom.
2018-02-13: The Stream: Sex Ed and Stalinism at the Fx Co School Board, by Austin Ruse
Fairfax leftists put transgender ideology into schools a full year before Barack Obama's Department of Education mandated it for the rest of the schools in the country. Last year the Trump administration cancelled the mandate, though Fairfax County is clinging onto it, with over 80 hours of sex-education for these poor kids -- some of it is straight-up pornography.
2018-02-08: FCPS: FLE Curriculum Advisory Committee Meeting Agenda... on Sex Education
2018-01-29: FCTA: School District Collusion on Employee Salaries?, by Arthur Purves
I wonder if there is collusion among neighboring school districts, where each district justifies tax hikes for raises in order to compete with neighboring districts. The result is a spiral of unsustainable tax increases that drive away taxpayers and good jobs. Benefits that used to cost about 28% of payroll now cost 46%.
2018-01-25: Catholic World Report: What I learned in a community college, by P. Stravinskas
Having thought the level of learning was low for Catholic school alumni, I was totally unprepared for the abysmal situation with alumni of the government schools. I should note that these young people have attended upper-middle class, suburban schools, what people are wont to describe as "good" schools.
2018-01-18: Observer: American Students Rank Low in International Testing, by John A. Tures
"We throw more money at our schools than just about any other country, and what do we get? For our K-12 school system, an honorary membership in the Third World. Not long ago, we had a superb public school system, but now we trail most countries. In math, we're 38th in the world among developed countries in terms of how 15 year-olds perform. And it's getting worse, not better." -- GMU Professor F. H. Buckley
2018-01-16: Sun Gazette: FCPS superintendent seeks $97M more for FY2019, by Brian Trompeter
Fairfax County schools superintendent Scott Brabrand on Jan. 11 proposed a $2.9 billion FY2019 operating budget 4.3% higher than last year's budget, seeking a $96.9 million increase in the county's transfer, mostly to boost employee salaries. Arthur Purves, president of the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance, took issue with his comparison of various districts' school budgets.
2017-12-17: FCTA: One Fairfax - Its Illegitimacy and Unanswered Questions, by Laura Miller
On Nov 20 and 21, 2017, Fairfax County Supervisors and the School Board jointly approved the 'One Fairfax' resolution, to ensure that all of our public community chest, resources and accommodations will be spent or utilized to achieve RACIAL and SOCIAL EQUITY outcomes in income, grades, and crime -- a Leftist globalist agenda taken from 'UN Agenda 2020/30'. Citizens should be outraged!
2017-11-21: FxCo: 'One Fairfax', the county's new "Social and Racial Equity" policy
Fairfax County's new policy formally enshrines the Democrat Party's Alinskyite platform of class warfare, identity politics, and victimhood. So renaming schools and roads, changing bathroom and sex education policies, and any other nonsense "for the children" can now be given umbrella coverage.
2017-11-20: FCTA: Testimony before FCPS - 'One Fairfax', by Fred Costello
You have demonstrated by your decisions on Policy 1450 and on JEB Stuart that you do not listen to what the majority of people want; to hell with the taxpayers. And in the low-turnout School Board elections, 34% of the vote comes from school and county employees and their spouses. Thus either term limits or a county equivalent of the Hatch Act need to be instituted.
2017-11-20: FCTA: Nov20 FCSB meeting notes - Child Abuse, Misleading Public, by S.B. Reporter
Each school board meeting brings forward more and more accusations of improprieties, corruption, and bad decisions by the Fairfax County School Board and the November 20, 2017 school board meeting had some doozies -- Gender Dysphoria, JEB Stuart rebellion, 'One Fairfax' policy, School Union quid pro quo.
2017-11-04: WT: Poll finds millennials prefer socialism to capitalism, by Bradford Richardson
In the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation's "Annual Report on U.S. Attitudes Toward Socialism," 58 percent of the up-and-coming generation opted for one of the three systems, compared to 42 percent who said they were in favor of capitalism. (And you wanted to know what is wrong with our education system?)
2017-10-xx: Limbaugh: The Left's hateful view of America vs Reality
America is under attack from within, largely financed by people like George Soros and others. They make common cause with Americans whose objective is to take the nation down, hasten our decline. To defend America, it is necessary to know our history. The purpose of the United States of America and its proud legacy must be understood to be protected. Which is why unmooring us from our own history is crucial for the Left to succeed.
2017-10-27: NBC4: FCPS Board inflicts "Social Justice" on J.E.B. Stuart High School
The Fairfax County School Board voted 7-4 to change the name of J.E.B. Stuart High School Thursday night after nearly four hours of debate and community testimony. In a bow to the Left, the board will rename the school "Justice High School" by 2019 at a cost of $500,000 to $1 million.
2017-09-28: FCTA: Testimony before FCPS - FLE and Suicide, by Fred Costello
Suicide is not always the result of mental illness. Sometimes people simply choose death over the pains of life. Your FLE program adds to the pains. FLE should NOT lead 50% of your 184,000 students into extra-marital, unfulfilling sex, dismal marriages, and the occasional suicide as it does now. It should instead teach about a satisfying marriage, not animal sex.
2017-08-30: Sun Gazette: Keys-Gamarra wins special election for Fairfax School Board seat
With an anemic turnout of 10.4 percent in the rainy special election, Keys-Gamarra garnered 41,519 votes, or about two-thirds of the total. Chris Grisafe came in second with 21,389 votes, followed by Michael Owens with 1,346 votes and Sandra Allen with 719 ballots.
2017-08-15: WT: Teaching history amid America's history gap, by Deborah Simmons
Are we even teaching history to children anymore? We teach that blacks served on the Union side of the Civil War. Do we teach that blacks also served on the Confederate side, too? More important, once most or all of the Confederate statues are removed, what's next? The culture of ignorance is obvious, as is Americans' history gap.
2017-07-30: Fx Free Citizen: History Repeats Itself (J.E.B. Stuart Killed by a Classmate)
The July 27 FCSB Meeting was surreal, but predictable as the 7 hard core cultural Marxists and 2 gutless abstainers all voted to change the J.E.B. Stuart High School -- a school with over 100,000 graduates, the highest diversity rate in Fairfax, and zero reported race-related incidents in decades, and where 90% of the students polled recently want to keep the name or do not see a compelling need to change it. (See video.)
2017-06-27: FCTA: Testimony before Va Board of Education - FLE and ESSA, by Fred Costello
Your proposed ESSA plan has a number of Title-related programs intended to remedy student deficiencies or handicaps -- handicaps that have their roots in faulty family lives. Yet you do nothing to teach today's students how to be good, faithful husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, in stable marriages -- family lives that produce good, happy citizens. The FLE program here in Fairfax County illustrates the point.
2017-06-14: Daily Caller: A Code Of Ethics For K-12 Educators, by David Horowitz, Mark Tapson
Since the '60s, American colleges and universities have been fundamentally transformed from institutions of higher learning to mills of political indoctrination. Now through the leftwing schools of education, the tentacles of that "social justice" indoctrination now latch onto youthful minds in secondary schools beginning in kindergarten. Today's young college arrivals are shoddily educated but already steeped in leftwing propaganda.
2017-06-01: WaPo: Fairfax County selects new school superintendent, by Shapiro Balingit
Scott Brabrand, a former Fairfax High School principal who now leads a small district in Lynchburg is in line to become the next superintendent of Virginia's largest school system, the Fairfax County School Board announced Thursday.
2017-05-30: WaPo: Jeanette Hough resigns from Fairfax school board, prompts special election
Fairfax County School Board member Jeanette Hough announced Monday that she is resigning effective Wednesday, leaving her post after less than two years in office. A special election to fill the vacancy left by Hough could be held as soon as August.
2017-04-27: FCTA: School Board Members Get Public Spanking, by Tom Cranmer
Numerous school board members got a severe public spanking at the Fairfax County School Board (FCSB) meeting on April 27, where six speakers took on different subjects and exposed the recklessness and corruption within the school board and school system.
2017-04-27: FCTA: Testimony before FCPS - FLE and Caring Culture, by Fred Costello
The Fairfax Co Family Life Education program is a misnomer. It does not teach responsible family life -- only 'Pregnancy-free Sex at Any Age'. Today, divorce ends 50% of marriages, but the program does nothing to reduce this rate. FLE's goal should be to cultivate a caring culture and get the divorce rate down to 1%.
2017-03-23: FCTA Palm Card shows high taxes, mediocre education, by Arthur Purves
Since 2000, real estate taxes for the typical Fairfax County homeowner increased 154% (from $2.4K to $6.1K), while Fairfax County Public Schools spending has increased 108% ($1.4B to $2.9B) while enrollment increased only 21%.
2017-03-12: FCTA: What Fairfax County Parents Need to Know about FLE, by a Citizen Crusader
This is a two-page Q of what is going on in Fairfax County Public Schools. Note that an outraged mother testified at the March 9 School Board meeting that she had to take her children out of the school system due to safety and privacy concerns after discovering that school officials were secretly allowing boys into the girls bathrooms of her elementary school without her knowledge or consent.
2017-03-03: Sun Gazette: MCA Seeks Independent Task Force on FCPS Pensions, by B. Trumpeter
The McLean Citizens Association (MCA) board of directors passed a resolution March 1 urging the Fairfax County School Board to establish an independent task force that would examine ways to make the school system's retirement plans financially sustainable, in time for the fiscal 2019 budget recommendations.
2017-03-01: Liberty Council: Fairfax County LGBT Case Goes to VA Supreme Court
Tomorrow, Liberty Counsel argues before the Virginia Supreme Court in Lafferty v. Fairfax, the challenge to the Fairfax County School Board regarding its illegal policy in which the board added "sexual orientation", "gender identity", and "gender expression" to its policy and student handbook. Virginia's "Dillon Rule" may force a ruling against the county's LGBT policies.
2017-02-27: FCTA: FCPS needs an Office of Inspector General, by Charles McAndrew
Having an Auditor General position, as described in a January 2017 statement by the FCPS Board, does not provide adequate independence for reviewing management policy and proposed budget review. Having an Inspector General would provide this needed independence.
2017-02-25: Fx Free Citizen: FCPS Needs an Inspector General, by Tom Cranmer
The public has lost confidence in FCPS and the School Board, as evidenced by the vote against the meals tax. Firing the Auditor General and the assistant last year and not announcing why you did not replace them adds to the mistrust. One way to restore trust is to establish the post of an Inspector General (IG).
2017-02-22: WT: Feds no longer push transgender bathrooms, leave to states, by B. Richardson
The Departments of Education and Justice on Wednesday issued a two-page letter reversing the Obama-era edict, saying that Title IX's prohibition on "sex" discrimination in education DOES NOT also apply to gender identity. The guidance also said the federal government must recognize "the primary role of the States and local school districts in establishing education policy."
2017-02-05: FCPS: Community and Leadership Profile Survey -- Not so good!
Look at the terrible community and student ratings of the schools in the appendix. This mirrors the vote against the meals tax, despite the expensive propaganda blitz on how the schools needed money and people's votes. Obviously, the schools system should rehire the Auditor General they fired, and get to the root of their problems.
2017-02-02: FCPS: School Board Work Session - Budget -- Video (2:45:18)
2017-01-30: FCPS has Excellent Schools ... for a few, by Arthur Purves at FCPS hearing
2017-01-30: Reston Now: Fairfax Co Projects Continued Flat School Enrollment, by Dave Emke
Fairfax County Public Schools are still growing, but they are not seeing nearly as many new enrollees as they have in recent years.
2017-01-08: FCPS: Pat Hynes Rants Against Trump's Agenda ... your School Board at work!
2016-12-07: AMAC: "American History in No Time", by Randolph G. Russell -- Book Review
The idea for American History in No Time began with the author's realization that his children did not know many things he assumed they were learning in school. And bookstores had no short, easy-to-read offerings. So the author has provided an easily digestible history of America from before Columbus to the present day, laying out the basics of our culture, or the "big picture", in around a hundred pages.
2016-12-06: WaPo: U.S. high schoolers drop further behind internationally, by Joe Heim
In the latest Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) measuring math literacy in 2015, U.S. students ranked 40th in the world. The U.S. ranked 25th in science literacy and 24th in reading literacy. Singapore topped all nations in all three categories. China, Japan, Korea, Canada, Switzerland, Estonia, Australia and New Zealand were among the other top-performing countries.
2016-11-17: FCTA: Outgoing FCPS Superintendent Garza gets an Earfull, by Fred Costello
The Nov. 14 FCPS School Board Meeting was a Garza lovefest that got rained out due to a sudden downpour of truth and honesty. The school board wanted to forget the "meals tax" failure and any "new national mandates" that emerged after the Nov. 8 election. Unfortunately, frustrated and angry parents lambasted the outgoing superintendent, reminding everyone in the room of her true legacy.
2016-10-19: CNS News: FCPS to spend $20K on JEB Stuart name change 'facilitator' -- on hold
A plan by the Fairfax County Public School (FCPS) Board to spend potentially $20,000 to hire a facilitator to lead a working committee looking into changing the name of J.E.B Stuart High School has been put on hold, according to an Oct. 12 email by retiring Superintendent Karen G. Garza.
2016-10-12: WT: Fewer colleges require seven core disciplines, by Bradford Richardson
A new study indicates the vast majority of colleges and universities are failing to teach their students core disciplines (composition, literature, intermediate-level foreign language, U.S. history or government, economics, mathematics and natural sciences) necessary for success in the workplace and the maintenance of a free and self-governing republic.
2016-10-02: Fx Free Citizen: Parents Challenge FCPS Gender Identity Policy, by Tim Hannigan
"What we have instead is an idiocracy gone wild!" So said Laszio Pentek, a Fairfax County Public Schools parent, along with nine other Fairfax County citizens at the Sept 22 FCPS Board meeting, in vigorously opposing the school system's assignment of vulgar and profane books to his daughter over the past three years.
2016-09-xx: ParentAndChild.org: Family Life Education Evaluation (2016-2017)
Evaluations of the 2016-17 FLE curriculum weree conducted by Parent and Child, a group of Fairfax County parents whose backgrounds include education, health care, and biology and whose children attend or graduated Fairfax County Public Schools.
2016-09-24: Examiner: An easy solution to the teacher shortage, by Robert Fellner
There's an easy way for any state to solve its teacher shortage: Stop forcing them to pay for other people's retirement, and use those savings to provide an across-the-board pay raise instead.
2016-09-19: WaPo: Fairfax County Schools superintendent Karen Garza resigns
Garza's departure will be effective Dec. 16 -- three and a half years after she started in Fairfax -- and she will move to Columbus to become president and chief executive of Battelle for Kids.
2016-09-13: WT: Va. Supreme Court to hear case over Fairfax LGBT policy, by Brad Richardson
The Virginia Supreme Court has agreed to take a case challenging the Fairfax County School Board's authority to extend nondiscrimination protections to LGBT students. At issue is whether the board adhered to "Dillon's Rule", which bars local nondiscrimination laws in Virginia from being more stringent than the statewide standard.
2016-09-05: WT: Transgender policy battle in Fairfax County, Virignia, by Julia Porterfield
Parents whose children attend Fairfax County Public Schools are preparing to fight transgender policies and educational courses when the academic year begins Tuesday. The group Concerned Parents and Educators of Fairfax County last week released a 13-page package advising parents on how their children can avoid gender identity education.
2016-08-24: CPEFC: Fairfax County Parent Information Package -- 5 Ways to Protect Students
Frustrated by the recent actions of the Fairfax County School Board? Wonder what you can do to protect your children? Then read on! Join the community of concerned parents and educators who stand firm against those seeking to endanger our children by pushing Gender Identity politics. Together we can fight back on behalf of ALL children and students in Fairfax County.
2016-08-22: Reuters: U.S. judge grants nationwide injunction to halt Obama transgender policy
Under the injunction, the Obama administration is prohibited from enforcing the guidelines on "against plaintiffs and their respective schools, school boards, and other public, educationally based institutions." -- U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor
2016-08-10: Connection: Supervisors seek "social justice" in Fairfax schools, by Ken Moore
This month, the Board of Supervisors and the School Board passed a joint resolution called "One Fairfax: a community where everyone can participate and prosper." The idea is to address inequity in opportunities across the county. (But since FCPS seems incapable of bringing up the low end, this means that the high end will have to be diluted -- in true socialist fashion.)
2016-07-19: FCPS: Transgender Regulation Work Session Cancelled; Regulation Placed On Hold
2016-07-17: Liz Schultz: FCPS to ignore public, set Transgender Regs 07/21! -- Plz show up!
The School Board continues to do an end run around public deliberation.
2016-07-07: JWR: 1966 Coleman Report study of public education still valid, by George Will
Coming out one year after the more famous Moynihan Report, the Coleman Report presented a statistical analysis of public education across the country. Coleman's evidence that cultural rather than financial variables matter most was not welcomed by education bureaucracies and unions. Fifty years later, this still-valid conclusion continues to be ignored.
2016-07-01: FCPS: New Transgender Regs -- UPDATE on July 14 Board Mtg!
On Friday, July 1, the FCPS School Board Chairman, Pat Hynes dumped new transgender regulations on the Board, asking for quick approval behind closed doors. The regulation includes: "Affirmation"; "preferred gender pronoun"; and "preferred gender" in chorus, sex ed, sports. Last year, parents were promised a say in all this. The School Board is doing an end run around public deliberation.
2016-06-28: AMAC: New S.C. Law Ensures Students Will Study the Founding Documents
"This was once common sense throughout America, but now we are forced to fight to ensure that even the most basic texts -- the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence -- are taught." -- Arthur Milikh, The Heritage Foundation
2016-05-19: Examiner: School choice wins in Nevada court, by Jason Russell
A Nevada judge dismissed an ACLU suit challenging the constitutionality of the state's landmark school choice program, saying the program was constitutional because parents, not the state government, decide if they want to use the funds at religious schools.
2016-05-16: WT: Students using devices to take notes perform worse, by Bradford Richardson
A group of economists went to West Point to measure the effects of integrating computerized devices into the classroom. The results: The technology-ridden classrooms scored 1.7 points lower on average in a 100-point exam than their pen-and-paper counterparts, perhaps demonstrating the pitfalls of multitasking.
2016-05-16: WT: Universal gov't-funded preschool proves to be misguided, by Burke & Furth
Studies of large-scale preschool programs in Quebec and Tennessee show that vastly expanding access to free or subsidized preschool may worsen behavioral and emotional outcomes for students. Even proponents acknowledge that universal preschool does nothing to improve future academic performance.
2016-05-13: WMAL: FCPS board member Elizabeth Schultz on transgender issue -- Audio (6:49)
WMAL's Mornings on the Mall interviews the conservative Fairfax County school board icon regarding the explicit threat from the Obama regime to withhold funding from school districts that fail to comply with Obama's transgender bathroom dictats, and where she thinks this will lead.
2016-04-xx: FCTA: Budget in 1971 - Fx Co $294.5M, FCPS $79.7M -- Blast from the past
2016-04-28: CNS News: Majority of H.S. Seniors Not College-Ready, by Barbara Hollingsworth
Despite the fact that the U.S. spends more than $600 billion per year on public education, a large majority of high school seniors are not ready for college-level work in math and reading, according to the latest results of the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as "the nation's report card".
2016-03-29: FCTA: FCPS "Listening Tour" at Madison H.S., by Arthur Purves Tim Hannigan
Dr. Garza presented the usual litany of alleged needs for the FCPS system, and a desire for a 6.75 cent (vs the 4 cent announced) increase in the Fx Co tax rate. FCTA's Arthur Purves countered with some actual facts. And the head of the teachers union recommended attendees support a meals tax as a way to get more revenue for FCPS.
2016-02-23: FCTA: FCPS "Listening Tour" at South County H.S., by Charles McAndrew
Dr. Garza started her presentation by praising the FCPS system, offering statistics that are perhaps somewhat suspect. She has requested a 6.7% increase in funding from the County for FY 2017.
2016-02-17: Just Facts: The State of the U.S. Education System -- video (6:56)
Just Facts president Jim Agresti states that the U.S. spends $283,000 per year per classroom for K-12 education. Students from the U.S. fare poorly relative to students from other countries, but not before Grade 4. Private schools cost half as much per classroom and get better results, including students who have switched from public school to private school.
2016-02-08: Sun Gazette: FCPS board digs in for 120M budget increase, by Scott McCaffrey
Members of the Fairfax County School Board have adopted a combative stance, proposing a $2.67 billion fiscal 2017 budget that does not include any cuts proposed by a task force convened last year and promising to mobilize community support on behalf of the plan.
2016-02-05: NYT: Who Needs Advanced Math? Not Everybody, by Jane Karr
Challenging convention in his new book, "The Math Myth and Other STEM Delusions", Andrew Hacker argues against the requirement that all high school students take a full menu of math. (Read also his Op-Ed: Is Algebra Necessary?)
2016-01-29: Sun Gazette: FCPS teacher group pushes funding, meals tax, by Brian Trompeter
The Fairfax Education Association (FEA), an FCPS proxy group, wants county supervisors to increase the real-estate tax rate to fund the bloated Fx Co school system, and is encouraging the supervisors to pursue a meals-tax referendum... again! (So what will they advocate the following year???)
2016-01-28: FCTA: Purves' Testimony at FCPS Budget Hearing
"My name is Arthur Purves. I address you as president of the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance. Once again the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) administration has been less than candid in its budget presentation."
2016-01-24: Fx Free Citizen: Shining Light On Common Core, by Ileana Johnson
Common Core was developed by 30 individuals with the purpose of dumbing down American education even further. These 30 people had to sign a confidentiality agreement that they would not discuss what took place in their meetings. Five committee members did not sign the final standards and were thus "expunged from the record".
2016-01-21: Watchdog.org: 7 articles for National School Choice Week
Nick Gillespie, editor of Reason.com, sees school choice as a natural issue for libertarians because it "fits with libertarian emphases on individual choice, autonomy, and responsibility. The traditional public school system, K through 12, which is a $600 billion a year industry, is filled with abuses, waste, and misdirected attention."
2016-01-18: The Federalist: O'Keefe's Common Core Videos Are Just The Tip Of The Iceberg
Self-described right-wing muckraker James O'Keefe has begun publishing a series of undercover videos about Common Core. One thing these videos emphasize: When companies can earn money not by producing good things people want to buy but by influencing politicians to tilt the playing field in their favor, quality drastically suffers.
2016-01-07: WaPo: FCPS superintendent proposes teacher raises, class size reductions
Garza's budget -- which is likely to undergo several school board changes before it is presented to the county -- seeks $1.9 billion from the county, $67 million more than county officials signaled they would provide to schools. The county, Virginia's largest, is facing a shortfall of its own.
2016-01-07: FCTA: Purves' Questions Forbidden at FCPS Budget Briefing
Fairfax County Public Schools on Wednesday advised Arthur Purves, president of the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance, that Mr. Purves would not be allowed to ask questions at the school superintendent's budget press briefing on Thursday, January 7.
2016-01-06: HB389: Parental Choice Education Savings Accounts, introduced by Del Dave LaRock
Allows Virginia parents 90%-level educational funding to apply toward their child's education in a school of their choice, as certified by the state.
2015-12-18: Fx Free Citizen: Musings on Indoctrination by Teachers, by Ileana Johnson
The depth of blatant ignorance and naiveté of American teachers, even smart ones, is astonishing. Teachers across the country willingly indoctrinate their students many hours a day into the tenets of Islam, collectivism, environmentalism, and perverted and inappropriate for their age sexuality.
2015-12-07: Fairfax County Teachers' salaries: Too Low or About Right? -- FCPS, FxCo sources
2015-12-01: CEI: A Remedy for FCPS's Taxpayer Giveaway to Unions, by Trey Kovacs
Activity performed on "release time" serves the interests of unions. Unions, not taxpayers, should incur those costs, which FCPS has been paying for since 1986, despite the constitutional restriction on granting public aid to private entities.
2015-11-18: Sun Gazette: Proposals are in to cut FCPS costs -- Editorial
To hear the Fairfax Education Association and Fairfax County Federation of Teachers tell it -- you'd think the school-system's budget has been decimated in recent years. The facts say otherwise. Fairfax schools deserve reasonable funding. But so do a host of other county programs. And taxpayers deserve to be respected by elected officials, not treated as ATMs.
2015-11-11: WT: Common Core's double whammy, David V. Anderson
Common Core has not brought any improvements in the important subjects of mathematics and reading. In fact, the presence of this unfortunate "experiment" correlates with performance degradation in both subjects. And states which have formally participated in Common Core have fared worse than those not doing so.
2015-11-03: FCTA: 2015 Fx Co Public Schools Board Election Winners, by David Swink
2015-11-01: WT: School board blocks release of gender identity documents 'til after election
The Fairfax County school board has filed a lawsuit that blocks until after Election Day Tuesday the public release of documents on a controversial transgender policy, prompting several candidates for the board to say Monday that voters now must toss the incumbents.
2015-10-31: WT: School board was implementing gender identity policy before May 7 hearing
New documents show that the Fairfax County School board had already moved to change its nondiscrimination policy to include "gender identity" without consulting parents, before the May 7 vote even took place.
2015-10-28: Fx Free Citizen: Teaching Sex-Ed in Fx Co, Parts 1, 2, 3 -- by Fred Costello
This three-part series is entitled "A Summary of Fairfax County's Family Life Education Lessons Plans". The first part summarizes the FLE lesson plans on "human growth"; the second part comments on the lesson plans; the third part provides an outline of individual FLE (sex education) lessons.
2015-10-16: CNS News: School Board Hasn't Responded to FOIAs on Transgender Policy
Concerned Fairfax County parents say the local school board acted hastily in making "gender identity" part of its non-discrimination policy, but the board is ignoring FOIAs to release behind-the-scenes information leading up to their controversial decision -- at least until after the upcoming November election.
2015-10-12: Choice media: "We Don't Want School Choice" -- Satirical music video (3:38)
2015-10-08: Watchdog.org: Texas charter network boasts 99.9% college-going rate, by K. Ward
Graduates of a charter school network in Austin, San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley boasted a 99.9 percent college acceptance rate this year -- roughly double the statewide average. Parents are lining up to get their children into the publicly funded, independently operated schools.
2015-10-08: CBS: Former CEO of Chicago Public Schools indicted on corruption charges
The former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, will plead guilty to charges in an indictment released Thursday that alleged she steered more than $23 million in no-bid contracts from CPS to her former employer, authorities said Thursday. The U.S. Attorney said Byrd-Bennett and others "entered into a scheme to secretly profit from schools."
2015-09-09: FCTA: Minutes of FCPS Budget Meeting at South Lakes H.S., by Charles McAndrew
2015-09-07: Watchdog.org: School choice improved public schools in Milwaukee, by Paul Brennan
One of the most persistent is that school choice undermines public schools, making them worse. "It's not true. If anything, it works in the opposite direction. Giving parents choices about where to send their children seems to force public schools to improve their performance." -- John Witte, emeritus professor of political science and public policy at UW-Madison
2015-08-31: WT: Better school choices for less (in AZ, FL, MS, NV, TN), by Ed Feulner
Five states now have Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) that enable families to deposit their child's state per-pupil funding in an account that can be used for a variety of education options. If they want to use the money that would've been spent at their child's "assigned" school for a different education option, they can do that instead. Plus ESAs save taxpayer money!
2015-08-28: Examiner: It shouldn't take a hurricane to create all-choice school districts
The progress made in all-choice school districts like the one in New Orleans should be celebrated, and the lessons should be learned across the nation. It shouldn't take bad academics or natural disasters to get cities to empower families to choose their children's school.
2015-08-28: AMAC: New AP Test Seeks to Rewrite History for Political Gain, by John Grimaldi
The previous AP U.S. History course featured a strong insistence on content, i.e., on the students' acquisition of extensive factual knowledge of American history. The new 2014 framework repudiates that earlier approach, centralizes control, deemphasizes content, and seeks to "internationalize" the nation's past. (Read related IMPRIMUS post.)
2015-08-18: Examiner: Teachers clueless on money schools spend per student, by Jason Russell
It's possible that the gap shows the difference between how much is spent on education and how much reaches the classroom. There's a difference between spending on instruction and spending that gets swallowed up in bureaucracy or non-instructional services.
2015-08-07: FCTA: IQ Tests, GT, AAP, and PC in Fairfax Co Schools, by Fred Costello
Around 1995, FCPS got rid of individual IQ tests, which were given to kids who the teachers thought had the most potential. Less accurate group ability tests were given to all 1st and 2nd grade students. Eventually, racial diversity entered into the equation, the gifted curriculum was dumbed down to compensate, and there are now proposals to save money by eliminating self-contained classes for highly gifted kids altogether.
2015-08-06: WMAL: FCPS's Elizabeth Schultz on school budget priorities -- video (8:30)
Fx Co School Board member Elizabeth Schultz talks about the current $100M budget shortfall. She says we didn't just get here overnight, we can no longer avoid glaring fiscal realities, and we're merely "at the edges" when we talk about sports, but mainly that Fairfax Co voters need to pay attention in November -- on both school board and supervisor elections.
2015-08-04: Watchdog.org: Texas flunks school choice test, by Kenric Ward
Metrics undermine the conventional wisdom that more public spending translates into better education. Per-pupil allocations have risen steadily in Texas -- growing five times faster than enrollment -- while SAT scores have remained flat. Outlays for non-teaching positions have climbed 172 percent. (Hmmm, just like FCPS!)
2015-07-xx: IMPRIMUS: History, American Democracy, and the AP Test Controversy, by W. McClay
Imprimis lecture by Wilfred M. McClay, University of Oklahoma.
2015-07-27: Examiner: Louisiana's charter school solution after Katrina, by Jason Russell
Before Katrina, barely more than half of New Orleans students graduated. After Katrina, the city-run school district decided to reopen its first schools as charters. In the 2013-14 school year, three out of four graduated -- right in line with Louisiana's statewide graduation rate.
2015-07-16: WT: Congress guts No Child Left Behind education plan, by Tom Howell
Congress has voted to scrap much of the Bush-era education plan. The government will continue to ship billions of dollars to states, but with fewer strings attached. Gone are the yearly progress goals, designed to force schools to show continual improvement. But schools were supposed to be at peak proficiency by last year, and none were close.
2015-07-07: Fx Free Citizen: "Holistic Approach" in FCPS Strategic Plan, by Tim Hannigan
Above and beyond the politically charged term "global citizen" (see discussion here), the phrase "a more holistic approach to education that addresses student's social and emotional needs" in Fairfax County Public Schools' Ignite: Strategic Plan 2015-20 (page 8) also warrants further clarification.
2015-07-06: WaPo: Outspoken conservative riling Fairfax Co School Board, by T Rees Shapiro
Casting her no vote on the "gender identity" issue last month, Springfield district representative Elizabeth Schultz rose to her feet as the vast majority of those in attendance gave her a rousing ovation. Never mind that the measure passed in a 10-to-2 vote. Even in the lopsided defeat, a woman's voice called out above the din: "Thank you, Elizabeth!"
2015-07-05: Fx Free Citizen: FCPS Educating "Global Citizens", by Tim Hannigan
Whoa! Does the FCPS really intend for its students to identify themselves first and foremost with an undefined, unstructured, almost mythical "global community" rather than as citizens of Fairfax County, the state of Virginia, and the United States of America? Is something a bit sinister is going on here? (Read Ignite: Strategic Plan 2015-20, p. 10)
2015-06-26: Fx Ti404: Home schooling on the rise in Fairfax Co, nation, by Kate Yanchulis
The number of home-schooled students in Fairfax County increased by 125 percent, from 1,306 in the 2005-06 school year to 2,936 this year, according to statistics from the Virginia Department of Education. Nearly 1.77 million were home-schooled in the U.S. as of 2012, 3.4 percent of all school-age children across the country.
2015-06-26: Connection: Health Curriculum To More Closely Align with Va., by Tim Peterson
The proposed addition of "gender identity" in Fairfax County schools was front-and-center again last night at the school board meeting at Luther Jackson Middle School in Merrifield. Of major concern to parents were the less abrasive Virginia requirements and the ability to opt out of any Fairfax Co "gender identity" requirements. The Board appeared quite unprepared and downright dismissive of parents' concerns.
2015-06-16: Reston Now: FCPS Taking a Hard Look at Slashing $100M in Costs, by Karen Goff
Eliminate Advanced Academic Centers, elementary band and strings programs and speech therapists; go back to mini-Mondays; charge tuition for language immersion programs; and cut back the number of custodians and make kids clean the school. Those are just a few of the dozens of citizen ideas on how Fairfax County Public Schools can save money.
2015-05-21: FCPS: School Board Approves FY 2016 Budget... details here
The Fairfax County School Board has adopted the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) FY 2016 Approved Budget of $2.6 billion which includes a step increase for all eligible employees and a market scale adjustment of 0.62 percent. The FY 2016 budget is an increase of $53.9 million, or 2.2 percent, over the FY 2015 Approved Budget.
2015-05-19: FxTimes: Higher taxes won't improve our schools -- Comment, by Howie DeFelice
Parents who don't instill the importance of education in their children doom them to failure. When parents got involved, the children thrived, some were able to be mainstreamed into the student population. The real problem is not that we don't spend enough, it's that we spend too much in the wrong places.
2015-05-17: FCTA: Fairfax Schools Introducing Gender Fluidity Policy, by Jim Ruland
The FCPS Family Life Education report is full of strikethroughs of text to be transferred from FLE and into the Health curriculum, which means that parents will not be able to "opt-out" of the new policies.
2015-05-13: WT: Fairfax moves ahead to add 'gender identity' to curricula -- no 'opt-outs'!
FCPS is preparing to add "gender identity" to its curriculum, less than a week after the school board voted for this policy over parental objections. However, most of the new agenda items will be moved from the family life curriculum into the health curriculum, which means that parents will not be able to opt their children out of the lessons.
2015-05-08: FCPS board votes transgenders are "special" -- Sun Gazette, Examiner, Video
2015-05-07: CNS News: Feds forcing public schools to adopt 'gender identity' polices
The U.S. Dept of Education is demanding that the Fairfax County Public Schools, in the Virginia suburbs just outside Washington, D.C., "revise their non-discrimination policies to include gender identity" or risk losing the federal funds they receive for their schools.
2015-05-05: WT: Parents outraged over Fairfax 'gender identity' policy, by Kellan Howell
Under the new provision, transgender students and faculty would be considered a protected class, meaning that male students who identify as female could use female bathrooms, and parents would not be able to opt their children out of classes taught by transgender teachers.
2015-03-26: FCPS: ESOL Cost in the FCPS -- letter to FCTA from Elizabeth Schultz
The following letter was sent by FCPS Board member Elizabeth Shultz to FCTA's Charles McAndrew regarding FCPS' "unaccompanied children" problem from the Obama administration, and her efforts to get the FCPS Board to finally request help from the feds...
2015-03-25: FCTA: Fx Co savings if private sector policies adopted, by Fred Costello
2015-03-13: Fx Free Citizen: ERFC-2001 costs FCPS $206M/year vs 'Legacy', by Fred Costello
FCPS is currently trying to fill a $100M shortfall. Simply reverting to the pre-2001 version of the ERFC (Legacy) pension plan would eventually save $206M per year. (ERFC2001 was introduced during the housing bubble, when the County was flush with money, and was retained when the bubble burst.) ... See also Fred's report and his summary budget recommendations.
2015-03-04: FCPS: ORR Federal request for funds -- for 1,373 illegal children
The following letter was sent by the FCPS Board separately to three Northern Virginia U.S. congressmen and both Virginia U.S. Senators, requesting federal financial help to educate the 1,373 "unaccompanied children" dumped into the county by the Omama administration...
2015-02-12: Watchdog.org: Rising tide of limited-English students swamps school budgets
Costs for schooling a surging number of limited English proficiency students are soaring -- $2.5 billion in the Washington, D.C., region alone. But the federal government, responsible for the influx of immigrants, is ducking the bill. Alexandria, for example, is spending $25,538 for each of 4,183 LEP students. (Read also: Cost in Translation, for local specifics.)
2015-01-29: FCTA Testimony at FCPS Budget Hearing, by Arthur Purves
Arthur testifies at the FCPS Budget Hearing at Luther Jackson Middle School in Merrifield, Va. He asserts that the budget "crisis" has failed to factor in public sector generosity in the face of private sector penurity.
2015-01-28: FCTA: FCPS Budgets 2000 to 2016 -- compiled by FCTA's Fred Costello
Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) budget data for FY2000 through FY2015, as shown graphically, with summary data, and in item-by-item detail.
2015-01-20: Fx Underground: FCPS non-local travel report, Jun2013 to Aug2014 -- Necessary?
There have been a lot of comments about travel for FCPS employees. Here is a listing for about 15 months of non-local travel as reported by FCPS.
2015-01-08: FCPS: Superintendent Proposes FY2016 Budget of $2.6 Billion -- 2.6% above FY2015
Would address several significant cost drivers including growing enrollment and changing student demographics along with compensation increases for employees. (See also FCPS's FY2016 Budget Presentation, Proposed Budget, Citizen's Guide to Understanding the Budget, and Budget Talking Points.)
2014-12-06: FCTA: Report on FCPS Listening Session, by Chuck McAndrew
Chuck attended a FCPS Listening Session at the Hunters Woods Elementary School in Reston given by Dr. Karen Garza, School Superintendent. He reports on who attended and what transpired.
2014-11-12: Fx Ti404: County schools search for solutions to space squeeze, by Kate Yanchulis
While the flood of students into Fairfax County schools has slowed, the squeeze for space continues. Fairfax County schools used more than 900 trailers last year, and lack of capacity will remain a problem for years to come, assistant superintendent for facilities and transportation.
2014-10-31: ACT Inc: FCPS 2014 Profile Report (view the FCPS College Readiness summary)
2014-10-10: ACTA: Fairfax County School Board Strengthens FCPS Audit Functions
"The Fairfax County School Board has created an auditor general position, added a fourth member to the Audit Committee, and approved the FY 2015 audit plan. The action was taken at the Board's business meeting on October 9."
2014-09-26: Fx Ti404: Back to basics -- the need for math memorization -- FCTA's James Ruland
Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) bought into the spiralling approach wholesale a dozen years ago, with the adoption of the "Everyday Math" textbook for elementary school students. Almost immediately thereafter a new service industry, math tutoring, blossomed for young children.
2014-08-25: Daily Signal: 4 Charts Every Mom With Kids Going Back to School Should See
Public school districts need to trim bureaucracy. To wit: 1) Only half of education jobs are teachers; 2) Education staffing has outpaced student enrollment; 3) The farther a school is from a city, the more non-teaching staff it has.
2014-06-28: WaPo: 40% of kindergarteners in Fairfax Co schools require English instruction
School officials said there is evidence that some immigrant families moved to Fairfax after Prince William's law took effect; the Fairfax school system experienced an increase of 14,000 Hispanic students between 2008 and 2014.
2014-05-16: Reston Now: FCPS Will Change Administration Structure
Effective July 1, FCPS will no longer have eight clusters. Instead, it will have five regions, each with about 36,000 students. Superintendent Karen Garza said the new structure will create "significant" budgetary savings.
2014-03-13: Fairfax Times: School Board split heading into budget talks
The Fairfax County School Board is split on how to handle the school system's potential state funding heading into budget negotiations with the Board of Supervisors.
2014-01-27: FCTA president's presentation to the school board (video 3:31 min)
Arthur Purves comments on fiscal restraint and dismal academic results.
2014-01-25: FCTA: Fx Co Public Schools - High Taxes for Low Achievement ...(FCPS response.)
Between Fiscal Year (FY) 2000 and 2014, Fairfax County real estate taxes for the typical homeowner increased $2700 (114 percent), from $2407 to $5146. Inflation over that period was 47 percent.
2014-01-09: WaPo: Fx schools chief calls for $96M in budget cuts, increased class sizes
The proposal includes $96 million in cuts that would eliminate about 730 staff positions from Virginia's largest school system. The number of assistant principals would be cut and about 460 classroom positions would be removed.
2013-12-29: FCTA: FCPS Budgets 2000 to 2014
FCTA's Fred Costello has compiled basic Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) budget data for FY2000 through FY2014, as shown graphically, with summary data, and in item-by-item detail.
2013-11-27: WaPo: FCPS leaders meet to discuss projected budget shortfall
County executive Ed Long said the schools and county supervisors face a "daunting task", as they look to fund operations and services.
2013-11-20: FCPS: Response to FCTA's "High Taxes for Low Achievement"
2013-10-24: FCPS: Adjustments for Growth COLA and Benefits 2000 to 2014
FCPS's Office of Budget Services provides a table that shows the year-by-year history of increases in growth, COLA, step (including percentages), and employee benefit cost increases (all benefits, not just pension and health insurance).
2013-10-21: WaPo: FCPS faces tough choices in budget shortfall
The Fairfax County School Board on Monday began considering extensive cuts to next year's budget, as the county's new superintendent suggested bridging an expected $140 million gap by lowering school staffing, increasing class sizes and implementing a sports user fee.
2013-09-xx: FCPS: A Citizen's Guide to Understanding the Budget
"We will face a critical challenge as our revenues have simply not increased at the same rate as our growth and needs." -- Karen K. Garza, Superintendent of Fairfax County Public Schools
2013-04-15: WaPo: Education Study on D.C. Area High Schools
The Washington Post conducted a study on America's most challenging high schools, including scores for more than 170 Washington-area public high schools.
2013-02-11: FCTA: Student Achievement Flat in Fairfax County Public Schools
While taxes are increasing, student achievement in Fairfax County Public Schools is stagnant, except for Asians -- even though FCPS consumes half of annual County tax revenues.
2013-01-28: Tech Dirt: FCPS Dumps e-Textbooks due to Publisher Restrictions, by Tim Cushing
Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) is making the switch back to paper textbooks, to the tune of $2 million, after running into system requirements that prevented some of its students from taking advantage of the digital books. The intellectual property (IP) concerns of publishers made convenient access to their e-textbooks impossible.
2012-09-11: Examiner: What ails Fairfax schools? Not a lack of funds -- OpEd
"When vendors start writing their own statements of work, sitting in on FCPS budget discussions when they are negotiating contracts with FCPS, and when over 50 staff are doing their best to circumvent the rules, we have a problem." -- concerned citizen to Fairfax supervisors
2012-09-05: Watchdog.org: 'At-risk' Fairfax charter tests Virginia's largest school district
Because Virginia gives local school boards the final say on any charter, the new charter finds itself in the midst of a provincial and occasionally politicized vetting process.
2012-07-28: NYT: Is Algebra Necessary?, by Andrew Hacker
Yes, young people should learn to read and write and do long division, whether they want to or not. But there is no reason to force them to grasp vectorial angles and discontinuous functions. Think of math as a huge boulder we make everyone pull, without assessing what all this pain achieves.
2012-05-25: Wapo: Renowned STEM high school TJ now includes remedial math, by John Dell
What made old Jefferson special was the extraordinary learning environment created by assembling a critical mass of truly prepared students. At the new Jefferson, students are no longer selected primarily on the basis of their promise in science, technology and mathematics. One-third of the students entering Jefferson under the current admissions policy are in remediation in their math and science courses.
2012-05-17: Patch: FCPS Has a Credibility Problem -- OpEd by Michele Menapace
Michele Menapace, a parent advocate, questions some of the school board's budget decisions.
2012-01-30: FCTA: Cut taxes by $1500. Don't raise them by $300
Between FY2000 and FY2007, real estate taxes for the typical Fairfax County household doubled, from $2400 to $4800 per year. Since 2007, the supervisors have kept the real estate tax at $4800, despite decreasing assessments. This is $1500 more than the typical household would pay today if real estate taxes had increased only at the rate of inflation since FY2000.
2011-01-27: FCTA: Higher pension costs real reason for school cuts
Rather than funding academic excellence, higher taxes are giving school employees better salaries and benefits than received by taxpayers. According to the county website, between 2001 and 2009 private-sector raises in Fairfax County outpaced inflation by 7.3 percent. Over the same period, county raises outpaced inflation by 22 percent.
2009-01-21: FCTA: Excessive public-sector compensation causes school budget deficit
More than half of the $429 million was spent to give school employees higher raises ($110 million) and better benefits ($151 million) than taxpayers get in the private sector. Between FY2000 and FY2007, raises for school employees were over five percent per year, while taxpayer incomes were increasing two percent per year.
2007-01-29: FCTA: Lack of transparency in student achievement
FCTA has asked FCPS: 1) why it does not publish ACT results; 2) what percentage of its graduates who earn four-year degrees; 3) what percentage of its students achieve at [national] standards; 4) what percentage of 12th graders read at the 12th-grade level. FCPS does not know.
2007-01-16: FCTA: School Board should obey election laws
It is not right to use tax-funded resources to campaign for a bond referendum and then not provide equal time to the opposing view -- that capital improvements should not be financed from bond sales since each year the county spends more on debt service than it receives from bond sales.
2006-02-02: FCTA: FCPS claims of academic excellence are incomplete
Schoolmatters.com, a school-rating website provided by Standard and Poors and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation identifies the top-performing school districts in each state. Their analysis considers both test scores and demographics and lists 16 top school districts in Virginia. Fairfax County is not one of them.
2005-02-02: FCTA: Despite Spending Increases, SAT scores remain flat
The school system states that large tax increases are justified to maintain the schools' "academic excellence", an assertion based on the County's average College Board SAT score being 79 points above the national average (50th percentile). However the school administration never mentions that the County's average SAT score is only at the 65th percentile.
2004-02-02: FCTA: Hoping new superintendent will bring era of candor and honesty
Current-year estimates are too high because you repeatedly underestimate the ending balance. The result is that proposed budget increases seem smaller than they really are. And you publicize increases in SAT scores while not publicizing that over the past six years the percentage of seniors taking the SAT has decreased from 89 percent to 77 percent.
2003-01-27: FCTA: Superintendent makes misleading statements about school budget
This year's school operating budget is $180 million more than needed to keep up with inflation and enrollment growth over the past three years. How can anyone transform this into a budget cut? Apparently the school administration feels it can promote its budget only by misrepresenting it.
2000-01-24: FCTA: Superintendent's proposed FY2001 budget
The superintendent says that school-based positions are up and non-school based positions are down. But since 1975, non-teaching positions have increased much faster than enrollment and school salaries have increased more than county salaries, until last year. And per-student spending, adjusted for inflation, has increased 100 percent.
1998-01-22: FCTA: Proposed FY1999 Capital Improvement Plan
The new superintendent has promised to establish measurable achievement goals. FCTA proposes that SAT scores be increased from the 65th to the 80th percentile and that 3rd, 5th, 8th, and 11th grade standardized test scores be increased from the 75th to the 90th percentile. We are also concerned that despite higher taxes both the school system and the county are neglecting buildings and infrastructure.
1997-05-22: FCTA: Federal Funding of Vocational Education
Our classrooms are the silent battlefields between two philosophies of education -- traditional and progressive. Progressive education is not working. You can choose to reject federal government funding and return to traditional education, or you can accept federal funding, continue progressivist reforms, and watch the Fairfax schools continue to deteriorate.
1997-02-13: FCTA: Proposed Student Information System
Why is it that school board members are so concerned about protecting student privacy that they object to releasing the Centreville High School election results but are willing to put 140,000 students' health and discipline records and grades on the Internet?
1997-01-23: FCTA: Proposed FY1998 Capital Improvement Plan
You can and should fund this [$56 million per year for the next ten years] shortfall from the school operating budget. This board's current policy of funding both school renewals and construction from bonds is not working. Renewals should be funded from the operating budget and construction from bonds.
1985-09-xx: IMPRIMUS: Who Killed Excellence?, by Samuel Blumenfeld
There has been much talk of a crisis in education and much speculation as to what or who is to blame for the mediocrity in our schools. Professor Samuel Blumenfeld offers a clear and convincing explanation of how the goals of the professional educator have changed and have thus adversely affected the quality and content of education.
1971-03-26: Evening Star: Fairfax Schools Provide Data for Budget Study, by Thomas Crosby
The Fairfax County School Board has decided in closed session to send the county government information which might be used to cut the school budget. Fairfax has a $294.5 million budget this year, with a $15.4 million deficit. The school board announced it was reducing its operating budget request by $1.6 million, to $79.7 million.