WAVY-TV 10 coverage of campaign launch

Education

Pre-Kindergarten Education: A speaker at the Economics Club of Hampton Roads, of which I have been a member for several years, presented the results of studies that showed the long-term cost benefits  of pre-K education. I am in favor of state-wide pre-K education in order to improve the overall future success of our Virginia students. The ability to fund these programs is, of course, and issue, but this will be an issue for some time to come.

All Students Should Be Considered Gifted: When we lived in California, I was a member of the Saratoga Education Foundation (SEF), a group that raised more than $200K per year to fund enhanced programs that were lost after Proposition 13. The SEF and school district’s philosophy was that all students are gifted and talented and deserve access to the same programs. While we were there, all three schools were California Distinguished schools, and at least one school was a National Blue Ribbon School. Based on this experience, I am not in favor of magnet schools taking resources from “ordinary” schools. 

Strong and accountable public schools, community colleges, and universities are vital assets for Virginia’s future commonwealth. Education will help ensure more Virginians are successful. We need excellent school programs, high quality and well-paid teachers, and accountability to ensure that young Virginians become successful citizens.

School Vouchers and Charter Schools Lose Focus: We should focus on a stronger and better public education system. Evidence indicates that there is little difference in the quality of charter schools versus traditional public schools, so we should stop wasting time and money on charter schools. I am also against school vouchers.

Encourage After-School Tutoring and Homework: Our public schools are generally empty much of the afternoon while too many students do not get needed help from their parent(s). I suggest that we work with teachers and administrators to open up some school space to enable students to do their homework at school after classes or to enable screened volunteers to provide paid or volunteer tutoring and mentoring after school.

Improve Education and Teacher Compensation: Comparative research studies show that U.S. students do not do as well in mathematics, science, and liberal arts compared to similar students in Europe, Japan, and many other countries. One reason for this is that the students in the other countries spend 200 to 220 days a year in school while U.S. students typically spend about 180 days in school, or about 16% less time.  I recommend that we find ways to increase the number of class days in school to 200 days a year as a start.  Since this is about 11% more class time, the teacher’s pay should be correspondingly increased by 11%.

Establish Standards-based Technical Education: Several years ago I was on a study group including NASA, community colleges, and university representatives. A shortage of technically skilled employees to replace employees retiring from NASA and a shortage of technical employees for future economic growth in Hampton Roads was identified. However, regional politics and lack of cooperation in programs between the different educational institutions became a problem that was not solved. 

Provide Benefit Support for Part Time Employees: More than half of the adjunct faculty working at TCC are part time employees. They perform a large share of the teaching on the campus, but they do not get any medical or other benefits. This was done by TCC to save money, but it is not fair to these and other dedicated and hard working temporary workers. We should try to at least give them access to basic medical benefits.

Improve Higher Education Atmosphere: When we lived in California my wife was a student advisor at Stanford University. She had lunches and significant personal interaction with her students. We were invited as a family to dinners at student dorms as guests of the students, and we had students to our home. In contrast, public universities often have poor faculty/student programs and relationships. I feel this is one of the big differences between good and great schools. I think we should have colleges and universities use a Student Relationship Management (SRM) similar to business Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to track student-faculty interactions and set a minimum required number of times that faculty interact with their students. This will help improve the quality of the educational experience at our state schools.

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