A10 Tuesday, April 23, 2024 Bristol Herald Courier I school system were a person, say it was born on third base and thought it hit a triple. Indeed, the education officials have spent so many years patting themselves on the back that their arms must hurt. true that some national magazines have MICHAEL J. ranked schools highly in the past. But not sur- prising, given that also one of the wealthiest states in the nation.
Proximity to Washing- ton, D.C., military installations and a booming tech sector mean that talented, well-educated in- dividuals flock to Virginia from all over the world, and their advantaged children tend to do quite well in school. The real question is whether Virginia is capable of helping all of its children meet high aca- demic standards. Here the news is much more sobering. certainly the case in the aftermath of the disastrous COVID-19 pandemic, thanks to lengthy school closures that led students to expe- rience more learning loss than almost anywhere else. Among fourth graders, read- ing scores dropped by 10 points, the biggest decline in the na- tion, while math scores fell by 11 points.
But even before the pan- demic, performance was lackluster. Consider the core skill of reading, as mea- sured by the National Assess- ment of Educational Progress, aka, Report In 2015, fourth graders living in the commonwealth did rela- tively well on the reading test, ranking fifth in the country af- ter adjusting for demographics. But when that same group of students was tested four years later, as eighth graders in 2019, they came in at No. 35. an enormous drop and means that Virginia students made rela- tively little progress in reading between the fourth and eighth grades.
Indeed, compared to other states, they went back- ward. Yet when was the last time you heard Virginia superinten- dents brag, No. And not just at the state level where Virginia has an inflated sense of itself. The archaic system for ele- mentary and secondary schools regularly paints a rosy picture of almost every school division and school building in the state. because the system eval- uates them based on how many students reach a very low bar of proficiency and meet a fake measure of student progress each year.
no surprise, then, that almost 9 in 10 Virginia schools are Decades ago, leading states moved away from these sorts of low expectations and built serious performance-manage- ment systems that aimed for real student success and made distinctions between strong and weak schools. Neighboring Maryland, for example, has a robust five-star system that celebrates schools, including high-poverty ones, which are helping their students make progress every year and reach the high standards. That system also flags schools that need more support. Though it matter exactly how a state designates the schools that need the most help star ratings, points, even color codes Virginia going forward should be making those distinctions with honesty, care and rigor. Virginia finally has a chance to do so, thanks to the work of its State Board of Education.
This summer, the board will vote on a proposal to adopt a new performance and support system that would embrace higher standards and pave the way for rigorous assessments, while also giving schools credit for helping students who show growth over time and who are prepared for the next grade levels. Some worry that identifying schools that need extra support will make the adults feel bad. But like saying that we should avoid going to the doc- tor because we might hear bad news. new system will identify the students in schools that need the most help and en- sure that they get it schools where kids are scoring at low levels, failing to make much progress over the school year, and are unprepared to move ahead. A stronger accountability system fix all the prob- lems facing schools, from racial segregation to the youth mental health crisis to teacher shortages in high-de- mand areas.
But it will be much more transparent and sensible, and drive resources to where they are most needed. Policy- makers: keep your eye on the ball and hit this one out of the park! Michael J. Petrilli is president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. Contact Petrilli at OPINIONS irginia voters can have confidence in November that the election process will be simple and their votes will count.
because of the defeat of two radical election proposals pushed by well-financed lobbying groups. Each would have made voting less transparent and more confus- ing. Voters were spared the latest ENGLAND mess only by gu- bernatorial veto on April 8. That bill, Senate Bill 428, would have required the com- monwealth to assist local implementation of an elec- tion system known as ranked choice voting, or RCV. With RCV, voters rank candidates by preference using a ballot that looks more like a standardized test.
top preferences are tallied up. If no candidate has a majority of first-place votes, the least popular candidate gets eliminated. If this sound complicated yet, stick with me; it gets worse. Votes from the candidate that has been eliminated are then shifted to the second-choice candidate. If a voter fails to fill in a sec- ond-choice bubble, the ballot is which is an- other way of saying disqual- ified; as if the voter never showed up in the first place.
The votes are tallied again, and the process repeats until, from the adjusted votes on the re- maining ballots, one candidate finally emerges with a majority. RCV makes voting take a lot longer, with many more de- cisions to make and bubbles to mark. Just imagine a ballot with 15 RCV races, each with five candidates. 75 can- didates to rank. Lines and wait times at the polls would be un- imaginable.
One bizarre twist of RCV is that candidates with the most first-place votes can ultimately lose the election. That hap- pened in Maine in 2018 when incumbent U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin lost to Jared Golden despite initially winning a plurality of first-place votes. And in Oakland, California, Don Perata won the first-place vote for mayor in 2010, before ultimately losing to Jean Quan, in what The New York Times attributed to the of finishing second in a ranked- choice In a 2022 Oakland School Board contest, tabulators erroneously tossed out hundreds of votes and initially certified the wrong winner before a private audit exposed the failure, testifying to complexity and lack of transparency.
hard to imagine why any Virginia legislator said to such an election nightmare. Thankfully, Gov. Glenn Youn- gkin vetoed the RCV expan- sion bill over about disenfranchisem*nt and an increased lack of voter confi- Credit does go to the Virginia General Assembly where both the House and Senate are controlled by Democrats for dismissing another fraught election measure, House Bill 375, out of hand. This bill would have committed Virginia to a plan called the Popular or NPV, which would rewrite the rules for presidential elections without the proper process for consti- tutional change. The intended effect is to nullify the Electoral College through an interstate compact of dubious legality.
Both political parties in the commonwealth know that the NPV election system would erode national polit- ical clout in favor of California, Texas and a handful of other giant states. The American founders considered and re- jected a national popular vote because it lacks the checks and balances to protect minority rights and limit corruption. But to the monied interests pushing it, that seems to be part of the appeal. In fact, the NPV plan prob- ably even work. It relies on all states cooperating in the weeks following a presi- dential election.
What happens if they or if the result is close? Nobody knows, because NPV has no provisions to deal with problems, conflicts or nationwide recounts. All this is dangerous in a closely divided nation with a recent history of contentious elections where partisans on all sides routinely raise concerns about election fraud and voter disenfranchise- ment. The Virginia General As- dismissal of the latest push for NPV shows that both Democrats and Republicans realize our present system of electing a president works, both to represent Americans from coast to coast and to contain election issues within states where they are more easily settled. That, and Gov. stand against RCV, should give Virginia voters greater confidence in the dem- ocratic process.
Virginia leaders are right to reject risky election changes like NPV and RCV. hope state lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle agree to permanently abandon any ef- fort to promote these flawed political schemes. Trent England is founder and executive director of Save Our States and co-chairman of the Stop Ranked-Choice Voting Coalition. Contact him at saveourstates.com. TRENT PETRILLI Virginia averts election disaster CHICAGO TRIBUNE EDITORIAL BOARD Barnum may or may not have said, a sucker born every He gets the credit in the popular mind.
Whoever was the true origi- nator of that 19th century clas- sic observation likely would get a proper chuckle out of the ways that Donald Trump continues to make saps out of a dismay- ingly large slice of the American public. The latest example: The stock of Trump Media Technology owner of the social me- dia platform Truth Social, on which Trump routinely posts his of the day. Call letters: DJT. The company made a splashy public debut on March 26 via a so-called SPAC transaction. Sure, the roughly $9.7 bil- lion market value at the open seemed a tad high for a com- pany that generated just $4.1 million in revenue last year and posted a net loss of $58.2 mil- lion.
It take long for market realities to break through what remains of the Trump mystique; the stock within days began plunging relentlessly. now lost more than two-thirds of its value from its $70.90 opening. This week has been particularly rough, with the stock falling as of midday April 16. The latest news weighing on Truth market value was could use some more cash. So the disclosure last week that the company may sell up to 146 investors dumped shares million shares in a secondary offering, with much of that stock owned or controlled by Trump himself.
If Trump de- cides to unload any or all of his shares, he do so until Sep- like in September when Trump tember per a so-called lockup agreement aimed at preventing opportunity? If Trump is to reap quick cash outs by founders and a windfall that even after the original investors. But the signal sent a positive one to those who think about $2.6 billion on paper, it investing alongside Trump is the path to riches. For a man who has strived over his de- cadeslong career to cultivate an image of a brilliant and in- credibly wealthy businessman, recent events have helped to puncture a myth that already had taken a beating during presidency. The most recent and embarrassing example was in- ability to post the $454 million judgment in the civil fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James while he appeals. An eleventh-hour bond deal saved him from worse fi- nancial trouble.
Trump has other potential legal clouds hanging over his head, of course, and now has revealed himself to be a guy who forgive the many Truth Social in recent days for thinking the former president is a solid bet to sell at the first opportunity. The question now is, what will Truth stock look will have his first liquidation precipitous stock decline Truth Social has suffered is worth looks like some more suckers will need to step up. P.T. Barnum, suckers and Truth plummeting stock price UNDERPERFORMING Virginia must raise student expectations In 2015, fourth graders living in the commonwealth did relatively well on the reading test, ranking fifth in the country after adjusting for demographics. But when that same group of students was tested four years later, as eighth graders in 2019, they came in at No.
35. VETO ALEXA WELCH EDLUND, Voters cast their ballots in James City County in 2022. Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed legislation on April 8 that would have required the state to assist localities implementing ranked choice voting. WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING SCOTT OLSON, GETTY A photo illustration shows Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald social media platform, Truth Social, on a cellphone.
320 Morrison Boulevard, Bristol, Va. 276-669-2181 HeraldCourier.com The views expressed in the editorials are those of the news publications listed. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the Bristol Herald Courier or Lee Enterprises. Nor do the diverse columns and letters to the editor that appear on this page. All of the news coverage decisions elsewhere in the newspaper are independent of these opinions..
