Best Schools Update 2024 “Above all, I believe every child, no matter their ZIP code or their parents' jobs, deserves access to a quality education.” - Betsy DeVos 2016 “A child's course in life should be determined not by the zip code she's born in” - Barack Obama “Literally nothing is evenly distributed by zip code, except having a zip code.” - Elon Musk Part I: Rankings v. Zip Codes “All children should have a great education regardless of zip code,” is perhaps one of th

A Strong Student Production of Kinky Boots While several hate groups descended on the FCPS high school last weekend, the students, teachers, and families of West Potomac High School chose to work together, put on an excellent show, and have a great time. Like their shirts said, “You can change the world when you change your mind.” The administrators, parents, students, and educators who put their hearts, souls, and bodies on the line for this production should be commended.

Today is May 1st. In an alternate reality where the U.S. Department of Education hadn’t completely botched the FAFSA form update, roll-out, and processing, hundreds of thousands of high school seniors would have signed on the dotted line and committed to a college. Today should be “College Day,” but instead, many students are in limbo and hundreds of colleges have now moved deadlines twice: first to May 15th and then to June 1st. If you don’t know the lingo: the FAFSA (Free

You can’t just ignore problems away. Author's forward: I wrote this piece on a snowy day in January. Dr. Claudine Gay had just resigned,...

Give the Boot(s) to critics and let the show go on! Thousands of Fairfax residents are looking forward to seeing an amazing student...

Glenn Youngkin and Secretary Aimee Guidera’s constant narrative since taking office is that Virginia public schools are failing: In spite...

It is that time of year again: Fairfax County Budget approval, and like clockwork complaints are raised about how much our county is...

The Problem Two hundred thirty-three amendments : there are so many problems with the Governor’s amendments to the bipartisan budget that...

Read other blogs about VDOE's Accountability Listening Sessions and the Public Input process.

The National Merit Commended Certificate "Crisis" School Districts are Under Fire School districts across the country are under fire. The...

Courtesy of Cappies NCA Why Schools Should have a full-time dedicated Theatre Arts teacher in every K-12 school Spring Productions are underway! Let me detail why a Theatre arts program is one of the most important elements in a school's repertoire of offerings. In the Theatre all are welcome and students learn to be accepting of the wide array of humanity and their beauty. It has always been and will remain a safe place for all our unique, commonplace, variedly able, a

Fairfax County School Board Matters: March 7, 2024 First, I want to address the elephant in the room: I was unable to attend in-person...

TJ and FCPS Win in Court after Three Years of Litigation Fairfax County and Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) are celebrating a...

The following is a letter posted by 4 Public Education Board Member Robert Rigby to Loudoun County Public Schools in response to their...

Black history is American history. Our schools should integrate Black, Asian, Hispanic, and queer history throughout our history books and curricula so that we don’t have to rely on single weeks or months throughout the year to highlight important events, contributions, and history associated with often overlooked Americans. But until that happens, we need to raise up cultural and historical contributions from all of our great Americans and American immigrants to this nation.

A Call to Advocacy for SB21 and HB509 I am a parent of a dyslexic student. When it became clear in first grade that our daughter could not read, we had to pay for private testing to ensure that our daughter accessed dyslexia services in FCPS before she fell so far behind that she could never catch up or was so filled with self-doubt that she was convinced that she would never succeed. Due to the support of amazing FCPS teachers and staff, our daughter is reading close to grad

School Board Matters, January 11, 2024 meeting School Board meetings are ground zero for the culture wars. Our “School Board Matters”...

Choosing a Reading Curriculum that Works In 2022 the Virginia legislature passed The Virginia Literacy Act, often referred to as VLA. It...

Like many parents of high school seniors, my family has been knee deep in college applications since October. My son managed to meet all of the deadlines to request transcripts, request recommendations, and apply to colleges, but now we are in the next step: submitting financial aid forms. In fact, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid ( FAFSA ) was the first thing on my list for 2024…and then my pen stopped working, which I’m hoping isn’t an omen. Applying for merit-

If you care about public education, then you have noticed that school districts across the country have been under fire for the last...