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.

School Choice Week 2024 January 21-27 this year was the 14th year of National School Choice Week. Twenty-eight Governors across the country, and federal officials spoke declarations and held press conferences to tell parents how wonderful and necessary “school choice” is to their families and children. Governor Glenn Youngkin, who has made “school choice” a cornerstone of his administration, was among the officials. National School Choice Week is a cross between a carnival a

Choosing a Reading Curriculum that Works In 2022 the Virginia legislature passed The Virginia Literacy Act, often referred to as VLA. It was sponsored by such unlikely co-sponsors as lead Senate Democrats Louise Lucas from Portsmouth and Jennifer McClellan, and Siobhan Dunnavant, Republican firebrand from Henrico. The House sponsors were Carrie Coyner, a Republican from Chesterfield, and Kaye Kory, a Fairfax County Democrat. What could have brought legislators from such varie

The Board of 4 Public Education is disappointed with the proposed budget released by Governor Youngkin on December 20, 2023. It seems...

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

One of Governor Youngkin’s many promises to Virginia was to expand charter schools in Virginia, taking desperately needed funding from...

A Review of the Northern Virginia VDOE Accountability Listening Session I don’t know if any of you have attended any of the VDOE listening sessions on accountability changes around the state, but Marianne Burke and I drove 45 minutes out to the Hylton Center on the GMU Science and Tech campus in Manassas to participate in one on Wednesday, December 5th. We had read the VDOE August 2023 announcement (Item F) which erroneously compared NAEP and SOL results (again), and thought

Preparing for the 2024 General Assembly: Public Education Priorities The verdict is in. Not only is Virginia seriously underfunding its public schools, but the pipeline for K-12 teachers has proven to be inadequate. A recent nonpartisan study of school funding has confirmed just how badly Virginia public schools are underfunded, and a review of the K-12 teacher pipeline revealed the reasons why we have a shortage of qualified teachers in Virginia. Now that we know the facts,

November 9, 2023 School Board meetings have become ground zero for the culture wars, so 4 Public Education is introducing a new blog called “School Board Matters” for 2023-24. It will include analysis and links to video, agenda, and votes that affect you and your student(s), including links to primary source documents to support involvement in your student’s experience and education. We hope this will provide better access to and understanding of the Fairfax County School Boa

Even before he was elected, Virginia Gov. [Glenn] Youngkin focused his attention on harmful, fabricated fibs about public education. He...

Imagine a world where the Moms for Liberty and like-minded individuals were elected to the school board, state legislature, and governorship in your state. Imagine a world where our schools were plundered for funding, teachers abandoned the profession, and our kids were left to pay the price. This is a semi-fictional tale taken from real world events in schools and school districts from across the country where people failed to vote in support of their teachers, students, and

A recent poll by the Washington Post and George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government revealed factors that may...

Although Governor Youngkin was lambasted 18 months ago for his inaccurate conclusions about the current state of Virginia Public...

We need to allow people to talk and we need to be open-minded. Our differences don’t need to divide us–they can bring us together. - Dr....

As you may know, book bans have been on the rise with requests to ban books at record high in 2022. Like you, 4 Public Education is concerned about the attacks on the 1st Amendment through censorship, thus, we are covering Banned Books week, October 1-7th, over multiple blogs. To kick off Banned Book Week, Maryland and Virginia congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Church held a festival of banned books entitled Unstoppable Stories that covered the joy of reading challe

For two years in a row, Governor Youngkin has blamed slow growth and recovery of SOL test scores on his predecessors and pandemic school closures. Although scores showed some recovery in 2022 during Youngkin’s first year in office, 2023 SOL scores remained stagnant during his second year in office. This begs the question: Is Youngkin intentionally attempting to gaslight Virginians and spread disinformation, or does his administration fundamentally not understand how SOLs are

Governor Youngkin continues to gaslight the public by manufacturing problems that he continues to blame on public schools in Virginia. It worked stunningly to get him elected in 2021; nevertheless, parents are weary of Youngkin’s empty claim that he is the “education governor.” This November, all of the Virginia General Assembly and many school board seats are up for election, thus the Governor and his supporters are repeating the tired claim that Virginia K-12 schools are fa

On August 15, 2023, FCPS Superintendent Dr. Michelle Reid made an official statement after community members expressed concern about...

Virginia’s Governor has declared war on public education with a sleight of hand. While touting himself as the “education” governor, he’s...

Although it was nowhere on the Virginia Board of Education agenda, nearly all public input today, July 27, 2023, was about Youngkin's so-called “Model Policies on Ensuring Privacy, Dignity, and Respect for All Students.” Although it is hard to tell how many, but a number of the speakers who supported Youngkin's policies are part of a dark money network that have been attacking public education and the LGBTQIA+ community for years. A number of those in the room found their sta