The governor’s proposed budget that was released today includes a number of changes in state support for Virginia’s students, yet fails to make any new ongoing investments in K-12 public schools other than required technical updates and a couple of small programs within the Department of Education. The budget made no progress toward funding near-term recommendations from the state nonpartisan research agency (JLARC) for making the state pay its fair share of the cost of adequately supporting Virginia’s public schools.
Funding for Virginia’s schools was described as being billions of dollars deficient in JLARC’s reports on Virginia’s K-12 Funding Formula and Virginia’s k-12 teacher pipeline. Unfortunately, despite $3.2 billion in general fund revenue reforecasts, the Governor’s budget invests just $89 million in net ongoing general fund support for direct aid for public schools – all of which is attributable to technical adjustments based on new data. There’s also $122 million in new general fund money for the Virginia Department of Education’s Central Office, almost all of which is one-time funding for a new contract with a private company for new assessments ($66 million) and initial funding for a School Performance and Support Framework Resource Hub ($50 million). The governor provided no new additional funding to support teacher and school staff salaries, despite worsening vacancy rates in many schools.
There’s also a hidden cut to general fund support for public education: The governor’s budget proposal expands the troublesome practice of reducing general funds for public education dollar-for-dollar based on increased lottery proceeds. Lottery funding should be used to improve educational opportunities, not to offset regular state funding.
All students deserve a high-quality public education, regardless of their zip code, and that requires meaningful financial investments in our public schools. This budget instead sends public dollars to private schools without requiring accountability, nondiscrimination, or transparency measures, despite research showing that vouchers can actually lower student achievement. Over time, public funding for vouchers also decreases available public resources for public schools, which matters because money matters for student outcomes.
Too many Virginia schools don’t have the state funding that they need to help students overcome the barriers they face and reach their full potential. We can and must change this. We will work with lawmakers over the coming months to help create and maintain a state budget that supports great public schools for every student, no matter who they are, where they live, or where they were born.