While candidates for governor of Virginia discuss their vision for education, a Washington Post column points toward Maryland’s Blueprint plan, and its accountability provisions, as a model.
Virginia is among the few states (actually a commonwealth) with gubernatorial elections in 2021, and education is among the topics the nominees are tackling as part of that campaign. The Washington Post‘s columnist Richard McCartney, a veteran of the local politics scene, opines that the Virginia discussion could benefit by the example set in Maryland, with the recent passage of landmark legislation (the “Blueprint for Maryland” legislation, arising from the Kirwan Commission) to advance school funding and expectations for the next decade.
Both Virginia candidates would do well to borrow their plans from neighboring Maryland, which approved an ambitious education package in February. National experts hail it as a model not only for investing billions of dollars in education, but also for ensuring that the extra money actually leads to improved classroom performance.
The future of education promises to be a major topic in this year’s Virginia gubernatorial election and a harbinger of similar debates in the 2022 national midterms. About 20 states are considering big increases in their education budgets, partly to make up for lost time after more than a year of crisis during the coronavirus pandemic.