Northern Virginia residents, particularly in Fairfax County, place a high priority on education and are willing to support those priorities with their pocketbooks. You can see the evidence of this priority in the disproportionate representation of Fairfax County kids in the freshmen classes of the state’s more elite public universities.

Hampton Roads voters, on the other hand, place a higher priority on being cheap and keeping the already low taxes as low as possible, no matter what the mediocre outcome of our public education system.

By the way, Warren, local property tax money collected for local schools does not leave localities. That money is never in the State’s hands. Both Hampton Roads and NoVa, on the other hand, underwrite other parts of the state when it comes to state income taxes.

I agree on the importance: if this region is ever to become an economic powerhouse, our schools are going to need to turn out top-notch students.

Good education is still the best route to success and the best way up and out of poverty. To be sure, there are challenges. But the answer is not, as Brian suggests, to point fingers at fatherless homes–such a tired excuse– or simply abandon the system for one in another city. Neither does anything to fix the problem; that the children of affluent households are siphoned out to private schools only further weakens the social fabric of public education.

Success in education lies in allowing good teachers–not mediocre teachers or teachers who are just biding their time or teachers who have to put up with a lot of bureaucratic politics–the time and space they need to do their work well. I’m pretty sure that most teachers felt at least once in their career that they could make a difference. Let’s let them do it. I’ll bet every successful person you know can cite at least one good teacher, if not more, who made a meaningful difference in his or her life.

Many teachers and most teachers’ unions resist the idea of making teachers more accountable because they can’t agree on what constitutes a fair measure of comparison. But if educators wants to be taken more seriously and compensated in a way that reflects their contribution, they must figure this out, isolate the conditions that obstruct their progress and work to eliminate those obstructions. Noting else matters and nothing less should be accepted by citizens of Norfolk.

You and I have talked about what the problems are and how to solve them. Appointed school boards don’t do it.

I’m amazed people have all sorts of studies and statistics about economic levels, demography, and I’ve never seen anyone cite a statistic about fatherless homes. I’ll bet a shiny, new nickel it’s the greatest determinant of student behavior and performance on the aggregate.

You’re right, though. Norfolk hasn’t had education a priority. I think VB’s revenue formula and elected school board has it right. Takes the politics out of budgeting.

Which brings me back to the issue of parental involvement. Norfolk has already returned to neighborhood schools for elementary and middle schools. Certainly not all of the communities are unstable. So that’s no excuse.

I’m convinced that everyone is trying to give their kids an edge – nothing wrong with that – and feel that they cannot do that unless the kids are not in public schools. I think that’s the wrong approach.

(By the way – we didn’t have security in the schools when I was in high school. And while there were different classes for different groups of kids, they weren’t separated by the floors.)

No, you can’t kick the kids out. But perhaps there should be some mechanism to encourage parental involvement – and by that I mean the volunteer time at the school.

Her quick, vituperative response caught me completely by surprise, especially considering my classmate’s prior political work for Democratic and social justice campaigns.

My opinion of Maury, is that it is still the very best of Norfolk’s public schools. However, even thirty years ago, we had plain-clothes cops patrolling the halls and we still had a few minor race-riots. Most students would avoid going into the basement level of the school early in the morning or late in the day, since you were more likely to get robbed or stuck with a knife, during those times.

The way Maury used to deal with the differences in their students’ abilities and aspirations, was like a layer cake. If you were a “troubled youth” your classes were mostly on the first and basement levels. The kids who were trying to get an education or had plans for college, had classes on the top two floors of the building. All of the AP classes were on the top floor. As a consequence, if you were taking the AP classes, you would likely never have to deal with the violence prone characters who haunted the basement.

I can see why parents, who want the best for their children, would pull their kids out of the public schools. We have reached the point where there is so much stratification of our education system, that many areas look like a third world country; with the richer people sending their kids to private academies, while the only folks left for the public system are those who can’t afford any alternative.

I wonder how my high school experience at Maury would have been degraded if the top twenty percent of students had been siphoned off by private, charter, and alternative programs? When I was at Maury, the mayor’s kid was a classmate, as were the daughters of the school board superintendent, and many of the sons and daughters of Norfolk’s most wealthy families. I learned a great deal from those “country club” kids. Now, most of those kids among our current students are off at White-flight academies, special magnet programs, or are home schooled.

One solution that I have heard of, is to return to local control of schools, along with a return to neighborhood schools, where faculty staff and students mostly come from the same part of the community.

Related to this issue is the need to restore community stability, but to get that done, we need to establish more community homeowner’s associations, and/or repeal the Fair Housing Act so that property owners reacquire their right to sell homes to whomever they wish.

Stable communities will lead to better schools, not the other way around; and we will never get there by simply handing over more money to the education establishment.

Private schools can require parental involvement because they have an enforcement mechanism. They can kick the kids out. How can you do that in public schools?