As the 2024 General Assembly draws to a close, the battle over the budget continues to intensify. Much of the budget debate revolves around the underfunding of Virginia's public schools, which could impact public schools across the state. However, if you ask the governor or the recently appointed school commissioner, they will tell you that Virginia's public schools are “well-funded.” What is the truth and what are the attempts to gaslight Virginians?
Final week of the 2024 General Meeting
There was a flurry of activity in the state Legislature last week as the House and State Senate worked to finalize legislation during the last official week of the 2024 session. The successful Priority K-12 Education Act can be viewed at this link. Twelve priority education bills passed the General Assembly.
But moving a bill through the General Assembly is just one step in the process. Each bill still must be considered by the governor, and even if the governor signs it into law, many bills will not be implemented unless they are funded through state spending through the budget. Please note that many of these bills are not currently in the Governor's budget.
This week, the House and Senate Joint Budget Committee produced another budget that is a compromise between the House and Senate budgets (HB30 and SB30) and includes amendments to the Governor's budget proposal.
The Budget Council included major investments needed to ensure that all students in Virginia's public schools receive a quality education. Public school advocates believe that these investments are necessary for a high-quality school system, and that by funding these investments, Virginia shows that we value our teachers, staff, students, and public schools. We know that it can help close the achievement gap between low-income and older people. An affluent community in Virginia.
To fund public education or not?
The question remains whether Virginia will fund public schools or continue to underfund them. The House, Senate, and Budget Conference all proposed in their budgets to allocate significantly more funding to Virginia's public schools than the Governor proposed.
This was because the House and Senate took to heart the recommendations of the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC) on how to resolve public school funding and teacher pipeline deficiencies.
Unfortunately, Governor Yonkin appears to have rejected the report of this bipartisan and highly respected commission, and these differences are setting the stage for a battle over the budget. Much will depend on whether the governor accepts the budget amendments proposed by the budget committee. It's worth noting that many groups in Virginia have already said that Youngkin's proposed budget is unacceptable.
All indications are that the governor will challenge much-needed K-12 education funding that has already been identified and passed legislation by the General Assembly. In a letter dated March 1, 2024, to budget meeting attendees, Governor Youngkin challenged JLARC's recommendation to expand K-12 funding as unnecessary, but ultimately It turns out that his claims were based on flawed analysis and incorrect assumptions.
His dismissal of JLARC's recommendations and claims that its analysis was flawed led to an immediate rebuttal by JLARC and criticism by the Virginia Education Association and other financial experts. Apparently, Youngkin's analysis contained “inaccuracies and mischaracterizations” that led to his flawed claims. This is not surprising, as Virginians are well aware that the governor's Department of Education is bad with numbers. Remember when he lost over $200 million in public school funding?
Sadly, this appears to be yet another attempt by the Governor to gass Virginians with misinformation.
From the letter dated March 1, 2024, it is clear that Governor Yonkin does not understand how to properly analyze the data he used to make his claims. For example, he claimed that increased state funding in 2020 more than made up for a 14% funding shortfall by the state, which is incorrect for a number of reasons.
Compared to the average U.S. public school budget, schools were underfunded by 14% in aggregate (federal, state, and local) funding, not state funding. The Governor should have used 56% instead of 14% as the amount of money Virginia is missing in its school system compared to the national average*. In Virginia, local governments are not very well off, using property taxes and other local taxes to try to make up for the state's funding shortfalls. Communities struggle to do this and are severely underfunded as a result.
If the Governor compares Virginia to average state funding levels using the correct state funding and inflation data, Virginia will have lower school funding (federal and local contributions) than the national average in 2023. (including) will be short 17-22%. This is in contrast to the governor's policy. Virginia claims it made up the shortfall “with plenty of time.” *
Another false claim by Governor Youngkin is that the average teacher salary in Virginia is higher than the national average. He reached this incorrect conclusion because he used a mixed data source with known differences. If he uses the correct data and bases his calculations on Department of Education estimates and budgeted teacher salary increases, the average teacher salary for Virginia educators in 2024 would still be several thousand dollars below the national average teacher salary. I am.
This contrasts with the governor's claim that Virginia has closed the gap in teacher pay compared to the national average, which also means there is no need for additional K-12 funding. This is an attempt to persuade legislators and the state of Virginia.
The governor asserted that “there is no greater common priority in the commonwealth than fulfilling our constitutional and moral obligation to provide a quality education to our students,” but the esteemed It used a flawed analysis to reject the committee's recommendations. Review and audit public school funding and teacher pipelines.
The watchdog group is watching the governor, and Virginians should be watching too.
*These statements are based on unpublished analysis provided by Laura Goren of the Commonwealth Institute.
