My Testimony Regarding the Governor's Proposed Budget for Education in Virginia

I definitely owe the education blogosphere a post about my post-doc job market experience (hint: it was not good). For now, I will share that I am back in the classroom teaching high school U.S. & Virginia Government to seniors (and getting my butt whooped but in a humbling and valuable way, though), and have been since the start of the 2019-2020 School Year. I  need to write a post about that, too. Good things come to those who wait, right? In the meantime, I have been involved with VEU (Virginia Educators United) because, oh, wait, I am a teacher again, and I heeded their leaders' call to attend the General Assembly's House Appropriations and Senate Finance Committees' public hearings to hear feedback on the Governor's budget priorities. The issues with the education funding in the budget are laid out very clearly here in VEU's talking points.

Here's a video of my testimony:

And here's the text from my spoken remarks:

"Good afternoon. My name is Rachel Levy and I am a Virginia public school parent, teacher, writer and activist with a Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy. I live in Ashland, Virginia, I am a member of VEA, Virginia Educators United, the Virginia PTA, and the American Educational Research Association.

The Governor’s budget proposal for education is a step in the right direction, but unfortunately, it’s not sufficient.

I have been a teacher on and off for most of my career. Teaching is the most meaningful, challenging, intellectual, and socially useful work there is. As a teacher and a parent, I have seen the quality of our facilities, the availability of our resources, and teacher retention rates drop significantly since I first stepped into a Virginia public school classroom in 2001 and since my own children first enrolled in them in 2009. Our schools are being held together by a thread--of educators and staff who do so out of a sense of obligation, duty, and service. We have less time, more responsibilities, and fewer resources to do the same job we used to, and there are, understandably, fewer people willing to work unpaid overtime and for diminished salaries and benefits, just to fulfill minimum requirements, because it’s not sustainable or manageable, nor is it fair.

As a state, we will never attract the best and brightest with these working and learning conditions, and with the current salaries and resources It is easy to work a ten-, twelve-, or fifteen-hour day as a teacher—I do this regularly—and still feel that it’s not enough, and to go home feeling like there was so much more you could have done. The best teachers know when their students are being short-changed, and they will leave (and have left and are leaving) rather than continue to experience that feeling of inadequacy day after day.

Adding more to the budget—at least 2 billion more is needed—for education is vital to our economy, to the intellectual, social/emotional development of our children, and to our democracy. Our public schools are our greatest public democratic institution and they are holding on by a thread. As the saying goes: if you think education is expensive, try ignorance.

Thank you for your time and for your service to our Commonwealth."

On becoming Dr. Levy

So. . .

At the end of the Summer 2018 semester, I became a doctor.

Much gratitude to Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Education and the Department of Educational Leadership, especially to my adviser, Charol Shakeshaft, on the left, and to my committee members Katherine Mansfield (on the screen), Genevieve-Siegel-Hawley, and Tressie McMillan Cottom (not pictured).

I may have the longest dissertation title ever: The Intersection of Economic Disadvantage and Race and the Expanded Role of Parent-Led School-Supporting Nonprofit Organizations in K-12 Public Schools in the Richmond, Virginia, Metropolitan Area: A Mixed Methods Approach.

Since then, I have served on the faculty as an adjunct professor, teaching a doctoral-level course, The Politics of Education (I will likely post separately about that) and have been on the job market (I will also probably post about that). 

Oh, and I participated in VCU's December graduation ceremony, and got to wear a silly hat for most of the day.

 (Me and some of my former classmates and fellow grads.)

 (Getting hooded by my adviser.)

(Me with my adviser Charol Shakeshaft and one of my other very influential professors, Genevieve Siegel-Hawley.) 

(Me with Jon Becker, a member of my department and the person who got me into this mess.)

Speaking of getting me into this mess, it was via twitter and this blog and his that Jon and I got to know one another.  He encouraged me to apply to the doctoral program in educational leadership and policy at VCU. I did. Once I started the Ph.D. program, I decided to focus my time and energy, and writing efforts, there instead of on the blog and other education writing. I have updated it from time to time, mostly with academic publications but with some other thoughts and efforts, too.

Once I see what happens with the job search, I will decide what to do with the blog, if anything different. For now, I am enjoying being done and am working on trying to achieve my first post-graduation publication.

NAACP calls for a moratorium on charter schools but the devil is in the (state) details

Julian Vasquez was one of the first, if not the first, to report that the NAACP called for a moratorium on charter schools. Please read his post as well as the copy of the resolution itself that he posted.

Here are my thoughts:

This is a big deal. In many cases, or at least some, civil rights groups and those representing black and Latino communities were not initially, necessarily against charters. Even if they had reservations, many saw them as an alternative to the traditional public schools TPSs) where many black and Latino have been not been served well by traditional public schools. It is easy for those of us who have been well served by traditional public schools to oppose charter schools, but it's not been a no-brainer for those who haven't been and who can blame them. That the national NAACP has essentially put their foot down on this means something.

However . . .

1. (And their resolution acknowledges this if you examine the language) charter laws are made state-by-state.  Certainly, federal policy, such as RTTT (Race to the Top) can influence the proliferation of charter schools with funding incentives (or lack thereof) and other types of support. But it's at the state level where charters are born and made and it's state laws that determine their regulation, their proliferation, and their governance structures. Every state is different. So while this will have influence at the national level, we'll have to see what individual NAACP chapters do, what each individual's state charter laws and climate is, and what state legislatures do.

2. I could be wrong but the language seems to indicate a moratorium on "privately managed charters" and perhaps even just "for-profit" charter schools. With some exceptions (and remember, this changes depending on the state), all charter schools are privately managed, meaning their governing boards or entities are privately chosen or appointed. There is no public process. (In Virginia, charter schools are permitted but they must be approved by local school bards and then they are still subject to, although not as strictly as TPSs, their governance, they are still under democratic control--we have very sound charter school laws here.) So yes, saying no more "privately managed" charter schools is kind of like saying no more charter schools. But, the distinction between "for-profit" and "non-profit" charter schools is much blurrier. For one, they can still be financed the same. Second, non-profits can still have dealings that foster profiteering and that involve corrupting profit-motives. Third, the governance of non-profits charter schools can still be private and non-democratic, which is the real issue. The funding and profit-making generally come out of the governance. To learn more about this (or maybe see what I got wrong here :) I highly recommend you read Baker and Miron's (2015) report about this.

I have had another little charter school-themed post in the works for a while which I hope to have up sometime in the next week. Stay tuned . . .

Think Educationally, Act Locally

Since last fall, I have spent significantly less time writing and blogging. For one, I started a part-time teaching job. Also, as I wrote about here, in light of recent destructive parent trigger-type actions, I wanted to get more meaningfully and positively involved as a parent. Finally, as you may recall, I had decided to make a concerted effort to act less from behind a computer screen and more locally and face-to-face. So, mostly my writing has been in the form of PTA meeting minutes and e-mails, letters, and public statements to my local decision makers.

Besides the school-level work, during winter break I got (unfortunately) the perfect opportunity to be more active in local education matters. We're in year five of devastating budget cuts in my county. Some of this is due to budget constraints as a result of the economic downturn but it's also due to ideology which has taken a hold of our local governing body which says that 1) no matter how small or efficient already, government is too big and 2) all services belong on a magical free market. Paradoxically, many people who seem to support this ideology also want roads and services, like education, and a decent quality of life. It seems they just don't want to pay for it and they certainly don't want to pay for them for anyone else--see here for a good example of what I'm talking about.

Besides serving on the boards of two PTAs, I joined up with a group called Friends of Hanover Schools which is dedicated to advocating for enough funding (but coupled with smart budgeting) for our schools to be great and to electing pro-public education local and state decisions makers.

Volunteering and being an active part of our schools' PTA has given me humbling insights into how much work it is to run a school. On the one hand there are little tasks that can get big rewards and on the other hand there are big tasks that take lots of work which pay off only so much. It's also given me a new perspective into how schools and systems are run and what role parents can play (hint: It's VERY different from being a teacher). I've learned it's better to ask and listen to what is needed first and then see if it maybe ties into what I'd like to get done, rather than the inverse. Sometimes, for example, helping with something as mundane as making copies can make a big difference.

Being active in a local public education advocacy group has also been very educational. For one,  I have learned to put aside, without prejudice, goals that are important to me (elected school boards, rich and meaningful curriculum, and reducing the emphasis on high-stakes testing) in the interest of furthering the mission of our particular organization. I will still work on the other goals, but adequate funding was an issue around which this non-partisan group could rally.

If I compare my work on national education policy versus local/state education policy, it's been very different. It takes a lot more courage and also diplomacy to have conversations face-to-face and about every day, practical matters, than it does to have them on-line about theoretical matters. Things get far more complicated from the former perspective and much more rhetorical from the later.

That's not to say that being active at the national level was a waste of time. That was an education, too. For one, it prepared me to face people who disagree with me and who might say not-so-nice things. But I also learned the hard way the first time around that shaming helps no one, and that it's a mistake to assume that I'm a better person for valuing some things over others than someone who values others things over what I value. That doesn't mean I am not fairly confident that what I value will make our society a better place, but I realize that folks with another POV think that what they value will make society a better place, too. Lastly, at both levels, in the face of short-term defeat or disappointment, I have learned to not take disagreements personally, to plug along, and to keep my mind on the bigger picture.

So, what did I actually do as a citizen to take action? My first act was to write a letter to our Board of Supervisors (our local governing body). I sent a version of this letter to every member of the Board of Supervisors and of the School Board, I read a version of it out loud as a comment during citizens' time at the Board of Supervisors meeting, and I submitted it as a letter to the editor to our local newspapers. Second, I gave a presentation at an FOHS forum about how to be a more active citizen. Finally, despite our Board of Supervisors' failing to do anything to raise revenues and correct tax rates to 2007 levels, my fellow activists and I are not giving up. Their failure was a disappointment but was not surprising. And I am in this for the long haul.