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By Marc Lebendig, February 24, 2010 6:57 am

As we mentioned yesterday, Virginia’s Secretary of Education, Gerard Robinson, has told Virginia educators that the cuts to the education budget are necessary, and not that bad, since education has received so much money lately.

VEA President Dr. Kitty Boitnott has responded, pointing out the misrepresentations of facts and lack of logic in Secretary Robinson’s letter:

VEA Response to Robinson

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By Marc Lebendig, February 23, 2010 7:35 am

Virginia’s new Secretary of Education, Gerard Robinson, sent the following letter to several educators throughout the state, in which he defends the cuts to public education.

Letter from Secretary Robinson –

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By Marc Lebendig, February 22, 2010 5:11 pm

From VEA’s most recent annual study of teacher pay:

Benchmark salaries in the Commonwealth–the average figure school divisions pay to teachers at entry level and after 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 years in the profession–declined across the board this year.

In another sign that educators are sharing the burden of the economic recession, these benchmarks declined for the first time since VEA began tracking the average change in 1993. The decline ranged from .1 percent to 1.4 percent, depending on the particular benchmark. One way to understand the decline: a teacher with five years of experience in 2009-2010 is being paid about the same, or less, than a teacher with four years of experience earned in 2008-2009.

The publication of the report comes as lawmakers in the General Assembly are considering massive cuts in education funding to localities, virtually guaranteeing another year of frozen or decreased salaries. Virginia has fallen below the national average in teacher pay, as small increases in pay during brighter economic times were not enough to help the Commonwealth move up in the rankings.

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By Marc Lebendig, February 21, 2010 4:06 pm

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By Marc Lebendig, February 20, 2010 7:48 pm

VEA President Dr. Kitty Boitnott addresses the 16% reduction in force the most recent cuts will bring to K-12 education in Virginia:

Today, cuts advanced by Governor McDonnell include nearly $731 million from public schools and would reduce state funding for an additional 10,247 positions, bringing the total to nearly 28,429 potential school job losses.

[$731 million - 15% non personnel costs ($110 million) = $621 million, $621/2 to annualize = $311 million X 33 teachers per million = 10,247 more jobs lost]

This figure does not include the cuts in the FY10 budget which eliminated state funding for 8,758 positions.

There are 58,740 support and 128,277 instructional positions in our schools according to the 2007-2008 Annual Superintendent’s Report.  This totals 177,017 positions in our public schools.  A decrease of 28,429 positions is a 16.1% reduction in force.  This reduction will have a devastating impact on our schools that will cause class sizes to rise dramatically and programs to be eliminated.

More than 28,000 jobs lost will have a ripple effect on our local economy and compromise the ability of our schools to produce the skilled work force needed for future economic development.

As part of his campaign, Governor McDonnell pledged his top priority would be “bringing jobs and opportunity to every region of Virginia.”

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By Marc Lebendig, February 19, 2010 7:44 pm

Save Virginia Students from More Than $1 Billion in Funding Cuts from VEA Communications on Vimeo.

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By Marc Lebendig, February 18, 2010 6:14 am

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By Marc Lebendig, February 17, 2010 7:43 pm

When your education association representatives visited with Senator Houck during VEA’s lobby day, he didn’t have much optimism about what would be happening with the Commonwealth’s budget.  Faced with the likelihood that the car tax increase would be dropped from the budget, doubling the 2 billion dollar shortfall, he could only offer up the hope that the Senate may be able to keep the increase limited to $3 billion.  He felt that would actually be a big success given the circumstances.

The current projected cuts to public education for the biennium budget total $1.8 billion dollars, making K-12 education by far the largest target of budget cuts.

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By Marc Lebendig, February 16, 2010 6:42 pm

From his response to an Orange County Education Association member’s letter, Del. Scott says

I am watching both legislation and the budget for unfunded mandates and am supporting efforts to provide as much flexibility as possible for local education funding decisions.  I welcome your suggestions for where we can effectively reduce spending and focus resources on the core functions of state government.