McAuliffe Seeks to Improve Schools While Youngkin Courts Christofascists and White Supremacists

Anyone who truly cares about public education should pray that Glenn Youngkin never darkens the door of Virginia's Executive Mansion. While Democrat Terry McAuliffe has expansive plans to improve Virginia's public schools, Republican Glenn Youngkin is pushing a playbook that appears written by The Family Foundation, a hate group with segregationist antecedents that hides behind the cloak of religion, and outright white supremacists.  While the Chamber of Commerce ranks Virginia 18th in wealth, the Commonwealth ranks 31st in teacher pay and (more than $5,250 below the national average).  McAuliffe believes this makes Virginia non-competitive and also seeks to address aging infrastructure issues.  All Youngkin has to offer is whining about "critical race theory" - which is NOT part of Virginia's school curriculum - and promises to "protect the Pledge of Allegiance" - which is not threatened - and to attack transgender students and make them invisible.  As I said, it's as if The Family Foundation drafted Youngkin's education platform.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the starkly different agendas of the two candidates.

RICHMOND — Parents and teachers, already exercised about public schools amid raging K-12 culture wars and the aftermath of pandemic-era shutdowns, are proving attractive targets this year for Virginia gubernatorial candidates — in strikingly different ways.

Terry McAuliffe (D), a former governor attempting a comeback, launched his campaign in December in front of a Richmond elementary school then shuttered by the pandemic.

He released a detailed plan that day to invest a record $2 billion a year to raise teacher pay above the national average, get every student online, expand preschool to 3- and 4-year-olds in need and eliminate racial disparities in education. He has broadened his pitch since then, churning out position papers on 14 other issues, although his schools plan still gets top billing on his campaign website.

Glenn Youngkin (R), while far lighter on details, has leaned heavily into cultural issues consuming some school boards, ­especially in vote-rich Northern Virginia. He has promised to ban critical race theory, an intellectual movement that examines the way policies and laws perpetuate systemic racism; opposed certain transgender rights policies; and accused the state — falsely, education officials say — of planning to eliminate accelerated math, the Pledge of Allegiance and Independence Day from school curriculums.

Farnsworth says it makes sense that McAuliffe would offer practical, nuts-and-bolts plans for schools as just one part of an expansive set of policy goals, while Youngkin would zero in on a more limited set of highly animating issues.

“McAuliffe doesn’t need to hit the long ball to win. A series of issues that get him on base — improve teacher salaries, improve broadband access, additional resources . . . [for] schools recovering from covid education troubles — these are effective,” he said. “Republicans, given the bluish tint of the Virginia electorate, have to swing for the long ball.”

As a former governor, McAuliffe has a background on education that he can point to, such as a record $1 billion investment in K-12 schools, as well as plans for a second term. His schools policy — laid out in a six-page document studded with footnotes to meaty educational research — ranges from lofty promises to address “modern-day segregation in schools” to in-the-weeds plans to train and retain more teachers.

She said McAuliffe has the right idea, not only with his promised infrastructure investments, but also with his plans to provide broadband and create virtual internships for students in areas such as hers, where job prospects are limited.

“He’s going to be our champion,” she said. “He’s going to do as much as he possibly can for school infrastructure, small and rural schools, economically disadvantaged children.”

Critical race theory, or CRT, is a once-obscure academic theory that looks at racism not as individual acts, but as a systemic phenomenon baked into the structure of society.

“Defining it might be like nailing Jell-O to a wall, but this is a familiar type of argument,” said Kyle D. Kondik, who analyzes elections at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “It’s a different version of the same argument that cultural conservatives have made for years, that higher education . . . [is] too liberal, they’re indoctrinating students with left-wing ideas, they’re too critical of the history of the country.”

[Youngkin] has opposed transgender girls’ participation in girls’ sports and has championed the cause of a teacher who was recently suspended — and later reinstated by a judge — for saying he would not address transgender students by the pronouns they use.

Virginia does not need to turn into Mississippi or Alabama culturally if it hopes to remain a prosperous and leading state.  Youngkin would take Virginia backwards and pander to Christofascidsts and white supremacists who want both gays and blacks "put in their place" along with anyone else who opposes a Christian dominionist agenda.