Grim outlook for education

The Hanover County school superintendent painted a bleak picture for public education in Virginia recently. It’s a picture of days gone by — an era that many residents hoped Virginia would not have to revisit.

Superintendent Stewart W. Roberson told Media General News Service that public schools may not look the same next fall, two months after Virginia begins a new budget year with spending of some $3.5 billion less than in the current two-year budget.

Class sizes could grow as large as the standards of quality allow under state law. Teaching assistants and other support staff could disappear as the state reduces its share of the cost of educating Virginia’s children, the citizens of the future.

It could get worse. All the courses that localities have fought to add to the curriculum over the years could go by the wayside. That would include music, art and physical education classes that would shrink to a minimum.

“I believe it would reflect a level of quality that would shock virtually every community in Virginia,” Roberson said. 

The educator offered a similarly grim picture for the Senate Finance Committee earlier as lawmakers and local officials struggled with a projected $3.5 billion shortfall over the next two years.

Some ideas that Roberson and other local officials presented as ways to cope with the spending cuts included the waiver of federal and state mandates in the education arena and regional consolidation of state and local services.

Many officials said that with state aid facing deep cuts and local revenues lagging during the economic recovery, they won’t be able to afford services they’re required to provide.

Will that take Virginia back to the days when parents and teachers had to stage bake sales to keep the local school budget balanced? It sure sounds like it.

There is an alternative — and it’s one that outgoing Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has not ruled out.

He said he wouldn’t rule out proposing tax increases to help preserve core services such as public education and Virginia’s AAA bond rating.

But Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell said once again he would rule out raising taxes. And the tax-averse House of Delegates will support him on that.

So where does that leave localities that don’t want to return to an era of three or four decades ago? They will be able to find some spending cuts of their own, but that will amount to nibbling around the edges.

More likely, they will have to make up the budgetary difference by increasing taxes of their own, probably real estate taxes unless they can find a mix of other local taxes to increase in lieu of a real estate tax boost.

It’s either that or accept the inevitable cuts that will come from Richmond.

It’s not a pretty picture, as Superintendent Roberson said. A long, difficult budget season lies in the new year ahead for Virginia and its local school divisions.