The list is not a random 54 Delegates.  VEA might want to mention it, or make a partisan issue of it, but this is is just about a straight party-line vote; all Republicans.  No surprise, but still worth noting.  

Education continues to be solely a poltcial pander both at the National level and the State and Local to gte the support of the teacher unions.
In Chesterfield County, one of the best school systems in the country, saw its School Board budget cut some 6.7 million after a reduction in the real estate taxes for the second year in a row by the BOCS. Local governments as well have to step up and deliver on the future and cannot expect the State to deliver increased funds in the current environment. Given the fact that the State has been reducing transportation funding and potentially education as well, County government like Chesterfield have demonstrated a fiscal irresponsibility by the reduction of the tax rate now sitting at .97. Two years ago it was 1.04. I cannot help but imagine what all the lost revenue in the last two years could have supported locally.
Teacher unions bear some responsibility as well. They cannot simply just be out to represent the teachers but need to be more vocal on behalf of the children in the school system and the QUALITY of the education they are receiving.

The endless whines of the no-tax crowd always rise to a piercing shriek at budget time. Their rationale is always that the evil government is wasteful and that taxes are unnecessary. I have concluded that such whiners hate their own children and grandchildren (why else would they constantly seek to borrow funds for any public endeavor, leaving their grandkids to pay off the debt?); they also hate the future (why else would they be so anti-science and do everything they could to keep their children under-educated and thus unable to compete in an increasingly competitive world?); and, they also yearn for a mythological and magic past to return (why else would some seek to re-establish feudal relationships based on states' rights and local barons, while others seem determined to re-create the patriarchal past of a tribal religion honoring the thunder god of Mount Sinai?).  In other words, they sound to me as though they have a death wish... possibly because they feel so out of sorts with life today.

Local governments have long subscribed to the view that education should not or at the very least could not be run like any other business or department of local government. Hard decisions never seem to want to be made other than the amount that a school system is given in terms of the budget. No one seems to want to evaluate each school as if it is truly a business-like setting with a cost and a return on investment. If like Detroit's public school system and your delivering a 25% graduation rate I would say if it were a business it would be bankrupt. Why are not people demanding a better return on the taxes they pay into the system that are distributed to schools? Is it apathy? Or is it simply the reality we have today is based on one defined when we were in school? One where there was never the global competition there is today. One where our graduates find themselves not only competing for slots with Amercians but International students. One where the costs of tuition are usually financed three times longer than previous generations and at higher rates. Systems like Detroit are broken and it is a system rooted in for the most part a liberal view of education and not a competitive one. I was disappointed that the Democrats could not address the failings of Detroit' s school system in the Primary as niether had to campaign there (Michigan. It certainly would have come up had there been a debate there.
Is the current public school system preaparing our children for the current world dynamic? If it were a publically traded industry which school systems would rank at the top and why? How are they delivering a greater rate of return (graduation rates and test scores) over other systems? Why are we still set on rewarding failing systems and not loojking to alternative methods and supporting them (could it be the unions?) Why if schools are overcrowded, most here are, is not homeschooling fornmally endorsed and supporter through local governments as a way of decreasing class sizes for those parents wanting to and able to home school? Why do groups not support charter schools, especially in systems where the rartings are so poor? Why do the same folks not supported parental choice in schools if they are willing to transport them and not burden the County with having to send buses?
The fact is the public school system is broken and needs to be completely revamped for the future and set up for failure based on past methods of education.
Our children are demanding more and we should deliver it to them as one of our greatest priorities in local government. Unfortunately, the reality is as parents today remain content with seeing the school system as merely a quasi-babysitter during the day while both parents work and nothing more, local governments will only budget just enough and nothing more.
Like Joe Biden says..."Show me your budget, and I will tell you want you value".