Margi on Education

Fairfax County schools are among the best in the country. We take pride in our curricula, test scores and graduation and higher education rates. Perhaps even more telling, many of our parents and community leaders are deeply involved in and committed to our schools.

I believe we must remain committed to educating the next generation of students as world citizens – people who can compete in a global work force with all the intellectual, creative, and organizational skills that such an economy requires. Our students must be first class critical thinkers, not just great test-takers. We need to continue recruit and retain teachers who are dedicated to their profession and to our children.

Measuring academic progress is important and accountability is a good thing. But when test-taking becomes the reason for learning instead of the reverse, it stifles the intellectual and creative development it is supposed to foster. Even more disconcerting, the federal requirements of No Child Left Behind and the state Standards of Learning work at cross purposes. Our collective student diversity can and should be a great asset for us, but it can hamper our teachers’ abilities to meet school wide and individual testing benchmarks and create stress and anxiety for teachers and students alike instead of the excitement and love of learning that should be taking place in the classroom.

Here is what I propose:

• Revise the SOL’s to reflect our need for thinkers and test with the idea of stimulating and promoting intellectual development as opposed to rote memorization.
• Provide opportunities for small – group learning, especially in the early grades. School reorganization and planning tools are already available and in use in some schools, and we need to use them effectively.
• Include deliberate opportunities to teach personal responsibility about developing character and accountability, sound personal health and nutrition habits, tolerance for diversity, patriotism and civic engagement, and stewardship for our natural environment.
• Recruit and train the best emerging teachers in the country and pay them the competitive salaries to retain them here as dedicated professionals.

We can continue to be at the forefront of educational excellence, but we cannot ignore the changing world and the requirements to educate for that reality. Learning in the classroom can and should be as strenuous as the sports activities taking place on the fields outside the school building. And just like those athletic activities, the academic rigor should be accompanied by joy of achievement and a clear sense of purpose. As a Delegate, my proposals and this philosophy will guide my approach to K-12 education programs and funding.