"Alliance for Virginia's Students" Unites Broad Membership in Effort to Improve Public Education

On August 6, 2003, Virginia education advocates and business leaders announced the formation of the non-partisan "Alliance for Virginia's Students, " a "broad coalition" of organizations working for increased and adequate funding for public education from pre-K through college. Founding members of the Alliance include business leaders, the Virginia Education Coalition, local cities and counties, and higher education representatives.

The Alliance plans to build a statewide grassroots network, and its first task will be to ask all candidates for the Virginia legislature, which has all seats up for election in November 2003, to sign a pledge of "Commitment to Virginia's Students." The pledge asks candidates to support full funding for the actual costs of the state's K-12 Standards of Quality and the legislative guidelines for Virginia's public schools and universities. "If Virginia doesn't make these investments," said Charles Steger, President of Virginia Tech and an alliance member, "ten or twenty years from now the quality of life that we enjoy is not going to be here."

The Alliance recognizes an "impending crisis" facing Virginia's education system, such as high numbers of students not fulfilling state graduation standards, increasing class size, outdated facilities, and a lack of professional development and incentives to attract quality teachers. A recent editorial in the Roanoke Times opined that Virginia's upcoming biennial budget will fall over $800 million short of the state's intended funding commitment for education.

Prepared August 27, 2003