By Elaine Donnelly
Extending sexual misconduct to combat units
Two major components of Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell’s education reform agenda won a Senate committee’s endorsement Thursday on the narrowest of party-line votes.
The Virginia House of Delegates passed a major component of Gov. Bob McDonnell's education reform package Thursday, hours after a Senate committee endorsed the measure.
Gov. Bob McDonnell offered cautious revisions Monday to Virginia's two-year budget, targeting modest spending increases for indigent health care, conditional raises for teachers and a hefty $128 million deposit into the state's rainy day reserves.
Virginia teachers are joining a chorus of national educators who are imploring Congress to address the looming "fiscal cliff" and are warning that state school systems stand to lose big if nothing is done.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has found himself on the opposite side of advocacy groups spanning the political spectrum after vetoing a bill that would allow abused or neglected children living with a relative to enroll in the school district where the relative lives.
House Republicans on Monday morning pre-emptively protested the Virginia Education Association and the Virginia PTA, touting their own education proposals that have been roundly denounced by the teachers' groups, which later gathered for their traditional "lobby day" at the Capitol.
The Virginia Education Association on Thursday urged the General Assembly to properly fund the state's $50 billion pension system as Virginia, like most other states, grapples with how to dole out benefits to an ever-increasing number of workers hitting retirement age.
Exclusive: Gonzales poll today on O'Malley, Cardin reelection; No. Va. state Sen. candidates debate taxes, abortion; One missing in Bay plane crash; Teachers union press McDonnell for salary increases; District homicides below 2010 rate; Winds delay Washington Monument inspection; Sun: One proposed redistricting plan would help GOP Rep. Andy Harris.
The president of the Virginia Education Association is pressing Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell to make K-12 education a funding priority and to increase teacher salaries as part of the states next biennial budget.
Virginia elementary and middle schools will not be required to provide 150 minutes of physical education every week, after the state Senate failed by eight votes on Wednesday to override a veto by Gov. Robert F. McDonnell.
Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell with a stroke of a pen could compel school districts to require that elementary and middle school students receive at least 150 minutes of physical education a week. But the bill is getting increasing pushback, with opponents saying it constitutes an unfunded mandate by the state at a time when school districts are strapped for money.
Parents need to ask their children's teachers if and why they would belong to the National Education Association, the huge teachers union that is pushing the sexualizing of our children ("NEA at work," Culture, Monday).
