Dear Friend,
The Teacher Shortage. It’s a national crisis. And a Virginia crisis.
With the profession under attack – remember, the Governor set up a “tip line” as soon as he was elected in order to spy on educators – we have a lot of work to do to attract more people into the classroom.
To help address the teacher shortage, I introduced two bills this past Session: 1) to require the State Board of Education to develop a comprehensive and easy-to-navigate website for the teacher licensure and credentialing; and 2) to provide support for military veterans to obtain credentials in teaching and transition into our classrooms. Both of the bills had solid bipartisan support. In fact, both passed out of the Senate on unanimous vote.
But House Republicans voted down these two measures that would have helped the Commonwealth begin to address our teacher shortages.
Why? Because the Governor’s administration asked them to kill the bills for political purposes. Further, his representatives appeared in House committee meetings as I presented my bills and spoke against them. And House Republicans followed his orders.
They forgot that they are a separate and co-equal branch of government. They forgot that their responsibility is to their constituents – and not to a Governor trying to score points for the national stage.
We have serious work to do if we are going to protect public education in Virginia. We have a Governor who is determined to destabilize it and send billions of public education dollars into the hands of private corporations. Because of a slim, Democratic majority in the Senate, we were able to stop dangerous privatization bills this Session, but there’s no guarantee that we will be able to do so next year.
All 140 seats of the General Assembly are up for election this November, and we cannot take any one of them for granted. I ask for your support so that I can return to the Senate in 2024 to continue to support our children, schools, and teachers.
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