Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 26, 1993 TAG: 9303260552
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A FOREIGN EXCHANGE BETWEEN VIRGINIANS
TOP-RANKING legislative leaders have promised - promised - that the 1994 General Assembly will address funding disparities among Virginia's 136 local school districts. Fine (if they really mean it).The problem, a $500-million problem by one estimate, has festered too long. It has cheated many districts' schoolchildren out of the kind of quality education that their peers in other districts take for granted. One of the causes of the problem - the state's failure to fully fund its share of school costs - must be corrected by the General Assembly.
But, as we've observed before, the state isn't the only culprit.
Some jurisdictions that have "poor" schools have made little effort to improve education with local tax dollars - even though, by most measures, their citizens can afford to pay more. While they sit back and wait for a handout from the state, their kids must settle for considerably less than what other Virginia children get from public schools.
Settle for less in the way of library books, course offerings, computers, labs and teachers (who make less pay than their colleagues in other school districts).
Who can put the bur under the saddle and convince these jurisdictions that their schoolchildren deserve better?
Similarly, who can convince legislators from wealthier areas that many jurisdictions are genuinely too poor to support quality education and deserve more help from the state?
Well, maybe the schoolchildren themselves.
That, at least, is part of the premise behind an unusual "cultural exchange" project that Dels. Tom Jackson, D-Hillsville and Linda Puller, D-Fairfax, have set up.
Next month, 25 high-school students from Jackson's mostly rural district (including Bland and Wythe counties, the city of Galax and portions of Carroll and Grayson counties) will spend a week attending the well-financed schools in cosmopolitan Fairfax County. The following week, 25 high-school students from Fairfax will spend a week in the schools in Southwest Virginia.
This will be followed by two weeks of exchange visits by local government officials and business leaders from Jackson and Puller's districts.
On both sides, there may be culture shock.
Many of the kids (and adults) from Southwest Virginia have never seen anything like the traffic congestion around Fairfax's Tysons Corner, a mega-shopping center and office park - much less the kind of well-equipped, state-of-the-art schools that Fairfax is known for. Many Southwest Virginians think everyone in Fairfax is rolling in money. Not so, especially not with the influx of immigrants into the area in recent years.
Many of those coming from Northern Virginia may never have seen mountains, farms and sparsely populated expanses of natural beauty. They cannot imagine that many rural students must rise before dawn and ride a school bus for up to two hours just to get to school. Many probably think the state stops at Roanoke. And the only thing some in Northern Virginia have heard about disparity is that some Southwest Virginia jurisdictions took education money from the state last year and used it for other purposes.
As a result of the exchange visits - call them glorified field trips, if you like - Jackson and Puller hope each group will gain a better understanding of the problems facing the other's region. And a better appreciation of what they have or don't have in their own public schools.
In turn, the two lawmakers hope, this will translate up the line to parents, local governing officials and to the legislature. The upshot may be less provincialism and broader support for actions, local and state, that will be necessary to resolve the school-funding disparity issue.
A tall order for a modest, little voluntary effort, to be sure. But it's a good idea nonetheless, and it should remind Virginians just how divided their state is. After all, most exchange programs are between foreign countries.