Local Leaders in Education Dialogue About Equity

Conversations in the Community will host its monthly virtual discussion, “Educational Equity: What Is It and Why Is It Important? with panelists, Dr. Lucretia Brown, Prince William County’s Chief EquityOfficer, Amy Darden M.Ed, Reading Intervention Specialist for Prince William County and Margie Sieg, M. Ed, ESOL teacher at Yorkshire Elementary School (Prince William County). “Identifying […]

U.S. education secretary urges boost in teacher pay, touts college debt relief

Amid K-12 teacher shortages, book bans and attacks over critical race theory, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona at a meeting with reporters on Wednesday stressed the need for higher salaries to attract prospective educators to the profession. Cardona also touted the Biden administration’s recent student debt relief announcement in late August. The White House said President Joe Biden will cancel […]

What Can Be Done?

Kaywood Drive. Kagera Drive. Fox Glove Court. Wigan Drive. These are more than just different locations where people live on the eastern end of Prince William County; they are also the areas where the most recent shootings have taken place, some of them with tragic results. Back in July, we discussed if there was anything […]

Youngkin outlines steps to address teacher shortage in executive directive

Teacher advocates raise concerns over teacher pay, highly politicized working environments Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed an executive directive on Thursday that aims to address teacher shortages in Virginia through strategies that include hiring retired educators and targeting recruitment and retention efforts toward communities most in need. His directive comes as the nation and Virginia face shortages of teachers due […]

New ‘State of Working Virginia’ Report Reveals How Far Virginia Has Come – and How Much Further It Has Yet to Go – for Working People in the Commonwealth

New report provides comprehensive research on wages and supports for working people; people of color continue to face additional barriers to economic stability Richmond, VA— Working people, advocates, and policy experts held a press conference today to roll out a new report by The Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis and Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy. […]

Four takeaways from Virginia’s post-pandemic standardized test results

Education officials in Virginia have made addressing the student achievement gap a top priority in Virginia after standardized test results showed statewide declines. Virginia’s pass rates, which are calculated from the Standards of Learning and Virginia Alternate Assessment Program tests, showed that all students performed better in 2021-22, when districts had returned to in-person learning, […]

Statewide K-12 Funding Trends At-a-Glance

Trends and statistics statewide and for all 132 school divisions RICHMOND, VA – Virginia’s school funding policies fail to meet the needs of students, placing heavy burdens on local governments to try to make up the difference, which all but guarantees inequitable outcomes depending on where a student lives. That is the unavoidable conclusion of TCI’s new […]