There is a Council election in May but there are 3 people running for 3 jobs so it isn’t drawing much in the way of excitement. There is a contested School Board race with 6 contenders for 3 slots so you see lots of signs and door knocking going on in that race. There was also a forum last night for the school board contenders but I couldn’t make it due to a Council meeting on the budget being held at the same time.
A race that is over the horizon that *is* drawing a lot of buzz amongst local politicos is the next round of State level races. There is much speculation that Senator Colgan is going to retire (and the race for his seat has already begun in some circles) at the end of this term. The reason that this is generating interest is the potential pin action here. If Delagate Miller were to run for Senator Colgan’s seat, his seat would become vacant – they’re up at the same time so he can’t run for both. This leaves a Delegate seat available and if a Manassas City Council member whose name is not Andy Harrover or the Mayor wanted to run for the delegate seat, you could have an open Council or Mayor slot. I’m a City politician but the majority of the good Senator’s district lies outside of Manassas so you could also have a County Supervisor interested in that seat which could generate some pin action there.
Stuff like that is what local politicos live for!!
Further complicating this is redistricting. Redistricting attempts to even out the number of people in each district but is also routinely used to redraw districts into “safe” territory to protect an incumbent in which event it is also called “gerrymandering”. This goes on all over the country and is an abuse but I don’t see any way to really get around it short of having the courts involved in every redistricting plan. Nevertheless, if redistricting goes as it should, the districts will be redrawn early next year, primaries held and then a fall election.
However, if that doesn’t go smoothly and the politicos in Richmond can’t agree (which seems like a lock) then it gets way more complicatd. Fortunately, I found an article in the Washingtonian that does a really good job of laying out what’s happened in the past and why it might happen again.
April 20, 2010 at 8:14 am
Fitzsimmons annouced at the PW Tea Party last week that if Colgan retires, he plans to run for the seat. I think Miller would make a much better candidate, given his experence as a Delagate, and because he has not lost a political race.
I would not support anyone currently running for school board, and it’s a shame we need 89 MILLION dollars to “educate” less than seven thousand students. That comes out to about 12 million per student. We used to make fun of Washington DC for having such ratios.
April 20, 2010 at 8:32 am
Thanks for the update about Fitzsimmons.
I see your point but I think your math is off. I get ~$13k/student…
April 20, 2010 at 10:50 am
Which is less per student than several other jurisdictions, especially admirable when one considers that other larger jurisdictions benefit from economies of scale that should further push down their per student cost.
April 20, 2010 at 11:10 am
Andy,
How did you get to that figure?
Rich,
So, you are fine with the wasting of tax dollars? Do you have kids? What if one of them came up to you and said, I’ve heard kids in other jurisdictions have to do less work around the house, so I want to be able to do the same level of work as they do. What would your response be?
I’m not worried about other districts. I’m worried about ours, since I pay taxes here and live here. I worry because we have 1/3 of the student population that accounts for a large part of the budget. We do not get back anywhere near the results we should with the money spent on those students.
April 20, 2010 at 2:50 pm
I divided $89 million by 7000 – the numbers you quoted for budget and enrollment….unless I misunderstood what you’re getting at.
April 20, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Citizen,
I simply made the point that we pay less. Why did you ask if I’m fine with wasting tax dollars?
In any event, what is the basis for your conclusion that “we do not get back anywhere near the results we should with the money we spend? I’m not disputing your statement, I just want to know how you arrrived at it.
Rich
April 20, 2010 at 9:53 pm
Rich,
We are wasting tax dollars on educating ESL students. It costs more to educate an ESL student than it does a non ESL student. The Supreme Court ruled last year or in 2008(I can’t recall the year)in a case that involved a School District in Arizona that was sued because some parents felt the district did not spend enough on ESL students. The Court ruled in favor of the District.
Another case from Texas involves the same issue. A Federal Court just overturned a lower court decision that said the school district should spend more money on ESL students.
So, as you can see the old argument made by those that have no back bone to stand up to illegals or the Feds do not hold water.
But, as I said in another post, I doubt anyone on the current school board or running for it is aware of these two cases. And, if they are, and do not call for adjustments to how much money we spend on ESL should not be on the board. The costs should be the same for each student. In fact, we should do away with ESL classes altogether and place them in regular classes as once was the case.
Have you seen the graduation rate of ESL students at OHS? It’s ugly, that why I said we are not getting the results we should with all of the money we are spending on them.
Lower school costs, mean lower taxes, since the school budget is over 50%(or thereabouts) of the overall City budget.
April 22, 2010 at 6:25 am
Andy,
You are right, it’s about 13,000(I had millions on the mind), per student, which is still what we used to make fun of DC for.
April 22, 2010 at 9:30 am
I agree that ESL is an unmitigated waste of funding. I grew up in a city where Itallian, Canadian French, Puerto-Rican Spanish, Vietnamese, and( later ) Hatian Creole was the language spoken at home for many of my classmates. There was no ESL. The students were mainstreamed, and most kept up just fine. I think we make too many accomodations for a portion of the student population, to the detriment of the majority of the students. I also believe ESL perpetuates a lack of assimilation by removing the incentives for students to assimilate as quickly as possible. What my school system did was pair bi-lingual students with others who needed tutuoring in a specific subject. I tutuored a kid from Columbia in Math and US History. He passed both subjects. I got a Foreign Language credit for it, and my grade was partl
April 22, 2010 at 9:30 am
partly based on how well the student I was tutoring did.
December 5, 2011 at 2:22 pm
There are some attention-grabbing points in time on this article however I don’t know if I see all of them center to heart. There is some validity however I’ll take maintain opinion until I look into it further. Good article , thanks and we would like more! Added to FeedBurner as effectively