by Brian Moran

In 1971, in response to segregation and unequal schooling across the Commonwealth, Virginia’s leaders joined together to create our educational financing system that ensures every child in Virginia has a chance to succeed. Just last year, Virginia was named the best state in the nation for a child’s lifetime success.

Now, however, that fundamental compact between the Commonwealth and our children is in danger.

Despite the basic commitment that educational funding will be based on the realistic costs of educating a child, some General Assembly members have proposed significant reductions in educational funding – far below the true cost.

When it comes to education, the Commonwealth can do nothing less than meet our challenges with steadfast commitment and real, honest solutions.

But, just like finding the hidden charges on your credit card bill, to find the hidden costs in the House Republican budget, you must read the fine print. Embedded in its budget proposal is a formula change that alters the fundamental state commitment to provide public education to our children. This fine print has major impacts: dramatic cuts to public education, an inability to pay competitive teacher salaries and forced increases in local property taxes.

Among other things, Republicans simply ignore the efforts of local governments to raise teachers’ salaries.

According to the state’s nonpartisan watchdog agency, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, the Republicans’ proposal would reduce state support for education by $78.8 million in this budget and take away at least another $250 million the following budget.

In one formula change, they would undo nearly all the investments we made in public education in 2004 under Governor Warner’s leadership. Those investments made us the best-managed state in the nation, the best state in which to do business and, most importantly, the best state for a child to achieve lifetime success.

Why would we turn back?

Last spring, I traveled on the Governor’s Trade Mission to India and saw firsthand the competition we face for good, high-paying jobs. Now is the time to recommit to public education. If we want to compete globally – and succeed – we need the best and the brightest from our schools, and our children.

The gap between the national average teacher salary and Virginia’s teacher salaries has doubled in the past decade. We have fallen $6,100 per teacher behind the rest of the country.

The Republicans’ reduction in funding for local public schools is only going to make it harder to recruit and retain top-quality teachers for our children.

To obfuscate the debate, some will call this merely a change in methodology. But in reality, it’s turning a blind eye to reality and the true costs facing our school system.

That’s not the Virginia way.

In the mid-1970s and again in the mid-’80s, Virginia’s attorneys general supported proper funding for public education.

They have said that the Assembly “must take into account the actual costs of education” and cannot rely on arbitrary estimates to develop our education funding policy. But arbitrary is exactly the methodology of the House Republican budget.

In the 21st century, we face tremendous challenges in our education system, from workforce training to university research, in order to succeed. We need to tackle those challenges in the best traditions of Govs. Mills Godwin and Warner. If we invest in those critical areas that drive our economy and determine our future, then we will be rewarded.

This is a tough budget environment with declining revenues. Yet education should be our number-one priority, and these tough times are not an excuse to shy away from that commitment.

Record investments in the early part of this decade helped pull us out of challenging economic times, and we can do it again.

Education is not just a promise we make to our children during a campaign, but a value we must fight for as public servants.