2009 General Assembly Session Underway
It’s finally here! The 2009 Virginia General Assembly session has officaly begun.
This year’s “short-session” will certainly be a fast-paced and action-packed 45 days. We’ll be doing our part to keep you up to date on all the latests happenings from Richmond.
For more on this year’s General Assembly, visit their website at: http://legis.virginia.gov. There is lots of information available, including information on how to find and contact your legislator (and encourage them to support school choice!).
In a new addition this year, you can watch online live broadcasts of the House floor sessions (which generally begin every day at noon).
Watch the House session online here.
The Senate floor sessions will also be shown online here.
We’ll be adding more updates from Richmond soon!
In the news: “Education Tax Credits Needed Now”
Looks like more voices are entering the discussion here in Virginia about the need for educational options for Virginia students- which is always a good thing. In this op-ed in the Harrisonburg Daily News Record, Adam Schaeffer (a senior fellow with the Education Reform Initiative at the Virginia Institute for Public Policy, and a policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom) writes about the need for education tax credits here in the Commonwealth.
While many of his points are dead-on, and we appreciate his support for efforts to give families greater access to options when it comes to educating their children, we do take issue with his accusations that, “Virginia’s politicians still haven’t learned a thing about education reform.”
Mr. Schaeffer is right, in part, many of Virginia’s lawmakers are behind the curve when it comes to issues of real education reform, instead getting caught up in the VEA’s constant focus on dollars and cents (rather than children and results). Thankfully, not all lawmakers are unaware of the real need for reforms that will give families and students real opportunities for success.
Delegate Chris Saxman, founder and Chairman of School Choice Virginia, has been a leader on this issue in the Commonwealth for several years, gaining the support of the majority of members of the House of Delegates for the same type of education tax credit legislation proposed by Mr. Schaeffer (see HB1164 from 2008). This legislation has been successful in the House for the last few legislative sessions- only to be stopped in the state Senate (specifically the Senate Finance Committee).
School Choice Virginia is committed to continuing to work to see the passage of real educational reforms for Virginia’s families, and we look forward to more people and organizations joining with us in this effort.
