Youngkin's education initiatives affect rhetoric, but not classroom operations

The Virginia Department of Education’s collection of resources on educational equity will come down on Friday at the behest of Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow.

The removal of these online resources has prompted a flurry of condemnations from education organizations throughout Virginia. But like many of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s moves to address issues in education, the removal of the site won't affect classroom operations in Henrico or, likely, many other state localities.

"EdEquityVA," a section on VDOE's "Virginia is for Learners" website, was set up as a microsite in early 2019 to promote the education policies developed by the department under former Gov. Ralph Northam and Secretary of Education Atif Qarni. It included resources like the department’s “roadmap to equity,” a 52-page guide that aimed to help advance education equity, eliminate achievement gaps, and decrease disproportionality in student outcomes.

Balow’s interim report released last month included EdEquityVA in its list of “divisive concepts.” The site’s hosting and maintenance contract expires Thursday and isn’t being renewed. The site will come down on Friday, according to a VDOE spokesman.

At a news conference Tuesday morning outside the state capitol, Virginia Education Association President James J. Fedderman criticized the administration's decisions.

“The recent actions by State Superintendent Jillian Balow to set us on a path to remove all access to materials designated to assist local school divisions and educators with teaching in a culturally competent manner have alarmed many in the education community,” he said.

“By removing the equity programming math initiatives, they're sending a message to localities about what Virginia stands for,” said Amy Walters of the Legal Aid Justice Center on Tuesday morning.

But despite the chorus of denunciation from the VEA and several other organizations, the move will have virtually no effect on classroom operations.

The Henrico County Public Schools division has used some of the VDOE resources to develop its own tools to support equity, diversity and opportunity, according to HCPS spokeswoman Eileen Cox, but their removal won’t affect the school division.

“When you're developing any sort of program, or curriculum or initiative, you do research and that certainly was one of the resources that we reviewed and referenced, but it was not the only one,” Cox said. “We’re not impacted by this.”

The resources available on the VDOE site weren’t mandated and did not include directives for classroom teachers or recommended student reading. The site essentially has been dormant since spring 2021.

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Youngkin’s campaign promise to “ban CRT” was addressed on his inauguration day when he signed his first executive order to “end the use of inherently divisive concepts, including critical race theory."

The order charged Balow to “begin the work of identifying and addressing inherently divisive concepts – including ‘critical race theory and its progeny’ – in public education.” The resulting report included the directives to wipe virtually all equity related resources from the VDOE site.

“Quite frankly, deleting a couple of web pages from the VDOE website and then claiming that there’s CRT everywhere is kind of silly,” said Del. Schyuler VanValkenburg (D-Henrico), who sits on the House education committee and also works as a teacher at Glen Allen High School. “Having said that, I think the bigger issue, of course, is just the rhetoric.”

Balow’s report makes several claims that reflect a stark reversal in the objectives and attitudes from the previous administration. It suggests that systematic racism might not be a factor in academic achievement gaps, and it pushes back on the idea that white people benefit from racism regardless of their intentions.

“Numerous resources within EdEquityVA advance ‘equity,’ which is redefined to mean that there can be no differences or disproportionalities between students—and any difference in what students have or what they achieve is due to systemic racism,” the report says.

The memo released last month was an interim report; the 90-day report is due in mid-April.

Fedderman announced Tuesday that the VEA website will serve as a clearinghouse for the VDOE equity resources that will soon disappear from the state site.

In an email to the Citizen, Youngkin spokesperson Macaulay Porter said that the "politically driven VEA teacher union has failed teachers, parents, and students since 1863."

"Their initiatives of the past didn’t do enough to raise academic achievement, their enormous political donations to the Democrats didn’t do enough to improve academic excellence, and now their baseless opinions will have no impact on the future academic success of Virginia’s next generation," she continued.

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HCPS officials have addressed worries about Youngkin’s executive order, and reassured constituents that the division’s office of equity, diversity and opportunity is here to stay. Superintendent Amy Cashwell said she doesn’t anticipate having to make changes to the school division’s equity initiatives as a result of the new state administration.

“The executive order itself is a political document that really doesn't change very much and is just being used to, I think, claim victory for his base,” Vanvalkenburg said. “The most troubling part is the kind of constant political pressure that I think is leading to teachers leaving the field and leading to a less quality education for students, and then the potential for laws down the line.”

Virginia’s Republican-controlled House of Delegates did pass a bill in February that sought to end lessons on “divisive concepts,” but it ultimately died in the Senate.

The tenet of Youngkin’s education agenda shrouded in the most uncertainty is the “tip line,” which has been dubbed the “snitch line.”

Not popular on either end of the political spectrum, the tip line is an email address set up by the governor's office intended for parents to report teachers or schools for teaching “divisive” subjects, like critical race theory. The governor’s office has rejected Freedom of Information Act requests from several media outlets for emails sent to the line, citing Virginia’s working papers exemption. The administration has not explained what it plans to do with the emails sent to the tip line.

At the news conference  Tuesday morning, Fedderman said that the effects of Youngkin’s executive order materialize in classrooms as educators afraid to teach the truth as a result of the directive.

“Many educators are on edge that no matter what they teach, it's going to be reported to the snitch line,” Fedderman said.

While the administration’s initiatives might not impact policy or classroom operations, the effects of the culture war in education trickle down and affect teachers, VanValkenburg said.

“Between this kind of political pressure and the fact that there's a job market now where they can go make way more money with the level of education they have elsewhere, that to me is the really dangerous part of this,” he said. “As well as the fact that you're going to have teachers that are censoring themselves and that's going to lead to an inferior education, particularly in the humanities.”

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Anna Bryson is the Henrico Citizen’s education reporter and a Report for America corps member. Make a tax-deductible donation to support her work, and RFA will match it dollar for dollar. Sign up here for her free weekly education newsletter.