Virginia governor Youngkin blasted the “maniacal focus” on education “equity” in school districts statewide, mostly notoriously in Fairfax and Loudoun Counties. The focus is harming all but minority students, he said.
“They have a maniacal focus on equal outcomes for all students at all costs. At the heart of the American dream is excelling, is advancing, is stretching and recognizing that we have students of different capabilities,” Youngkin told ABC 7 News reporter Nick Minock in an interview Monday.
“This overreaching effort . . . is hurting Virginia’s children, and it’s hurting, even worse, the children they aspire to help. Children in the black community, children in the Hispanic community, and children who are in the socioeconomic challenged community,” he said.
The governor supported allowing students to be challenged and to perform as best they can while teachers assist students who are at a different levels. “We can raise the ceiling and the floor in Virginia,” he said.
Youngkin addressed the latest scandal at Virginia’s historically prestigious Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, which delayed notifying students of their National Merit awards, preventing recipients from noting the awards on their early-admission college applications.
“They didn’t tell them. It impacts their ability to apply to college, for scholarships, and this idea of a golden ticket was withheld from them . . . for the purpose of not wanting to make people feel bad who didn’t achieve it,” he said of the National Merits awards.
Earlier this month, Youngkin directed state attorney general Jason Miyares to probe allegations of academic discrimination at the school, relating to what some think was a racial-equity push. Youngkin said he believes that the “failure” may have caused material harm to student awardees and their parents and may have violated the Virginia Human Rights Act.
Some state Democrats have accused Youngkin of launching a “fake investigation” over the National Merit situation, Minock reported.
“That’s the exact same thing they said last year when we called for an investigation in Loudoun County around the sexual assault of young women and what appeared to be the coverup of that,” the governor said.
In December, a grand jury report found that the Loudoun County administration “failed at every juncture” in its handling of the multiple sexual assaults perpetrated by the same male student, who identifies as “gender-fluid.”
Subsequently in a closed-door meeting, the Loudoun County school board fired Superintendent Scott Ziegler — after the Loudoun County sheriff accused him of placing the assailant into a second high school in the district, despite being “unmistakably aware” of the first offense the boy had committed at a different high school.