No matter how successful we are in other areas of government, without success in education all of our work is for naught. Maintaining a high-quality education system is the key to preserving our way of life. Unfortunately, unless we address some of the budget problems facing our schools, then this quality will inevitably suffer.

For the 2010 FY, Fairfax County Public Schools had to do the following:

• Trim its budget by $170 million, or 0.8%
• Freeze all teacher and employee salaries
• Decrease per-student funding by $442
• Increase classroom size by ½ student per teacher

For the 2011 FY, Superintendent Jack Dale has said that the “fiscal reality…is bleak.”

Indeed, the state government has predicted that commercial and real estate assessments will fall by 10% next year. The resulting decrease in revenue will force even further cuts to education. As a member of the House of Delegates, I will address this problem in the following ways:

• I will fight to increase the amount of money the state gives the county for education. Currently, we only get 25 cents for every dollar we spend on education. Prince William County, by comparison, gets 50 cents.
• I will fight for more federal grant money. Of every state in the nation, Virginia receives the least amount of per-capita federal

Virginia’s public colleges and universities provide an excellent education that is remarkable for both its breadth and its depth, and maintaining this high quality is just as important as K-12 education to preserving the way of life that we take for granted. Our system of higher education is a cornerstone of our economy, and the educated adults that they produce will help Virginia move forward with great success into the 21st century. Having had my daughter Tina graduate from Virginia Tech this summer, I know how hurtful the recent cuts in state funding have been.

On June 30th of this year, Governor Tim Kaine was forced, because of an alarming decrease in state revenue, to ask the presidents of all our colleges and universities to prepare and submit proposals for cutting the state funding they receive by 5, 10 and 15%. Because of this, CNU, for example, will lose $1.2 to $3.6 million in state funding; William and Mary will lose between $2 and $6 million; and right here in Fairfax County, George Mason’s FY 2009 budget was cut by $11 million (and this was in addition to a $9.8 million cut for the previous fiscal year).

Unfortunately, cuts in funding to Virginia’s colleges are hardly a recent phenomenon. In the past 25 years, state colleges have been asked 6 times to make significant reductions to their budget. . Cuts to higher education funding, which lead to massive increases in tuition, freezing of teacher salaries, and a notable decrease in programs that are of great value to our students, undermines the high quality of our colleges that Virginians take so much pride in. These cuts directly impact how many of our graduating high school students will be admitted to Virginia universities and colleges.

Addressing the problem now, before we allow the foundation of the system to crumble, is both easier and less costly. As a member of the House of Delegates, I will work to reverse the trend of continuing cuts to our colleges by doing the following:

• I will work to end the continual cuts to our higher education system. We cannot resort to cutting education money every time we need to resolve our budget deficit.
• I will work to secure both more overall state funding and greater federal funding for our community colleges, vocational schools and universities.
• I will fight to slow the massive increases in tuition for in-state students.
• And I will work to secure more affordable and reasonable college loans for Northern Virginia’s college students.