When your children are sick, you take them to the doctor. And you expect the doctor to prescribe the necessary medicine. Any physician who refused to do so would quickly lose patients, and probably their license, too.
Virginia’s children are hurting — academically and emotionally. Three years of pandemic-related learning disruptions and trauma have left academic outcomes at their lowest point in years and rates of emotional distress at their highest.
From before the pandemic to last spring, across the commonwealth’s schools, math proficiency dropped by 16 percentage points, reading by 5 points, writing by 11 points, science by 16 points and history by 14 points. It’s not just the overall numbers for Virginia’s children that fell. Every subgroup in every subject lost ground: Asian students, Black students, Hispanic students, white students, economically disadvantaged students, English learners and students with disabilities.
Perhaps even more devastating, though, is the impact of the pandemic on our children’s mental health. According to the Virginia Department of Health, the number of youth emergency room visits for suicidal thoughts, suicidal attempts and other self-harm rose from about 10,000 before the pandemic to over 14,000 in 2021. Here in Richmond, we went from about 150 suicide assessments per year pre-pandemic to being on pace for nearly 600 this year. And the number of actionable alerts we received due to students writing about self-harm or violence on their Chromebooks jumped from about 2,600 during the first year of the pandemic to 4,200 so far this year.
Our teachers are also hurting. No wonder, then, that according to a recent JLARC study, educators are leaving Virginia in droves. Before the pandemic, the commonwealth’s schools had about 800 teacher vacancies. That number has more than quadrupled to 3,300. That means roughly 80,000 students in Virginia don’t have a licensed teacher. That’s tantamount to Richmond and Henrico County having zero teachers. And three-fourths of the extraordinary educators who have remained in Virginia’s classrooms report that their morale is lower than before the pandemic.
Like a doctor, I wish we could simply write a prescription to fix everything. While it’s not that simple, there is some medicine on the counter: roughly $1 billion in education funding. That’s what the Senate version of the state’s budget would add to Virginia’s schools, while the House’s would siphon that money off for tax cuts, which would largely benefit the state’s richest residents and richest corporations.
This funding would allow Virginia’s schools to hire more counselors and social workers, provide tutoring and enrichment to help students catch up, and raise teacher pay so we retain the amazing educators we have and attract more to the state. For Richmond alone, this funding would yield roughly $20 million in additional support. To put that in perspective, $20 million could finance 235 additional counselors or a nearly $7,000 raise for our teachers.
When I advocate for education funding, I usually hear that there simply isn’t enough money. Sometimes that’s true. Now isn’t one of those times. The money is literally sitting there. After a once-in-a-century pandemic that ripped our children’s lives apart, our kids need an educational Marshall Plan. We’re blessed in the commonwealth that we could actually give them that. Can we truly look them in the eye and tell them that Virginia’s wealthiest individuals and wealthiest corporations need the money more?
All of our children are at risk — in rural Virginia and urban Virginia, in blue communities and red communities, from Lee County to Loudoun County. Every single Virginia superintendent I’ve spoken with over the past several months from every part of the state has shared the same concern: Virginia’s students and teachers are hurting.
And so I beg of the General Assembly and the governor: Come to the table and hash out a state budget that truly puts Virginia’s children first. It’s the right thing to do. We have the money, and our students desperately need your help.
Your choice is simple: Reach for the medicine or let the illness spread. And if you let the illness spread, as with a doctor, we’ll have to revoke your license — at the ballot box.
From the Archives: A look back at Richmond schools
Jason Kamras is superintendent of Richmond Public Schools. Contact him at jkamras@rvaschools.net.