In Danville yesterday, on the second stop of his “InformED Decisions” tour, 2017 Republican gubernatorial nominee Ed Gillespie heard from Virginians about the many challenges they are facing, and shared with them his vision for a safer, stronger Commonwealth.
In order for Virginians to make informed decisions about their choices in this critically important election, they deserve every opportunity to hear directly from their candidates about the challenges the Commonwealth is facing and the solutions they are putting forward to solve them. Ed will hold five more “InformED Decisions” stops across the Commonwealth, as Democratic nominee Ralph Northam has refused to participate in debates and forums that offer Virginians opportunities to learn more about the clear differences in the candidates.
Watch: “Empowering Teachers and Students”
TRANSCRIPT
And in terms of recruiting teachers and retaining teachers in hard to staff areas and hard to staff schools, one of the things I think we can do is for those schools is student loan forgiveness for teachers to be able to get them to teach. There’s more we can do with, I think, working with Teach For America, to have a greater partnership with Teach For America in Virginia, get more Teach For America teachers here. Other things I think we need to do in some areas of the Commonwealth is to recruit teachers and retain teachers who reflect the population they are serving, which I think is helpful in terms of mentoring and relationships. So, when it comes to teacher recruitment we’ve got to look at all of these things. So I’m with you and I want to help make sure that we are recruiting and retaining good teachers in all of our schools all across the Commonwealth.
Let me go to a couple of other points. I do think we need to have some reforms as well in K-12. And included in that, in my view, I think we need to have more options for public charter schools and allow for more public charter schools in the Commonwealth of Virginia. If you look, in Virginia right now – and by the way, it doesn’t work everywhere. Population density is a factor in that. I thought that was an applause but it’s a gnat I gather. But the density, the population density, it has to be done right. There has to be guard rails and that kind of thing, but I would like to see us have more choices in that regard across the Commonwealth. We have in Virginia nine public charter schools. In North Carolina, across our border, they have 167. And so I know we can do better in this regard and open up some of those options.
I believe that our homeschool children should be able to participate in our public school sports programs and I would sign the Tebow bill. I think things like that, that allow for parents to have more options are good things for us and would make our public schools more responsive to the needs of parents and students.
But I say it because, if you believe as I do, and this is my core principle, that the proper role of government is not to guarantee equality of outcomes for everyone but to guarantee equality of opportunity for everyone, then you need to fight with every fiber in your being to make sure every child in Virginia has access to a good, safe public school. And I will fight for that every day. This going to come into play with funding formulas and teacher compensation and some other things, so if you go to my website, edforviriginia.com/education, you can see the details of some of the things I just mentioned to you, but I hope this addresses your concerns…
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You just reminded me of something else that is in my plan, which is to have greater latitude for the teachers who are on the front line and to empower teachers more, and to ease the burden that you are complying with right now. Because I’m going to bet, like many other teachers I talk to, you fill out a lot of forms and comply with a lot of regulations and rules that take a lot of your time to fill out and comply with when you probably would rather be spending that time with a student, or grading papers, or doing some other things that actually have a direct impact on the students that you serve. And so I do want to empower teachers in the classrooms more and give them more input to the process and more latitude in the process as well, ease their regulatory burden on you as a teacher in terms of the time and onus of compliance.
And also, I would have as governor a teachers advisory council of teachers like you, Tara, who are on the front lines dealing with the students and adapting to all these rules that are being imposed on you from lots of different places, who can say to me as governor directly, these rules, they just put this in place and it doesn’t make any sense and I could have my cabinet take a look at it and find out what is going on here and talk to the superintendent. Right now I do talk to superintendents and superintendents tend to advise – have access to a governor – but I would have a teachers advisory council comprised of teachers all across the Commonwealth who would have my ear directly and I would meet with on a regular basis to get insights and input because we’ve got to empower you as a teacher in the classroom if we’re really going to bring about more personalized learning for students across the Commonwealth.
The remaining “InformED Decisions” tour schedule includes:
“InformED Decisions” Northern Neck
September 26, 2017
5:30PM – 7:30PM
161 Technology Park Drive
Kilmarnock, VA 22482
“InformED Decisions” Richmond
September 28, 2017
Time and Location To Be Announced
“InformED Decisions” Roanoke Valley
September 30, 2017
Time and Location To Be Announced
“InformED Decisions” Shenandoah Valley
October 1, 2017
Time and Location To Be Announced
“InformED Decisions” Northern Virginia
October 1, 2017
Time and Location To Be Announced
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