Education
As a State Senator, Jeff will work hard to ensure that Virginia’s education system is second-to-none. In fact, with a mom, wife and daughter who have all served as teachers, it’s fair to say that the importance of this issue is in his blood.
Education is a complex issue best addressed by legislators who have experience in all aspects of the Commonwealth’s education system. Jeff has served on the board of trustees at both the high school and college level, spending eight years as a board member at William and Mary and two years as its Vice-Rector. His kids have attended Virginia elementary and high schools, as well as three of its colleges—the University of Virginia, William and Mary and Virginia Tech. Thus, Jeff has the ability to look at education challenges from a multitude of perspectives, and he understands the unique contributions made by administrators, teachers and parents in the overall education process.
Jeff will work for policies that support the parent/teacher partnership, reward exceptional teachers based on performance, provide principals with the tools they need to properly administer the schools, obtain more resources for the neediest schools, improve financial accountability and increase the access of Virginia’s students to charter schools. Jeff’s work in this area will be governed by the philosophy of providing maximum opportunities for Virginia’s students without increasing taxes. He will help channel more state funds into the classroom and less state funds into bureaucracy.
Jeff will focus on three areas in particular. First, he will emphasize preparing Virginia’s students for the jobs of the future. Education reform cannot be viewed in isolation. On the jobs front, Jeff will work hard to ensure that Virginia’s growth in jobs includes the more specialized and technical jobs of the Twenty-First Century. Our students must therefore be prepared to step into these jobs, with an increased emphasis on relevance in the educational process and a partnership between the business and education communities. Second, Jeff will ensure that our institutions of higher learning are accessible to Virginia students. We have some of the finest colleges in the nation in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Qualified Virginia students should not be squeezed out in favor of a growing percentage of students from outside the Commonwealth. Third, Jeff will work hard to support Governor McDonnell’s education reform plan to increase the number of charter schools in Virginia (at present, there are only four) and award 100,000 more higher-education degrees over the next fifteen years, making Virginia one of the most highly-educated states in the nation.
Attracting more and better jobs to our Commonwealth cannot be done without improving our education system. Conversely, if we improve our education system and do not attract high-paying jobs, our well-educated students will leave the Commonwealth to work elsewhere. We need state legislators with the experience to simultaneously help grow our jobs base and to improve education. Jeff McWaters is the candidate with the experience to do both.