Office sought: Fairfax County School Board - Hunter Mill District
Party Affiliation: Independent (member of Fairfax County Republican Committee -- but not endorsed)
Previous offices held; please include dates: None
Incumbents: when elected to this position: N/A
Occupation: computer programmer
Current employment (include name and address of employers): General Dynamics (since 1992) Annapolis Junction MD
Previous employment: 1976-1992 - TRW
Education: (please list schools attended, degrees and dates)
University of Pennsylvania BA-1974, MS and MBA-1976
Community ties: President, Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance, member Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon)
List a few current endorsements you are most proud of: No endorsements
1. What is your top public-service accomplishment?
President, Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance since 1996. Since 2000, the Taxpayers Alliance co-sponsored with the Family Foundation the only anti-tax lobbyist during the General Assembly sessions in Richmond. (The Virginia Education Association has 40 registered lobbyists.) We are one of the few voices against the waste in public schools and social spending. For decades Fairfax County Public Schools staff has been increasing more than twice as fast as enrollment. Social spending has nearly destroyed the African-American family by providing subsidized housing, food, medical care (Medicaid), and childcare to single mothers. The result is that 65 percent of Black children are born out of wedlock, up from 20 percent in the 60s. White out-of-wedlock births have also increased, from 5% to 20%. Public school teachers get the brunt of the problems. The more taxes we spend on social programs, the worse the problems become. The result is never-ending tax increases, and nothing gets better.
2. Incumbents: Describe the top accomplishment of your last term. Why shouldn't voters blame you for current problems in your district?
N/A
3. What are the top five problems facing your constituents and what approaches will you use to solve them? Describe one challenge (or more) in your district that is different than other parts of the county.
a) SAT scores are at the 65th percentile. Solution: Remedial phonics instruction, mandatory Latin instruction, and drop hand calculators. There needs to be much more homework and drill in math and science courses. Average SAT score should be at the 80th percentile.
b) Thirty-five percent of graduates who attend four-year colleges will drop out. Solution: Same as raising SAT scores.
c) Expulsion cases have increased from 30 per year in the late 80s to 800 per year. Solution: This is the result of Supreme Court decisions driving Christianity (and all religions) out of public schools. Either the Supreme Court needs to reverse itself or we need a Constitutional amendment to allow public schools to teach in a non-sectarian manner the Judeo-Christian ethic - Ten Commandments, Bible, and prayer. Prayers and scriptures from other religions represented in schools should also be welcomed.
d) Unnecessarily stigmatizing children as "Learning Disabled." Solution: Phonics-based reading instruction in all elementary schools and remedial phonics instruction for middle and high schools. Also needed is more traditional arithmetic instruction with much more drill and no hand calculators.
e) South Lakes High School is under-enrolled while neighboring high schools are over-enrolled. Solution: Attract parents to South Lakes. First, eliminate the International Baccalaureate program, which is just another attempt to indoctrinate students with moral relativism and has not raised SAT scores. Second increase achievement through remedial phonics, Latin, more drill in math and science, and less hand calculators and computers. Third, challenge teachers, especially English and history teachers, to use their subjects to teach the values that they want practiced in the classroom and hallways.
4. What qualities, qualifications and characteristics will you bring to this office?
I am candid.
I welcome discussion with those with whom I disagree. I completed the Fairfax Education Association candidate questionnaire and interview even though I was not seeking their endorsement.
I offer specific solutions to out-of-control spending and taxes.
Ten years' service on Fairfax County Public Schools advisory committees: Family Life Education (twice), Fairfax Framework for Student Success, and Professional/Technical Studies, where I have tried to maintain civility while emphatically disagreeing with committee decisions and reports.
5. How will voters best distinguish between you and your opponent(s)?
My opponent's record is high taxes and low achievement. I will work for low taxes and high achievement.
6. What is the minority achievement gap? How have the schools been successfully addressing this gap? What more can they do?
The minority student achievement gap is the large difference that chronically exists between White achievement and that of minorities. In general White students score 30 percentile points higher on standardized tests than Hispanic and Arican-American children. Despite decades of talk and new programs Fairfax County has failed to close this gap. The principal solution is to adopt phonics-based reading instruction. Of 136 Fairfax County elementary schools, I know of only one that employs phonics-based reading. The rest expect children to pronounce words without being able to sound them out. This sets many children up for failure, especially those from homes that do not read.
7. What is your understanding of research studies into the effect of school size on student achievement? What are the implications for FCPS?
Students function better in smaller schools, but smaller buildings would be more expensive.
8. What is your understanding of research studies on sleep patterns of teenagers and the implications for high school start times?
I believe that high schools start too early, due to constraints in bus scheduling. Part of cause is need for extra bussing due to the seven-period day and numerous magnet schools and programs. The seven-period day lowers student achievement by spreading a student's time over seven courses instead of six courses, and magnet programs would not be necessary if each school offered a quality education. Of 180 schools all but 30 are attended by students outside school boundaries. We have lost the concept of the neighborhood school.
9. If reducing class size is a priority, how would you re-allocate the budget to pay for this change?
English classes should be much smaller. In other subjects the difficulty is not large class size but that students are not on the same level and that the curriculum is needlessly complex. I would cut administration, guidance counselors, psychologists, social workers, seven-period day, magnet programs, vocational education, and the fruitless over-investment in computers to reduce class size and fund other needs. Through high school academies, vocational education is becoming a wedge to replace the liberal arts curriculum and high school diploma with job training certifications.
10. Is there "waste" in the school budget? If so, where and how much? If you can't pinpoint precisely, in what specific area would you begin looking?
See question 9. Of the school system's $1.6B budget, I believe that $800 million is waste, although I can only pinpoint about $500 million. Most of the waste arises from the schools’ "progressive" curriculum (pioneered by educational philosopher John Dewey), which is anti-phonics, anti-drill ("drill and kill"), anti-fact ("mere facts"), anti-accountability (schools no longer report class rank), and anti-morality (safe-sex Family Life Education). Most students cannot learn under progressive education, resulting in costly remedial, magnet, administrative, and alternative education programs. Also we're spending tens of millions on disciplinary and alternative education programs due to a deterioration in student behavior arising from the censorship of the Judeo-Christian in from public schools.
11. Has the cluster director system been successful? If so, give examples. If not, what alternatives should be explored?
The cluster system is logical, but ineffective. The first step to successful supervision of schools is to replace the so-called progressive curriculum so students start learning.
12. What have been the advantages and disadvantages of SOLs?
The SOL tests are good in that schools cannot socially promote low-performing students. However, since the tests only enforce "D"-level work, they do nothing for the "regular kid."
13. Explain how No Child Left Behind sets standards on categories of students and its implications for Fairfax County schools.
NCLB requires schools "to show Adequate Yearly Progress overall and separately for all major ethnic and socio-economic groups, special education students and English Language Learners." (Gerald Bracey) It will be impossible to achieve with "progressive" education. However schools will fight NCLB rather than abandon their flawed teaching methods. NCLB is vulnerable. It is an expensive, bureaucratic, top-down, heavy-handed federally-mandated solution. However, rampant social promotion gave the Federal government an excuse to micro-manage each school. Competition through tax credits for private-school tuition and donations would have been a simpler and more effective way improve public-school standards.
14. If you had an extra $1 million to spend on the school system any way you would like, how would you spend it?
Smaller English classes.
15. What are the hallmarks of a well-run school? Include measurable characteristics.
An administration that welcomes parent involvement, eschews "progressive" education, and welcomes teacher feedback. Low teacher turnover. A streamlined curriculum so teachers have time to grade papers and can reuse lesson plans. Students in the same class would be at the same level. No minority student achievement gap, few "learning disabled" students, and rare expulsion recommendations.
16. What are the hallmarks of an excellent teacher? Include measurable characteristics.
Enthusiasm, assigns and grades regular homework. Students do well on tests. The teacher depends on students having been adequately prepared in previous courses, an environment free from administrative distractions, and good textbooks.
17. If you were to create your own core curriculum, what subjects would you include? Place in priority order.
For grades K-6, I would follow E. D. Hirsch's Core Knowledge Sequence, which teaches geography, American history, and world history every year from Kindergarten through 6th grade. I would make Latin mandatory and look at elementary school Latin programs. I would teach ancient and English history instead of Civics. There would be much less emphasis on computers, which can actually interfere with learning. I would phase out most vocational education, since the liberal arts curriculum is the best vocational education.
18. What are the advantages and disadvantages of public-private partnerships as they relate to Fairfax County schools?
These partnerships are a distraction and another attempt to ferret money from businesses that are already paying too many taxes. These partnerships also represent a step towards de-emphasizing liberal arts and replacing it with job training.
19. How would you increase involvement of the general public in the public schools?
Teachers and administrators should focus on student achievement. I would increase general public support for public schools by eliminating the annual school budget crises.
20. How would you increase parental involvement in the public schools?
Invite parents to observe students' classrooms. Today's low standards undermine parents who would be willing to support school demands but cannot because their children can pass without doing much work.
21. What additional public safety steps would you recommend in addressing gangs and violent activities on or near school property? Has the rate of violent acts increased, decreased or stayed the same in the last four years? County-wide? By pyramid in the area you live?
Expulsion cases have increased from 30 per year in the late 80s to 800 per year. Most misbehaving students give up on school by fourth grade because, due to the "progressive" curriculum, they have learned neither reading nor arithmetic nor much of anything else. Students would rather appear bad than dumb. Students do what they are taught. We have no right to expect moral behavior when we do not teach moral values. By squelching the scientific evidence against evolution (e. g., the fossil record does not support it, etc.) schools dishonestly undermine the most intuitive argument for the existence of God - that of Creator. Godlessness does not improve behavior.
22. What school-boundary strategies could be used to address the inequity of under- and over-enrolled schools within FCPS?
Public schools should be equal in offering a safe, high-quality curriculum. The reality is that the quality of education is a function of demographics. This is because what students know is determined more by what they learn at home than what they learn in school. This is yet another symptom of "progressive" education and results in boundary disputes driven by demographics. Fix the curriculum and boundary changes will become less threatening to parents.
Other info:
South Lakes High School renovation is overdue. Solution: Pay for school construction on a pay-as-you-go basis from the operating budget. The current policy of funding all capital construction from bond sales increases the cost of construction projects by fifty percent due to the cost of interest and results in chronic under funding of building needs. Also bond revenues have never been sufficient for capital needs. Meanwhile much of the operating budget is wasted on ineffective programs.
Most money spent in political campaigns is wasted. Eight years ago, when I ran for school board and Rob McDowell ran against Janet Howell, Rob spent five times more per voter than I did. He did several glossy mailings, with photographs. I mailed one black-and-white text-only postcard. He had a professional consultant; I did not. He was personally endorsed by the governor. On election day, in the dozen or so precincts where we both ran, he got one percent more vote than I did. Also, mandatory campaign finance reports do not improve the level of public discourse in campaigns. In fact they detract because finance reports divert attention from the issues. These reports are however an impediment to free speech because they complicate running for office. Therefore I have chosen to limit my expenses to $1000, do no fundraising, and be exempt for campaign finance reporting.
My support of school prayer, etc., should not be interpreted as the Mormon position on the subject. I have never heard Mormon leaders advocate school prayer; they're too busy trying to get people to pray in their families. The majority of the congregation where I worship may well oppose my stand on religion in public schools as do many (believe it or not) of the "religious right." However I agree with Alan Keyes, who said that the separation of church and state is the separation of civilization and state. The Supreme Court decisions banning Christianity from public schools were unconstitutional decisions and cost the taxpayers million of dollars in dealing with the ensuing moral breakdown.