To the Editor:
We are fortunate in our Congressional District to have a Congresswoman who comes from a family of educators and knows our pre-K, K-12 and university system very well. Barbara Comstock’s Mom was a lifelong teacher and librarian. Her husband, Chip, served in Fairfax County schools for 30 years and her sister also serves as a high school guidance counselor in Fairfax County. With my three kids attending Langley High School, these roots matter to me. She knows our schools. Langley was where her husband started his service to our public schools.
Barbara’s children attended our local pre-schools, public and parochial schools and public universities (UVa, Tech, and George Mason). As our Delegate she worked to get all-day kindergarten into our public schools and to get more in-state college spots for our children at Virginia colleges and universities. She has worked extensively with the public schools throughout the 10th District as well as our universities from George Mason to the Shenandoah University and the George Washington Campus in Loudoun. I would also like to thank Barbara for hosting the Young Women's Leadership Program that my daughters were honored to participate in.
In her first term in Congress, Barbara worked on a bipartisan basis to get The Every Student Succeeds Act passed. The Every Student Succeeds Act reduces the federal role in our schools and restores local control to empower local school districts and parents. When I talk with our local teachers and parents involved in our public school system, they are very appreciative of this new legislation. The bill had a broad range of support from the National Education Association to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and the National Governors Association and it also removed any requirements to force Common Core on schools – something Virginia never adopted.
Barbara’s opponent has no such depth in Virginia public schools or universities. She was not involved in any of our public schools or Virginia universities. She was appointed by her District of Columbia friends (where she was living until last December when she moved from the D.C. Ritz Carlton) to the Board of Trustees of the University of the District of Columbia where she voted to raise tuition costs by as much as 20 percent. We don’t need that kind of backward D.C. policy experience for Virginia. Let’s send Barbara’s opponent back to the D.C. Ritz Carlton and let’s re-elect Barbara Comstock to Congress to continue working for all of us.
Puneet Ahluwalia
McLean