The biggest challenge facing local government this year, as always, is effectively funding public schools.

Not adequately funding them.

Effectively funding K-12 classroom education.

An adequate amount of public school funding might sound reasonable, even good. But adequate means “barely sufficient or satisfactory.”

Barely sufficient public school funding won't do, not for the children in our community.

We get one chance to educate a child, K-12-it's not multiple choice or multiple chance-and we've got to give them our best effort.

This year's challenge is made even greater, in large measure, because of Gov. McDonnell's proposed education budget and the adjustment in the state's funding formula that puts a greater burden on local education funding. We can join forces now in Buckingham, Cumberland, Farmville and Prince Edward by communicating directly to the governor, the speaker of the house and our elected delegates and senators in the General Assembly to advocate more, not less, public school funding from the commonwealth.

Thanks to redistricting, Buckingham, Cumberland and Prince Edward each has its own member of the House of Delegates. Let's put that to work for us. We've got three Delegates representing our area, rather than one. And three heads in the House of Delegates are better than one. They've each got a pair of ears and two eyes. Let's fill those eyes and ears with advocacy for public education funding.

But let us also be prepared to support effective local funding within our own communities. Not simply this year, but every year. There is no greater investment we can make than in the education of our children. And it is too true that every penny we pinch out of public education funding now can too easily, and tragically, become millions of tax dollars spent in the future trying to re-shape lives we can, and should, more easily and less expensively shape now through education.

Classrooms are a bargain.

Prisons are not.

Nor can prisons give back lost years, and lives, that could have contributed so much to our society.

One child's life is a lifetime and that lifetime will have an impact, for better or worse, on so many others. The degree to which we value the lives around us, and so our own life and the lives of those who matter most to us, can be expressed through our investment in public education.

Let us “program” our children to succeed, not fail.

Our effectiveness can show them the way.

Adequacy should be nobody's goal.

-JKW-

Robert F. McDonnell

Office Of The Governor

Patrick Henry Building

Third Floor

1111 East Broad Street

Richmond, Virginia 23219

Telephone: 804-786-2211

James Edmunds II

House Of Delegates

P.O. Box 406

Richmond, Virginia 23218

Telephone: 804-698-1060

Email: DelJEdmunds@house.virginia.gov

Matt Fariss

House Of Delegates

P.O. Box 406

Richmond, Virginia 23218

Telephone: 804-698-1059

Email: DelMFariss@house.virginia.gov

William J. Howell

Speaker Of The House

House Of Delegates

P.O. Box 406

Richmond, Virginia 23218

Telephone: 804-698-1028

Email: DelWHowell@house.virginia.gov

Tommy Wright

House Of Delegates

P.O. Box 406

Richmond, Virginia 23218

Email: DelTWright@house.virginia.gov

Tom Garrett

Senate Of Virginia

P.O. Box 396

Richmond, Virginia 23218

Telephone: 804-698-7522

Email: district22@senate.virginia.gov