The Half Sheet

Reduced state support for Richmond City Public Schools has had very real impacts on school facilities and on the activities of teachers and students in the classroom.

Issue platforms by the current candidates for Virginia Governor, including Republican candidate Ed Gillespie, Libertarian candidate Cliff Hyra, and Democratic candidate Ralph Northam, include proposals to modify or eliminate Virginia’s local business taxes, modify Virginia’s individual income tax, and eliminate the state portion of Virginia’s sales tax on groceries.

It’s time for Virginia to expand Medicaid so that our people can get the care they need to go to work, take care of their kids, and be healthy, productive members of their community.

When it comes to tax cuts for the rich, the promised economic growth often fails to materialize. This time around, we should ask lawmakers to choose a different path.

Rolling back DACA would hurt our communities, the economy, and the United States’ moral standing in the world as a welcoming and humane nation.

Virginia’s public schools and students have long endured resource challenges, many stemming from state or local funding reductions during and after the recession. Now, they may be facing dramatic cuts from the federal government.

enrollment, staffing, demographic, and funding trends for each of Virginia’s 132 school divisions and statewide.

Addressing the historical inequalities that created racial and economic segregation in the commonwealth is not an easy task. Yet by working together and implementing programs to address economic segregation and isolation, we can alleviate some of these challenges and start to expand educational access and opportunity for all Virginia children.

As we move forward to proposed tax reform and budgets – both state and federal – an equal level of scrutiny ought to be applied both to tax breaks and to how we choose to invest in communities.

We all want to believe that if we meet our obligations and if we work hard at the things we choose to do that we’ll be rewarded with opportunities to get ahead.

How can Virginia spur rural economic development? That’s the question on a lot of minds these days – and with good reason.

With the recent collapse of efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act in the Senate, the time seems ripe for both our Congressional representatives and state legislators to come together to strengthen our insurance marketplace.