Clearly, per pupil spending is not the only factor in whether or not a school is successful; however, I assure you that cutting an already very “lean” budget will have profound academic consequences. The reality is that Stafford Republicans would rather provide irresponsible tax breaks to their friends by using “school funds,” which could have been used to lessen the impact of the severe cuts coming from the state. Republicans need to get their priorities straight, putting our children first for a change. That would be refreshing.

So, let’s examine that statement: “An extremely good measure of how much a county [spends] in education is how much they [sic] spend[s]….”

Clearly, whatever the amount spent per pupil in the county in which you were educated, it was wasted on you. Thank you for that tautology.

Who cares about how much is spent per pupil? Well, let’s see, mostly teachers unions and their Democrat lapdogs, and educational bureaucrats, since it ends up in their pockets in one way or another.

Those who actually care about the quality of eduction know that per-pupil spending is, at its best, a crude measure of educational quality and frequently, irrelevant to educational outcomes. For instance, it wasn’t so long ago (haven’t seen the figures recently) that New Hampshire had the lowest per-pupil spending in the nation, while New Hampshire had the highest average test scores on the College Boards.

Please take a look at how your test scores, graduation rate, etc. compare to the rest of the state and I think you will be pretty pleased.

I also agree with Krystal that this is an anti-incumbent year and not an anti-democratic one. I’m sick and tired of wishy washy politicians like Mr. Robinson and Mr. Wittman.

In order to accomplish (2) and (3), we could use partners in Washington and locally who understand the end game and will help work towards this goal. There are huge potential economic and national security benefits.

As for broadband, your conclusion is completely wrong. I have not discounted broadband at all. Let me try to explain things in a different way. In terms of or transportation system, you can build all the roads you want; however, if you can’t afford to buy a car, operate it and maintain it, then all the roads you build is worthless in terms of spurring small businesses and jobs. It needs to be part of a comprehensive strategy. This includes tax reforms, incentives, and making sure that credit is accessible to small businesses. Small businesses are critical to our economic success, since they create the most jobs.

Listen, we have made tremendous progress on broadband accessibility in VA. This is thanks to the wonderful leadership of former Gov. Kaine and Sen. Warner. At the end of 2008, out of the 4200 industrial properties listed in the VAScan database, only 15 properties could not be identified as having broadband technology. If you look at the mapping initiative of the Office of Telework Promotion and Broadband Assistance, many of the parts of the 1st CD have some level of broadband coverage. Of course, there is more that should be done and must be done. We are lucky to have Sen. Warner in Washington to continue pushing the importance of broadband accessibility.

As far as being objective, you can listen to Scott for yourself. This is the first answer to a question where I heard him stake out an actual position. It is just incomplete. Oh wait, he did call for generating power via nuclear breeder reactors. The problem is that for the most part, Scott waffles and weaves around questions or gives answers that are not well thought out and lacks sensibility. He seems like a nice enough guy and don’t have anything bad to say about him personally; however, this election is our best opportunity to knock off Wittman and Scott, I’m afraid, does not appear to be up to task. I’ll support whoever wins the nomination, but Krystal would be the more viable candidate by far.

As for Krystal’s company, I understand that her company has several ongoing contracts in Virginia.

I also disagree with your last statements. Not all Republicans are as you describe. We need to be bringing together folks and not resorting to generic statements about certain groups of people. Krystal has been reaching across party lines. Her pragmatic message is evident by the fact that she has received 25% of all of her campaign contributions from self identified Republicans.