Common and Less so in the Commonwealth

Governor Tim Kaine makes some edunouncements equaling wide eyes. He seems hungry. Hopefully he can make a significant dent by way of hard work, sound advice, and a little ingenuity. On tap include things like his Universal Preschool proposal, artfully scaled back a bit to begin at the beginning with a council, the "Start Strong Council" (conjures images of babies with muscles), to investigate options for moving forward to improve early learning opportunities in the Commonwealth.

Other items include a second tier recognition for schools that exceed accreditation standards, modified graduation requirements for high school students on voc-ed tracks, graduation rate improvements for chronically low performers, and continuing Virginia's push to reduce NCLB demands it deems superfluous or duplicative of its own and elder 1998 SOLs.