This is the second installment in a series examining this year’s historic gubernatorial race between Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears and former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger. Read Part One Here.
With trust in Virginia’s public schools at a crossroads, education is once again taking center stage in the race for governor — and the two nominees are offering Virginians starkly different paths forward.
Democrat Abigail Spanberger is campaigning on boosting investment in traditional public education, while Republican Winsome Sears is championing school choice and a greater role for parents. Though their philosophies diverge, both agree the system is struggling — and voters do, too. A January poll from Christopher Newport University found that 74% of Virginians see improving K-12 education as a top priority.
Accountability
The Virginia Board of Education — composed entirely of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s appointees, except for one — is set to roll out a new school accountability system in the upcoming academic year.
Under the new framework, every public school in the state will be publicly categorized into one of four tiers: Distinguished, On Track, Off Track, or Needs Intensive Support. The Virginia Department of Education said if the system were put into place this school year, about 36% of schools would be labeled “off track” or “needs intensive support,” and the remaining 64% would be labeled “on track” or “distinguished.”
It’s a major change from the current system, in which 85% of schools were designated as fully accredited last year. Youngkin has often criticized the current system for being hard to understand and not painting an accurate picture of how schools are performing.
Democrats in the General Assembly introduced legislation this year aiming to postpone the system’s implementation, but the effort stalled in committee, clearing the way for the changes to move forward as planned.
Former Secretary of Education Anne Holton, who is the lone Virginia Board of Education member not appointed by Youngkin, has concerns about the new system.
“In my opinion, they’ve been sloppily designed without thinking through some of the repercussions,” Holton said during an interview with Virginia Scope.
“I’m all for high expectations for all kids and doing the work necessary to help them meet those high expectations, but just raising the basketball hoop higher does not make kids jump higher,” Holton continued.
Holton said her biggest concern with the new system is that it is distracting leaders from focusing on solutions to help kids succeed, like attracting quality teachers and implementing strong curriculum.
Board of Education Chair Grace Creasey supports the implementation of the new system and says it provides the transparency that families deserve in Virginia.
“This new system is built specifically to be very forthright about exactly what we are measuring,” she said during an interview with Virginia Scope.
“It became very clear to those of us who were appointed by the governor in July of 2022 that it was a very cumbersome process for school divisions to be able to unpack and to be able to calculate, understand, and make useful,” Creasey continued. “Really, more than anything else, we saw that both parents and teachers in the classroom didn’t understand the accreditation system at the time.”
In a statement to Virginia Scope on Sunday night, Sears expressed her support for the system.
“Education is about truth, trust, and opportunity. For too long, parents in Virginia were misled by systems that covered up poor performance instead of confronting it,” Sears said. “[National Assessment of Educational Progress] scores show we’re falling behind—even as the old system claimed we were on track.”
“I support greater transparency and real accountability so our families know how schools are doing and how we can do better,” she continued.
In an op-ed published in March, Sears wrote about the “honesty gap,” referring to the difference in pass rates between state assessments and the NAEP, a national assessment. She says Virginia’s low standards on state tests have misled parents, educators, and policymakers.
“We must increase transparency by making assessment results accessible and understandable for parents,” she wrote. “Families should never have to dig through bureaucratic jargon to understand their child’s academic standing.”
Spanberger did not specify if she supports the new school accountability system, but she did stress the importance of having a transparent accountability system in a statement to Virginia Scope.
“I know accountability is vital to ensuring that our kids are learning, getting the education they deserve, and getting additional help they may need if they face learning challenges along the way,” she said.
“Importantly, Virginia’s students, parents, and teachers need to know that when our accreditation process reveals challenges and areas for improvement, their Governor, their General Assembly members, and their local school board and board of supervisors are committed to addressing those challenges — whether they be staffing shortages, lack of school resources, or difficulties in a community that cause challenges in a classroom.”
School Choice
The debate over school choice options in Virginia has been hyper-partisan.
In Virginia, 73.1% of all K-12 students attend a traditional public school, and the commonwealth spends $13,835 per public school student each year.
For context, 66% of students in Maryland and 67% of students in North Carolina attend traditional public schools.
Public charter schools receive per-pupil funding allocated to traditional public schools, but in Virginia, they must be approved by the local school board — a hurdle that disincentivizes charter schools from applying. Each student who leaves a traditional public school for a charter school takes their share of funding with them. For many school boards, approving a charter school within their district can feel like signing off on a loss of resources for the broader school system they oversee.
Unlike in states with a state-level authorizer that can greenlight charter applications, Virginia’s reliance on local approval has kept the number of charter schools low — just seven across the commonwealth. Maryland has 49 and North Carolina has 210.
Lab schools — a cornerstone of Youngkin’s education agenda — are public K -12 schools that partner with colleges or universities to serve as laboratories for teacher training, academic research, and the testing of innovative instructional methods.
In 2022, the General Assembly passed legislation establishing lab schools. Sears was the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to rescue Youngkin’s amendment to triple the number of higher education institutions that can partner with local school divisions. The Senate voted to block Youngkin’s proposal to use state per-pupil funds to pay for them.
Six lab schools are in operation and state officials expect the other nine approved by the state to be up and running by this fall.
Youngkin has pushed for additional funding in each of his budget proposals since they were established, but Democrats have been reluctant to provide significant funding for expansion.
While Democrats have been open to compromise with Youngkin on lab schools, they remain steadfast in their opposition to any legislation that resembles school voucher programs, which give public funds to families for private school tuition.
In January of 2024, Sears published an op-ed calling for state funding to be given to students in Virginia to use for tuition and other educational expenses at private institutions.
“Students stuck in schools, because of their ZIP code, deserve a lifeline – not an outdated, one-size-fits-all approach that will hold them back even farther,” Sears wrote.
“By leaving the federal and local funding with public schools, this bill would allow parents to select an education program that best fits the needs or goals of their child – as it should be,” Sears continued. “We must have programs that allow disadvantaged students to thrive academically regardless of their ZIP code. We cannot continue to expect every school to adapt to the unique needs of a student.”
The legislation did not advance during the 2024 session.
“What I think the Winsome Sears team means by choice is vouchers, and vouchers aren’t choice for parents and families at all,” Holton said. “States that have supported vouchers in a big way have taken resources away from public education, and I’m completely confident that an Abigail Spanberger administration would oppose anything that takes resources away from public schools.”
Sears and Youngkin championed opportunity scholarships during the 2025 legislative session — proposing $5,000 grants for low-income families to spend outside the public school system — but the General Assembly ultimately rejected the measure.
In a social media post on Jan. 20, Sears talked about why she supported the legislation.
“All we’re asking for is $50 million for you parents and guardians to decide where to send your children to school,” Sears said. “It doesn’t affect any public school funds. Doesn’t take any money from that.”
Spanberger said she would rather focus on improving public schools when asked if she would support opportunity scholarships.
“At a time when Virginia ranks last in the country in student math recovery and 41st in reading recovery, the reality is clear: we need to focus on strengthening our schools and expanding opportunities for all students, not defunding public schools,” Spanberger said.
Creasey currently serves as the Executive Director of the Virginia Council for Private Education and attended private schools throughout her education. After college, she taught in public schools for 12 years.
She says that growing up in private schools and then working in public schools gives her the perspective needed to realize that public schools cannot provide the necessities for every student.
“It’s just disheartening to me that we cannot recognize that the public system cannot – just can’t – regardless of the amount of money that a governor could throw at the system, it cannot effectively support every single child,” Creasey said.
As for providing options to families, Spanberger touted the school divisions from her former congressional district that were implementing programs within the public school system to help students earn college credit and certifications in expanded areas of learning like the humanities, languages, building trades, hospitality, agriculture, fire services, and pre-nursing.
“As Governor, I will continue to support these programs, knowing the opportunities they provide to students,” Spanberger said. “Additionally, I am a parent of a child in one such specialty program, and my husband and I both graduated from then-nascent specialty programs that drew students from across a county to the programs we attended. Virginia has been an innovator in this space for years — and as Governor, I will continue to work to build on these successes and support localities that wish to develop and expand the opportunities and choices available to students.“
Teacher retention
Virginia began the 2024-2025 school year with around 4,500 teacher vacancies, an increase of around 230 from the previous year.
During a campaign event with supporters in March, Spanberger directly addressed the need to bring qualified teachers into Virginia.
“I hear from parents and community members that they want Virginia to have the strongest public schools in the entire country to ensure that our kids have extraordinary educators in the classroom and that we can face the challenge of recruitment and retention of teachers head on,” she said.
In a statement to Virginia Scope, Spanberger said she will use “proven methods” to help with teacher retention.
“I will work to expand teacher residency and mentorship programs — programs that improve both recruitment and retention of teachers in classrooms and student outcomes,” she said. “I will work to ensure that schools have the support staff — including school counselors — necessary so that teachers may spend their time teaching and kids are getting what they need.”
Creasey says that the new accreditation system will help Virginia schools recruit better teachers.
“Now they know a bigger, broader picture,” Cresey said. “It’s not just that we want you to teach to a test. We want you to be well-rounded in how you present your craft, and we know you can do it. And we want to show you that we’re not simply putting all our eggs into the SOL basket.”
Holton says that the Youngkin administration has pushed a wedge between families and teachers in the commonwealth, making it harder to bring in high-quality teachers.
“From book bans to tip lines to jamming through some of these changes in accountability, it’s been adding stress to teachers’ lives,” Holton said. “It’s been trying to almost deliberately put educators and parents at odds with each other, and that does not help recruit great teachers.”
“Changing the tone from one of driving wedges to one of bringing people together will be a huge step forward on teacher retention,” Holton continued.
Sears did not respond to a question about recruiting and retaining teachers.
Part three of this series, which will examine other important issues in the race, will be available later this week.