Mark Wolfe, who has been a member of the city council since 2008, is hoping to get re-elected May 1. His top priority? Education.
Wolfe, a 22-year resident of the city, has said that without decent schools, new businesses and new residents will not be attracted to the area. This will affect home sales and ultimately taxes.
"With low achievement scores, families with choice will choose not to move to a community. And employers will follow suit. The result becomes stagnation in property values and a loss of non-residential tax revenue. This leads to ever rising property taxes and a decline in quality of life and government services, the death spiral of a community," Wolfe, who owns and operates a Manassas-based company, wrote in a letter to InsideNova.com. "We must stop this from happening and we can."
Wolfe was instrumental in bringing the issue of the city's lagging schools to the forefront by helping form the, which consists of three council members (Mark Wolfe, Andrew Harrover and Sheryl Bass) and three school board members (Pam Sebesky, Vice Chair Arthur Bushnell and Tim Demeria).
The committee was formed to address and the
"The school board is responsible for the management of our schools. But as councilman I have taken the lead," Wolfe wrote. "I pushed for the creation of the Education Forward committee that is working to identify ."
These ideas will further be
The committee held its first meeting one year ago, and during the current budget process, recommended. Students would normally pay about $300-$400 to take about four AP tests. Wolfe also supported Manassas Next 2.0 that funded math and robotics curriculum.
Wolfe has previously served on the Manassas Business Council, Board of Zoning Appeals and Board of Equalization. He currently serves as chairman for the Prince William County Arts Council and as volunteer executive director for the , a position that has raised questions about how the city funds non-profits and the arts. The local ballet receives monetary contribution from the city, including $18,000 in the proposed city council's FY 2013 budget.
There's a better Education Forward Public Input event happening the next day - the Election. The election of three new, highly qualified board members Ellen Purdy, Ilka Chavez, and Charles Sutherland would be great way to get the word out to the rest of the world that Manassas takes it schools seriously and is committed to tossing out its bad rap and going forward with a new commitment to excellence and student success.
We're not talking about four or five students, we're talking about a school board which is trying to skew the WPost rating system, flawed as it may be, by injecting a significant number of kids/students into the results, let's not lie to ourselves as a community. Let's not allow the politicians to manipulate us and our children with door prizes paid for with our money so that they can spend more and more of our money without taking care of the basic tasks they were elected to do.
Don't kid youself into thinking that special needs kids are getting the focus - I can assure you they are NOT.
The skewering of the ranking system will be accomplished by having more kids from Osbourn take the AP tests, the rankings are based on the number of students taking the AP tests not necessarily passing them. Once again Manassas students are treated more like wards of the school system rather than students on a mission to excel and succeed.
The WaPo results this year will not reflect the changes to the AP testing as this years AP testing (with tests being paid for by schools) is done after the rankings are done. We will have to wait until next year to see the results. I believe the schools should pay for these tests so the students get the credit they deserve for their hard work. It is our way of supporting that portion of the student population who take these classes. Equal access for everyone. And Melinda, the only students getting the focus right now are ESL...it's just the wrong focus. Every student is getting shafted as the system stands now.
We already support these students who take these classes. They aren't taking those classes out on the street. Why not some outside funding source, fund raising drive, corporate sponsorship (maybe some of the money given to Councilman Wolfe's Ballet company can be redirected to the students by Mr Wolfe), or how about sitting down with the WPost and suggesting some ways for the rankings to be more statistically sensible?
We should be concerned about our school rankings and test scores because most people investigate school systems prior to purchasing a home. If I were buying a home I wouldn't but in a district where a school is ranked 174 of 184 schools.
Spoken like a true central planner. Individuals must sacrifice their rights for the greater good. Bike paths are for the greater good; therefore your property rights are void. Cindy you're a contractor for the City, please take your head out of the lala land of bike path nirvana and realize that one of the questions the residents have raised: "Are contractors involved in pushing this path? " makes your comments somewhat unkosher. I'm sure the Chief of Police and the crime prevention specialist are well intentioned, as you are, in their support of the generic benefits of bike paths, but they would be stretching the credibility of their professional expertise if they were to assert that the resident's concerns were unfounded.
At the end of the day Manassas residents must choose the leaders they believe in, and this week the voters spoke loud and clear: Mark Wolfe received more votes than any other candidate for city council. There must be enough good that he has done that brought so much support at this election. We respect that, and look forward to working with him over the next few years.