In a 2-1 ruling, a three-judge panel ruled that parents who send their children to school in the Maryland county are not entitled to a religious exemption allowing them to opt their children out of certain lessons involving LGBT content. The majority was written by a George W. Bush-appointed judge who was joined by a Biden appointee. An appointee of former President Donald Trump dissented in the case.

The lawsuit was brought by a coalition of parents of various faith backgrounds who objected to a series of LGBT storybooks in elementary school classrooms. The school district had granted an opt-out for such lessons but withdrew it in 2023. After a district court ruled against the parents, an appeal was brought to the 4th Circuit, which affirmed the lower court ruling.

In the majority opinion, the court said the parents had failed to provide a sufficient body of evidence to indicate that their children would be subjected to indoctrination that would run contrary to their religious beliefs.

“We understand the Parents’ contention that the Storybooks could be used in ways that would confuse or mislead children and, in particular, that discussions relating to their contents could be used to indoctrinate their children into espousing views that are contrary to their religious faith,” the court said. “But none of that is verified by the limited record that is before us.”

The plaintiffs in the case are represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is already vowing to appeal the court’s ruling.

“The court just told thousands of Maryland parents they have no say in what their children are taught in public schools,” said Eric Baxter, the organization’s vice president and senior counsel. “That runs contrary to the First Amendment, Maryland law, the School Board’s own policies, and basic human decency. Parents should have the right to receive notice and opt their children out of classroom material that violates their faith. We will appeal this ruling.”

The implications of this ruling are dire. Montgomery County Public Schools has explicitly stated that parental rights do not extend to the classroom, even if the classroom instruction violates the religious beliefs of the family. Effectively, the teacher has replaced the parent as the child’s primary educator.

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Public schools are funded with public dollars and are therefore subject to the First Amendment’s protections for the free exercise of religion, a right that includes the ability to raise one’s children according to the tenets of one’s faith.

By siding with the school district, the 4th Circuit panel has spit on this right and raised serious questions about what rights, if any, parents have over their children when they attend public school. The next court that hears this case must reverse this intolerant ruling as soon as possible.

The falling fortunes of marriage and family across the nation can be traced back to cultural shifts (e.g., elite messaging celebrating “me-first” over “family-first” thinking), economic changes (e.g., young men’s eroding position in today’s workforce), and technological shifts (e.g., the ways in which social media discourages us from socializing in person and poison the relations between the sexes).

This is sobering news because we know that no group of men and women is happier now than married mothers and fathers, who are almost twice as likely to be “very happy” with their lives compared to their single, childless peers. In fact, a new study from the University of Chicago indicates the No. 1 reason that happiness rates are falling across the nation is the “decline in the married share of adults.” 

Unfortunately, most of our political and civic leaders have made their peace with the family’s falling fortunes. But there are exceptions, primarily in red states. States such as Utah and Florida, in particular, are trying to revive the fortunes of marriage and family via a range of public and civic initiatives. 

Take Florida. While the Sunshine State has not been untouched by the falling fortunes of marriage and family, with its marriage and fertility rates falling by about one-fifth in the last decade and a half, there are some encouraging policy and civic signs.

First, the state recently passed a $70 million initiative designed to strengthen fatherhood via a public messaging campaign and a range of educational programs across the state. Second, the state legislature also recently passed universal school choice, making Florida “number one when it comes to education freedom and education choice,” with “1.3 million students attending a school of their choosing,” as Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) noted. And finally, DeSantis’s commitment to opening schools as quickly as possible in the wake of COVID-19 was a major sign the state put parents first.

Policies such as these explain why Florida is one of only 10 states that have seen the number of families surge in recent years. In fact, tens of thousands of families with children have migrated to the state in recent years, attracted by DeSantis’s COVID-19 policies, a vibrant economy, low taxes, a good climate, and strong educational options, including universal school choice and unusually affordable public universities.

On the civic side, the state is host to nonprofit groups such as “Live the Life,” an organization dedicated to forging strong and stable marriages across the Sunshine State via relationship education in schools and churches, weekend retreats, and community date night celebrations. The Institute for Family Studies recently evaluated a pilot program by Live the Life in Duval County that worked with local churches and community programs to strengthen marriages in the Jacksonville, Florida, area. The Live the Life program seems to have helped spearhead a 27% reduction in the divorce rate in Duval County in 2015-2017, compared to a state decline of 10% and a national decline of 6% over the same time frame.

Efforts such as these are important because research carried out with my colleague Nicholas Zill indicates that “Florida counties that enjoy strong and stable families also tend to enjoy more successful and safer schools.” Florida also stands to benefit economically and educationally by being one of the few states that demographers project will see continued increases in its population of families with children.

Florida should build on its newfound popularity with families by taking three steps to further strengthen the fortunes of marriage and family across the state. First, the state should launch a marriage initiative that would devote millions to public service announcements, relationship education, and community efforts to both underline the value of marriage to its young adults and equip its currently married couples to succeed. 

Second, Florida public schools should teach the “success sequence,” the idea that young people who graduate from high school, work full-time, and marry before having children are more likely to avoid poverty and be financially successful later in life — a policy item supported by 72% of Floridians. 

Finally, given the negative effects of social media on family life and relationships, the state should require age verification to prevent children 16 and under from accessing social media without explicit permission from their parents. This policy looks constitutionally stronger every day, with the Supreme Court recently declining to block a Texas age verification law from going into effect.

Taking steps such as these could help Florida consolidate its position as one of the nation’s most family-friendly states. And given the importance of marriage and family for that classic American pursuit, “the pursuit of happiness,” Florida could lead other states toward reopening the American heart to marriage and family.

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Brad Wilcox is a professor of sociology and the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, as well as a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization.

Fairfax County’s school board members, however, skipped the vote on the committee’s recommended changes to Virginia’s largest school district’s sex education curriculum — and notably, not for the first time. The school board also refused to act last year when the leftist committee unanimously approved controversial recommendations during the 2022-23 school year shortly before a local election.

Before the November 2023 election, FLECAC advised Fairfax County’s 12 Democratic-endorsed school board members to consider changes to the sex education curriculum, to which the vast majority of parents objected. These recommendations included putting boys and girls together in sex education classes beginning in fourth grade, changing all terms “male/female” in the curriculum to “assigned male/female at birth” and gender identity instruction beginning in fourth grade.

In a survey meant to gauge the community’s reaction to these ridiculous recommendations, 84% of respondents objected. The district’s superintendent, Michelle Reid, responded to the survey at a public work session with dismissal. She said, “Honestly, the majority doesn’t always dictate, right?”

Nearly one year later, after its last 2023-2024 meeting in April, FLECAC submitted a new report requesting that school board members consider its recommendations from last year as well as a few new ones from this academic year.

One of the new recommendations is that children in fourth grade should be subjected to graphic descriptions and images of the genitalia and development of the opposite sex. The advisory committee, in a 9-6 vote, recommended the video “My Changing Life: Puberty for Girls and Boys.” The video contains information intended for both boys and girls about breast growth, menstruation, wet dreams, and erections.

Ultimately, FLECAC advises that our nine-year-olds learn about all of these mature and arguably age-inappropriate topics together in a shared-sex space. Most adults do not want to discuss topics such as nocturnal emissions and menstruation with the opposite sex. Why would we ask children to do this?

This year, the committee members also reiterated their commitment to teaching gender identity to children in elementary school. The report states, “The exclusion of gender identity at the elementary level does not create an environment that is open and accepting of all students or provide a safe space for students to learn about themselves and others.”

This is the reality: The school district intends to shape your children’s perceptions about gender ideology and potentially suggest experimentation, regardless of what the parents believe or think is suitable material in public education. And make no mistake: The only reason the school board has not officially adopted these recommendations is because they are waiting to do so when fewer people are paying attention. 

When Fairfax County’s school board arrived at FLECAC’s overreaching recommendations under new business during its meeting last week, the board’s chairman, Karl Frisch, said, “There will not be a vote on these items this evening. But action is scheduled at a future meeting.”

Frisch did not specify when the board would vote on these recommendations. The mystery surrounding the vote schedule likely is intentional because of the community’s previous rejection of the proposed recommendations. In the past, school board members seem to pass controversial agenda items in the summer months, when families are on vacation and less likely to be paying attention.

Why would our district’s school board members and administrators try to force gender ideology into primary school curriculum and sexualize our young children with images of the opposite sex’s genitalia and puberty journeys?

There is a word for this belligerent push for politicized and sexualized material in early education: grooming. We the parents must remain vigilant and protect our children from abusive government power — and worse.

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Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a contributor for the Washington Examiner, a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network.

The concern isn’t that any particular origin of foreigners is problematic. The worry is that even open, freedom-based nations such as the U.S. need to maintain a common culture to avoid balkanization. At some point, a rush of immigrants overwhelms a nation’s capacity to absorb so many people unfamiliar with the nation’s mores and laws, both through formal processes and through the slower but more organic acculturation driven by a natural desire of immigrants to “fit in.”

As my colleague Conn Carroll noted on Monday, Pew Research reports that “of 24 countries surveyed, adults in the U.S. felt the least connection to their fellow citizens.” As my colleague Tim Carney has written in several books, today’s atomized American culture has led to more pervasive unhappiness and to the breakdown of institutions that, in turn, support not just community but also the economy.

Meanwhile, Peruvian economist Hernando De Soto has made a career of showing that even in many countries with magnificent supplies of natural resources, extreme poverty reigns if the nation lacks a firm commitment to the rule of law and a commitment to property rights, applied with transparency and fairness.

There is a direct, logical connection from the concerns of Carroll, Carney, and De Soto to the anxiety about high foreign-born populations in the U.S. today. Again, it takes quite a while to understand a new culture and sometimes even longer to understand a new land’s thicket of laws and regulations, and the customs pertaining thereto. This is true even for educated immigrants and for those who take the ultimate step of navigating an oft-complicated and lengthy process to become U.S. citizens. If there are too many foreign-born residents, societal systems start breaking down even if most individual immigrants are eager to assimilate.

And if this is true even of legal immigrants and visitors, it is exponentially true for illegal migrants. People whose first act on entering the country involves breaking the country’s laws are hardly likely to acclimate or acculturate readily, much less become net contributors, not burdens, to the commonwealth.

This is why the new numbers are so worrisome. The Center for Immigration Studies reported on May 13 that the foreign-born population in the U.S. grew by 5.1 million just in the past two years, the largest such increase in history. The total number of foreign-born residents, at 51.6 million, and its proportion of the total U.S. population, 15.6%, also reached record highs. Since President Joe Biden took office 39 months ago, the foreign-born population has grown by 6.6 million, of which 3.8 million were illegal.

And it’s not as if most newcomers are productive workers. Less than half of those who have arrived since the beginning of 2022 are employed, and of the more than 2.5 million who are unemployed, only 8% are actively looking for work. Obviously, these numbers are not indicative of these immigrants’ constructive engagement with their new countrymen.

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On the other hand, if the flow of illegal immigrants were slowed to a trickle and if the process of legal immigration and legal visas or work permits were more orderly, streamlined, and purposeful, the U.S. is vibrant and big-hearted enough to accommodate a significant number of new arrivals.

The differences, though, between “significant” and “exorbitant” and between legal and illegal can be the difference between a healthy civic culture and one that is falling apart at the seams.

In a review of Haidt’s book, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan wrote, “What we all know is that there’s a mental health crisis among the young, that they seem to have become addicted to social media and gaming, and that these two facts seem obviously connected. Mr. Haidt says, and shows, that the latter is a cause of the former. … He tells the story of what happened to Generation Z, which he defines as those born after 1995. … This became ‘the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, unstable and … unsuitable for children and adolescents.’”

A plethora of harms has arisen as a result of the social media phenomenon, including increased rates of depression in both girls and boys and a rise in anxiety disorders. 

There’s no doubt that the youth mental health crisis is caused in part by children’s access to phones and screens. And it surely doesn’t help that tech platforms can expose children and teenagers to online predators and sextortion threats, along with vile and harmful content.

The solutions for solving this generational crisis don’t fall only on parents to help or protect their children, though they, of course, have an important role to play. Children cannot navigate this online world by themselves, and they shouldn’t be expected to.

But the companies designing these platforms and the algorithms that have been programmed to attract children and keep them returning are equally, if not more so, responsible.

Meta, for example, finally decided in recent months to blur sexually explicit content by default on Instagram direct messaging for accounts of teenagers under age 18. Given that children and teenagers can be severely affected and harmed by viewing sexually explicit content, Meta’s decision is a positive step in child protection. But it is surprising it has taken this long for Meta to enact these commonsense safeguards. Of course, it also underscores the point that Meta can block anything it wants in the name of child protection if it chooses to.

And this is why Congress must weigh in to ensure the tech industry is held accountable for protecting its youngest users. There are several bills that would do just that, including the Kids Online Safety Act, Children and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act, the EARN IT Act, and the Kids Off Social Media Act. Without accountability, the tech industry simply won’t have the incentive to make changes.

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But even with legislative accountability, our culture’s acceptance of smartphones and increased screen time must change. The reality is that while parents may know there’s a risk with giving teenagers and children access to online worlds, it may just seem part of life. New research from Ofcom found that “three in 10 parents were willing to let a child aged 5-7 have a social media profile even if it was under the minimum age permitted for the apps, an increase compared to last year.” The same research found that the “percentage of children aged between five and seven who used messaging services had risen from 59% to 65%.”

The tide must change regarding our children’s reliance on screen time. Future generations deserve to grow up free from the harmful impact of screens.

Melissa Henson is the vice president of the Parents Television and Media Council, a nonpartisan education organization advocating responsible entertainment. Follow her on X: @ThePTC.

I was 13 years old and was serving as the senior patrol leader and boy leader of the entire troop. Our troop was at our annual weeklong summer camp, and it was near dinner time, when all of the troops would line up on the parade grounds for the evening colors ceremony.

While most members of my troop were at our campsite waiting for me to lead them in the march to the parade ground and have dinner, I was enjoying myself in a pickup game of three-on-three basketball with some boys from other troops. As I was missing in action, and since growing boys at summer camp eat like they are half-starved, my assistant senior patrol leader filled in for me and led the troop to the parade grounds.

Now, the basketball court was right next to the parade grounds, so my scoutmaster saw me playing basketball as the troop made its way to the site. He walked over to me and, without embarrassing me in front of the troop, reminded me that as the senior patrol leader, I had certain leadership responsibilities that meant I could not be off playing basketball while the troop was preparing to go to dinner. In taking the role of the leader of the troop, I had sacrificed the ability to do as I pleased, because the other boys were relying on me to lead them. This small lesson in leadership, born from the short attention span of a teenager, has stuck with me since and exemplified to me just how the Boy Scouts of America has helped create great leaders of strong moral character for a century.

On Tuesday, the Boy Scouts of America announced that it was rebranding to “Scouting America,” while severing itself from the 114-year tradition that made it the most highly respected youth leadership organization in the country for a century. In many ways, this renaming is the culmination of a decadelong project to remake the organization from a culturally conservative one into a cesspool of woke ideology.

In a video interview with the Associated Press, BSA president Roger Krone said the organization was rebranding because “in the next 100 years, we want any youth in America to feel very, very welcome to come into our programs.”

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I earned my Eagle Scout award in 2013, the year before the organization lifted a supposed ban on gay scouts. In 2015, the organization lifted a ban on gay leaders that had previously been the subject of a Supreme Court case. And, in 2018, the Boy Scouts of America dropped all pretenses of being an organization dedicated exclusively to forming young men as the leaders of tomorrow as it completely changed the makeup of the organization by allowing girls to participate for the first time.

Today, this organization is but a shadow of what it once was. Membership has plummeted, and widespread sexual abuse claims pushed the organization into bankruptcy. A rebrand won’t cover its failures to live by the values it professes as this once-great organization continues to die a slow and painful death by wokeness.

Still, though it is rare, homelessness is a devastating condition. Homelessness is strongly associated with poverty and early death. There is a 60% increase in mortality associated with homelessness. Almost 50% of the homeless have formal employment in the year when they don’t have shelter.  Homelessness occurs most often because of long-term economic deprivation, not a large sudden loss of income. The homeless have low incomes, leaving them vulnerable to the loss of shelter when they encounter even small disruptions to their economic circumstance.

Research also shows that mental illness, including addictions to drugs or alcohol or both, drives homelessness. Over 70% of the homeless population suffers from some form of mental illness disorder. This speaks to something: homelessness is largely a public health matter, not an economic issue. 

State and local government struggle to deal with homelessness. California, with its vast wealth, is home to 30% of the country’s homeless. California spends about $50,000 a year on each homeless person.  That is an extraordinary amount even in the context of shelter inflation in San Francisco where the median rent for a one room apartment costs in excess of $1,300 a month, or $15,600 a year. 

The U.S. Supreme Court just heard oral arguments in a case regarding the authority of local governments to regulate homeless encampments. The specific issue at hand is: “whether the enforcement of generally applicable laws regulating camping on public property constitutes ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.” The defendants in City of Grants Pass v Gloria Johnson argue that the city of Grants Pass cannot outlaw homeless encampments because homelessness is a state of being, a “status,” similar to addiction.

In the 1962 case, Robinson v. California, the infamously liberal Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren, found “that it is unconstitutional for a state to punish a defendant for drug addiction, which is a status rather than an act, when the defendant has not engaged in any illegal conduct involving drugs in the state.” In plain language, a person could not be punished for being addicted to drugs. 

But in Grants Pass, homelessness is not being punished by the city. The city is trying to control homeless encampments in the interest of public health and safety.  Homeless encampments are a health hazard. They are a public nuisance, just as a factory spewing toxic chemicals is a health hazard and a public nuisance. No one would argue that Grants Pass could not regulate a factory producing carcinogenic chemicals.  The evidence is beyond doubt that homeless encampments are plagued by drug addiction, crime, and increased health risks.

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A local government has the duty and the right to protect its citizens.

Government already has sufficient funds to address homelessness and mental health.  Local governments have the right under the U.S. system of federalism, to allocate resources as they choose.  There is no constitutional right to shelter.  The Supreme Court will not create yet another economic entitlement.

James Rogan is a former U.S. foreign service officer who later worked in finance and law for 30 years. He writes a daily note.

Like many people across the country, parents in that district have awoken to the public school teachers’ and administrators’ efforts to politically indoctrinate their children from an early age. Fortunately, parents were paying attention and there was an outcry in the district that forced the school to cancel the ridiculous lesson.

The DeWitt incident and the many others like it in public schools across the nation are symptomatic of the decline in educational standards in America. No longer do public schools focus on foundational concepts that will help students achieve basic literacy and mathematical proficiency. Instead, they cultishly “teach” sociopolitical viewpoints from the very beginning of the children’s public school education.

Leftist activists in public schools try to teach these gender identity concepts to our children as though they are socially accepted facts. In reality, in case it needs to be clarified, men cannot have babies, and the pronoun they/them for a single person is grammatically incorrect. Also, the large majority of people don’t believe any of this ideology and agree that gender is determined by sex at birth. The vast majority of parents are not on board with the government telling our children otherwise.

There are many basic things our taxpayer-funded schools should be — but are not — teaching students instead, such as how to read. In Kentucky, for example, where Democratic leaders including Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) have tried to kill school choice measures, just 47% of Kentucky’s elementary school children are proficient in reading, in comparison to 45% proficiency the year prior. Fifty-three percent of Kentucky’s children cannot read at grade level. Yet Beshear has held up these statistics as supposed proof that Kentucky’s public schools are succeeding. 

When a 53% literacy rate is something to brag about, parents rightfully search for alternative educational avenues for their children.

So it is not surprising that the share of children ages 5 to 17 enrolled in Kentucky’s public schools dropped by almost 8 percentage points from 2012 to 2022. 

Meanwhile, data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that, nationally, the decrease of public school enrollment over the same time period was 4 percentage points despite the growth in overall population. Across the nation, 87% of children were enrolled in public school in 2022, compared to 90.7% in 2012. Families clearly are in search of something better for their children’s education.

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There are many other metrics to demonstrate that public schools are failing academically. Recent findings from the Economist reveal that, in addition to problems of grade inflation, our standards for public school graduation have depreciated significantly. As graduation rates have increased from 74% to 87% between 2007 and 2020, the average SAT scores have substantially decreased. In other words, while public schools are indoctrinating our children, they are in tandem provably sacrificing educational standards to inflate grades and public high school graduation rates.

With such low standards for public education, is it any wonder so many families are fleeing the public school system?  

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a contributor for the Washington Examiner, a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network.

That experience, while widespread, is less and less the norm. An increasing number of families are opting out of traditional public schools, enrolling their children in charter and private schools or taking up some form of homeschooling. Only Rhode Island and Delaware saw an increase in the percentage of students enrolled in traditional public schools in the 2022-2023 school year. The numbers fell in all of the other 48 states. 

These statistics result from several national trends. Many parents are frustrated by the quality of education their children would receive in local public schools. In some places, this point is about attempts at indoctrinating progressive views as part of the mandated curriculum or from particular teachers’ decisions in the classroom. 

Parents also object to the usual approach taken more generally by our public schools in educating. Much of the effort focuses on preparing young persons for future employment. While a worthy and needed goal, our children are more than their potential contribution to the country’s gross domestic product. As humans, they have minds and hearts. Their minds need to be cultivated to know truth and to discern good over evil. Their hearts need habituation in virtue, learning to love what is true and good — not just knowing they exist. Most importantly, they possess souls that need to be nurtured and directed toward the eternal things.

Finally, parents simply want more say in their children’s education so they can have greater influence regarding these other priorities. More states have now passed measures giving these mothers and fathers easier ways to participate in and make decisions about how their children learn. These new measures include 10 states now providing essentially universal school choice, usually with funding essential to many families to make non-public school options affordable. 

These are all good and helpful measures. However, those seeking to reform education cannot stop at school choice. At least for the foreseeable future, most students will receive their education in public schools. The charter, homeschool, and private options will continue to grow but remain a decided minority. 

What we need, then, is a plan for reforming public schools, too, building off the good that already exists in local areas and instituting policies to renew where needed. 

Some states are addressing these needs already. States are setting up new standards for what is taught in public schools, drawing on fine new curriculums developed to enhance how we teach various subjects. I see this growth especially in my own field, where better approaches to teaching America’s political and social history hold much promise for the future. 

Some states, such as Florida, are also giving parents greater access to and voice regarding curricula used in the classroom. If approached properly, these efforts should push schools and parents toward establishing better cooperative relationships around the common goal of adequate, even excellent, education for our youth. 

Thus we should neither celebrate too much nor despair too greatly about the recent drops in public school enrollment. We should see the numbers and their underlying trends as both challenges and opportunities. Our education system needs to be remade to accommodate 21st-century needs and to honor timeless truths and practices. 

If we do this right, then generations to come will be indebted to us for providing renewed ways of learning. These children will have the chance to learn what it means to be a human being and a citizen. And they will have the opportunity for a better life. Those are worthy goals toward which we, together, must strive.

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Adam Carrington is an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College.

The board is currently considering a budget that would increase taxes, on average, another $524 per household in 2025. This is notably on the heels of the excessively generous pay raises the board offered themselves last year. Chairman Jeff McKay, for example, voted in favor of his nearly 40% annual salary increase — from $100,000 to $138,283 — which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2024. He also has a taxpayer-funded vehicle.

According to the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance, since fiscal 2000, property taxes have increased three times higher than household income. The increase in tax burden is making Fairfax County less affordable each year — but not for people such as McKay, apparently, who can just raise his own salary. In fiscal 2025, the average household tax in the county will be $8,700.

More than half of the county’s revenue goes to its public schools. But looking at test scores, Fairfax County’s taxpayers are not getting a good return on their investment. In 2023, 25% of the district’s students failed their math standards of learning test, 22% failed reading, 43% failed writing, and 38% failed history.

Clearly, throwing money at the district’s education problem — learning loss caused by closing the schools for more than a year — does not solve it. But that doesn’t seem to stop the overpaid district administrators from asking for more. This year’s proposed budget for Fairfax County Public Schools is $3.8 billion — an increase of 8.6% from last year.

The county is paying for a rising number of administrators who are not even in the classrooms with our children, not to mention astronomical legal fees for the district’s negligence and leftist activism. The superintendent’s annual salary is $380,000, which is more than twice Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R-VA) salary and more than anyone in the federal Department of Education is paid.

Despite the school district’s inflated administrative salaries and flagrant spending, Fairfax County’s Board of Supervisors has not demanded an external audit of the school board’s budget. To Fairfax residents, it appears that they just send over the money without question, and then bill the taxpayers.

When Fairfax residents waited for hours and then stood in front of the members of their local council to share the burdens of this tax abuse, many of the board members couldn’t be bothered to listen. The mother holding her infant boldly called out their indifference. During her testimony, she said, “I see a lot of you are glancing at your cellphones or whatever else is on your screens. However, I have now sat here for an hour and a half, and I would like your attention while I’m speaking.” 

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Following the budget hearings, a journalist approached McKay for questioning at his office about whether or not he would vote again for tax increases. McKay walked away without comment. The journalist then asked his chief of staff, Clayton Medford, if McKay would make time to speak about the budget. Medford replied with a simple “No.”

It appears that McKay was hiding in his office to avoid justified scrutiny from his constituents and questions from the press. But being an ostrich won’t help to solve the county’s budget woes. Fairfax residents need real leadership, budget reform, and fiscal accountability.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a contributor for the Washington Examiner, a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network.