Virginia secretary of education Aimee Guidera and Hanover and Norwich school district superintendent Jay Badams clashed over the government’s role in K-12 schooling in a Rockefeller Center for Public Policy event last week.
Approximately 75 people attended the event in Filene Auditorium, which was co-sponsored by the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy, Center for Business, Government and Society at Tuck, Dartmouth Conservatives, Dartmouth Dialogues, Dartmouth Democrats and the Dartmouth Political Union.
Primarily, Badams and Guidera disagreed on who should make decisions within school districts — with Badams advocating for more consolidation of rural districts.
“It would be so helpful,” Badams said. “ ... There’s no reason for all of the districts.”
Guidera, however, believes that “most of the decisions should be happening with the superintendent and his school board and the people in his community.”
“Decisions are best made closer to the people they’re trying to impact,” she said.
The two agreed that the “politicization” of the Common Core State Standards was harmful to students’ learning. Badams specifically pointed to political commentator Glenn Beck, who heavily publicly criticized Common Core, as a driver of the standards’ politicization.
“There was actually a chance that we would depoliticize, get together and make education [the] priority for both parties that it should be,” Badams said. “That has really changed.”
Guidera said academics declined after the Common Core became political because of resultant changes in regulation.
“Because of the reaction, the politicization that happened around Common Core, there was a complete move in the federal law,” Guidera said. “The members of Congress were convinced to limit and reduce the amount of requirements about what states had to do for the accountability system.”
She said these changes were “catastrophic” for Virginia.
“There was an effort at the state level ... lowering the expectations of what was expected of our students to be considered proficient,” Guidera said. “It turns out that systems get the results for which they’re designed.”
The two also disagreed on President Donald Trump’s approach to diversity, equity and inclusion policies in the classroom. Guidera emphasized the importance of recognizing “merit” in education.
“This is something that Governor [Glenn] Youngkin came into office three years ago talking about,” Guidera said. “He talked about it on the campaign trail, and we’ve talked about since day one, the importance of merit, the importance of recognizing effort.”
Badams, however, expressed frustration with recent orders and noted that the district has joined a lawsuit seeking to “clarify” the Trump administration’s efforts.
Julianna Wong ’28 said she attended the event because she wanted to learn more about local government.
“Civic engagement is super important, especially if you’re an underclassman looking to get involved in a new state,” Wong said.
