Article from the Kingsport Times.
Note the highlighted section. Wise County is certainly no exception to this.
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Bolling finds no shortage of ideas in SW Va. tour
Published 04/13/2007 By STEPHEN IGO
WISE - Education, transportation, technology, economic development and fiscal matters provided fertile ground for Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling's "100 Ideas for the Future of Virginia" tour of Southwest Virginia, including a stop at the University of Virginia's College at Wise on Thursday.
Bolling has launched his initiative to get a discourse going with citizens for their ideas for a brighter future for Virginia. One of his visits Thursday was at Cedar Bluff Elementary in Tazewell County, which he attended through third grade.
"They had a lot of great ideas," he said of the students. "You know. Longer recess. No homework. That sort of thing."
The kids of Cedar Bluff are likely to be disappointed. Discussion between citizens and Bolling at UVa-Wise indicated more recess is not a priority and more, not less, homework would probably be a good thing.
Bolling said a German exchange student told him last year that high school in America was much better than in Germany. Bolling said he then made the mistake of asking what made American schools better, and the youth said, "Baseball, football, basketball" and not much of an academic workload.
Bolling said Virginians need to enter "not a critical, but an honest discussion about public education" because most other industrialized nations do a much better job preparing their youth for the global marketplace than America.
He said society must "start thinking outside the box" and mentioned an idea he did not endorse but used as an example, "the 65 percent solution."
Most school divisions have roughly 60 percent of finances devoted to classrooms and 40 percent to the central office, Bolling said, and increasing the academic balance to just 65 percent would free $450 million in Virginia for classrooms.
"It's interesting to see, sometimes, how much of your tax dollars go to the central office rather than classrooms," he said.
There are school divisions in Virginia where more than 50 percent of their budgets are devoted to administrative central office needs, he said.
Those taking the lieutenant governor up on his offer of an ideas chit-chat included Wise County Circuit Court Clerk J. Jack Kennedy and UVa-Wise chemistry professor Walter Crouse. Kennedy said the state needed to promote commercial space flight business opportunities and provide more broadband access to Southwest Virginia.
Crouse said huge investments in more roads create more problems than get solved, and the money - particularly in urban areas like Northern Virginia - would be better invested in mass transit.
Wise County Commonwealth's Attorney Ron Elkins suggested one way to crack down on illicit drug use is for the state to consider laws to crack down on "Internet pharmacies." The biggest drug problem in Southwest Virginia, Elkins said, involves people ordering drugs off the Internet and distributing them. Bolling said Internet drug sales laws as Elkins suggested seemed to have merit and needed a thorough going over by the Virginia attorney general.
Back on education, Kennedy said Wise County may get penalized by the composite index - the formula that decides state funding for school divisions based on a locality's ability to pay - because of a new power plant to be operational in 2012 expected to infuse tax dollars into the county. Bolling said those who wish to tinker with the composite index are playing with fire.
"I am always pretty leery of discussions to change those formulas," Bolling said. "My hunch is it would work to the detriment of rural Virginia."
Issues like what to do with Medicaid will be vital to Virginia's future, Bolling said. It keeps costing more to do less, he said."If we don't get a grip on Medicaid," Bolling said, "it will bankrupt the commonwealth."
For more information on Bolling's initiative or to share ideas visit www.100IdeasVA.com.
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