Gerard Robinson was appointed Secretary of Education for the Commonwealth of Virginia by Governor Bob McDonnell in January 2010. On May 14, he was the principal speaker at the commencement exercises of Piedmont Virginia Community College in Albemarle County, along with student speaker Joshua Mlcoch.
Robinson is himself a community college graduate who went on to earn degrees at Howard and Harvard universities. Before taking on his responsibilities with the Virginia Department of Education, he was president of the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO), described in the PVCC graduation program as “a national nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose mission is to actively support parental choice to empower families and to increase quality education options for Black children.”
During the reception following the graduation ceremony, as a threatening storm approached PVCC’s hilltop campus from the west, Secretary Robinson spoke briefly with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about school choice and other education issues facing Virginia.
School Choice
With regard to improving prospects for school choice, “in this last legislative session, we took three steps in the right direction,” Robinson said.
“We strengthened the charter school law that we currently have; we introduced legislation to create college laboratory schools; and we’re going to strengthen the virtual school market. So, those are three steps in the right direction for parental options in the Commonwealth.”
In response to a question that characterized Virginia’s charter school law as one of the weakest in the United States, Robinson said, “It’s stronger today than it was 180 days ago.”
Charter Schools
Expanding on that answer, Robinson added: “There are three things we’ve done:
“Number one, if you are a charter school applicant, your application will go” first to the Department of Education. “ That’s good,” he explained, “because it gives someone removed from the local school area a chance to vet the first application [and] identify the strengths and the weaknesses.
“Number two, once it makes its way to the local level, if it’s denied, you now have an opportunity to receive technical assistance from [the state] superintendent’s office, which hadn’t happened before. I can tell you, as a charter school founder and authorizer, having someone with technical expertise is just great.”
And number three, Robinson concluded, “if your application isn’t approved, we’re going to put it on line. As the secretary, I can identify the strengths or weaknesses across the state, as to where we are weak, where we’re strong, and where there’s a need.”
Future Reforms
In terms of other education reforms that Robinson anticipates in the next four years, he first pointed toward the “next four months” because “we have a higher education commission that the governor is supporting. The whole goal there is to talk more about how to innovate, reform, and invest in higher ed. That’s going to take place in the next four months.”
In the longer term, through the rest of the McDonnell administration, Robinson wants to focus on “making sure that parents have options; that we identify, reward, and keep some of our great teachers and principals; [and that we] try to find ways of creating new, innovative models for the delivery of education [while] making sure that we provide the type of resources for the traditional schools that we have that have been really great, and also reach out to other communities to help” them improve their situations.
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