In that race, Republican Glenn Youngkin upset national expectations to seize the governorship, with a raft of GOP challengers riding his coattails to both statewide office and a new majority in the House of Delegates. Their victories were powered by growing discontentment with then-President Biden, but also backlash to local education moves ranging from to on gifted education.

Those results, among the first signs of the tumult that would come to define the Biden era, were flipped this time around. Virginia Democrats racked up commanding margins up and down the ballot, with U.S. Rep Abigail Spanberger’s gubernatorial win accompanied by in the legislature. The part of unpopular incumbent president was played by Donald Trump, in the state helped sink Republican candidates. 

What’s not certain is whether Spanberger and her party have won back public trust on the issue of K–12 schools — or whether they intend to roll back portions of the far-reaching education agenda enacted during Youngkin’s time in office. The outgoing governor has shepherded the adoption of a new school accountability system, raised cut scores for proficiency on federally mandated exams, and revamped the state’s academic standards in history, math, English, and computer science. Some of his initiatives have won support from across the political aisle, but resistance from some educators and progressives could tempt the ascendant Democrats to reverse others. 

One of of the U.S. House, Spanberger struck a cautious tone in laying out her education proposals during the campaign. Among the top priorities is a commitment to upholding academic rigor by making student outcomes more transparent to families. But with educators already to and of the newly implemented accountability framework, she could find herself presiding over a turbulent majority for the next several years. 

Andrew Rotherham, a longtime player in Virginia’s policy scene who was appointed by Youngkin to a seat on the state board of education in 2022, said that by piloting a successful recovery from post-pandemic learning loss, Spanberger could find her way to “a national leadership role” in the future, perhaps on her party’s presidential ticket. 

“She’s someone who’s looking at 2028,” Rotherham said. “Her national imperatives actually line up pretty well with what’s good for kids, but she’ll be under a lot of political pressure.”

Representatives of Spanberger did not respond to a request for comment.

Unified control over a blue state will reflect on Democrats nationally as much as Spanberger herself. Beyond tackling school assessment and improvement, the party will have to confront questions that weren’t yet on the agenda the last time it captured the governor’s mansion: how to infuse literacy instruction with lessons from the science of reading, how to counter burgeoning demand for private school choice programs that have been established in other states, and how to decisively reclaim K–12 education as a winning issue for the center-left. showed that Spanberger beat her Republican opponent by just 10 points among voters who listed schools as their most important issue, compared with a yawning 63-point advantage among those listing healthcare and a 27-point edge with economy-focused Virginians

Democratic State Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, a high school teacher who sits on his chamber’s education committee, applauded legislation passed over the last few years to improve literacy instruction and revamp state testing. The Spanberger administration should aim to carry out those goals and focus on lifting student performance, he added.

“What their priority needs to be, and what our priority needs to be, is continuing the work we’ve done,” he said.

New accountability system

The state of Virginia schools came under national scrutiny early in Youngkin’s tenure, when a series of indicators revealed significant declines in K–12 learning.

The 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress, a nationally representative exam commonly referred to as “the Nation’s Report Card,” showed that fourth-graders in Virginia lost some of the most ground in math and reading of students in any state over the previous three years, even amid a national crash in scores precipitated by the pandemic. estimated the learning losses as roughly five months of reading instruction and nearly a full academic year of math instruction. Pass rates , the state’s mandated annual exam, also lagged far below pre-pandemic levels.

Although much of the blame for the swoon to COVID-related school closures, the new administration argued that its origins lay in the dilution of academic expectations under the previous Democratic governor, Ralph Northam. In at Gov. Youngkin’s request, the state’s department of education argued that slumping student achievement had preceded COVID’s emergence by several years, but was masked by the lowering of cut scores for proficiency on state tests in 2019 and 2021; strikingly, that decision was reached around the country were raising their own proficiency bars. 

Many state Democrats the report, dismissing it as a racist “dog-whistle,” but Youngkin’s campaign to revisit the cut scores and build — the existing one gave the vast majority of schools good marks, even as student scores had plummeted — . Todd Truitt, a Democrat and father of two school-aged children in northern Virginia, said the state’s academic standards just a few years ago were “pretty much alone at the bottom.”

“There was a definite lowering of standards, objectively,” observed Truitt, of much of Youngkin’s K–12 program even while supporting Spanberger and her party this cycle.

After several years of design work, a new accountability framework was adopted in 2024 that made substantial changes to existing regulations, including by reversing a policy that allowed schools to leave the academic performance of English learners out of their state ratings data . Legislation to delay the new system’s implementation when several Democrats crossed party lines to help kill the measure. In the months leading up to this fall’s elections, the Virginia Board of Education to significantly raise proficiency cut scores on state exams.

Rotherham said at the March meeting when the vote was held that he and his colleagues intended to “dramatically raise standards in this state and report more honestly to parents.”

Sen. VanValkenburg, one of the Democrats who voted against delaying the adoption of the new accountability system, praised local lawmakers for their work on the issue, pointing to that passed unanimously in the state legislature in 2022. His own legislation to modernize state tests also attracted widespread support in both parties and became law this spring.

In the past few years, VanValkenburg said, “a lot of movement on education” has been achieved. “Some of it’s been Democratic-led, some of it’s been Republican-led, but a lot of it has been bipartisan.”

The ‘honesty gap’

After the blue wave in last week’s elections, Gov.-elect Spanberger and her allies will have little need of bipartisanship over the next few years.

In addition to winning all the state’s topline races, Democrats stormed to in the House of Delegates. Their margin in the 40-member state Senate is still a slim 21-19, but unified control over Richmond will allow the party to take the lead in future debates over schools. 

Spanberger will largely determine the order of operations. Her public roadmap for education policy not just the implementation of tougher school accountability measures, but also changes to state tests “to ensure that parents and educators have the best information possible to improve student performance.” 

How her fellow partisans regard those commitments is somewhat hazy: Most Senate Democrats voted to put off enacting the new accreditation system — an idea by then-Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, who has since been elected to serve as Spanberger’s lieutenant governor. What’s more, leaders in several major districts have the new framework as on public schools.

Yet support for higher standards is considered likely to hold steady. Denise Forte, a nationally known education advocate who leads the civil rights-focused EdTrust, the system as a means of closing the “honesty gap.” While not offering a firm statement backing the accountability push, Spanberger that “accountability is vital to ensuring that our kids are learning.”

Progressives may instead turn to school finance reform, another of the new governor’s priorities. Democrats in the legislature have spent much of the last two years wrangling with Youngkin over more funding for schools, to send nearly a quarter of a billion dollars to local districts to cover the costs of hiring new staff. One of the wealthiest states in the nation, Virginia as 33rd overall in per-pupil spending. 

Rotherham said Spanberger would have the opportunity to build her national profile by focusing on updating the state’s school funding formula and remaking the Standards of Learning exams to make their results more legible to families.Ìę

“Politically, she could say, ‘We weren’t there yet, and I took it to the next level.’ That would be a compelling story to tell.”

Disclosure: Andrew Rotherham served on the Virginia Board of Education from 2022 to 2025. He also sits on Âé¶čŸ«Æ·â€™s board of directors. He played no role in the reporting or editing of this article. 

Âé¶čŸ«Æ· contributor Chad Aldeman worked as a consultant on Virginia’s new accountability framework. He played no role in the reporting or editing of this article.

The Fairfax and Arlington school districts in Virginia sued Education Secretary Linda McMahon Friday over her move to classify them as “high-risk” over their transgender policies.

Their complaint noted that the additional oversight of spending came just two days after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in a , reaffirmed its ruling in Grimm v. Gloucester County Board of Education, which gives trans students the right to use restrooms that align with their gender identity.Ìę

That decision “remains the law in Northern Virginia as well as the rest of the Circuit,” they wrote.ÌęÌę

In a statement, Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Michele Reid called the lawsuit a step toward ensuring “that hungry children are fed and that student access to multilingual, special education, and other essential services is not compromised.”

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has tried since 2022 to get the suburban D.C. school districts in his state to end their policies accommodating transgender students.

Last week, the Trump administration offered considerable firepower to his cause when it announced it would require the five districts to justify every dollar they spend in order to receive federal funding. In a stern , Education Secretary Linda McMahon said Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William — the five northernmost districts closest to the nation’s capital  — are “choosing to abide by woke gender ideology in place of federal law.” 

But even as McMahon placed them on “high-risk” status, their leaders policies that allow students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity, meaning the Republican governor might leave office in January without accomplishing his goal.

Grace Turner Creasy, president of the Virginia Board of Education, said it’s “anyone’s guess” whether the department’s move will change the outcome. District leaders say they are following state law and the most current federal court opinion on the issue. 

The state’s position on the matter might also shift in the next few months with Youngkin ineligible to run again in November. Democrat Abigail Spanberger, who is , hasn’t addressed the controversy, while  Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears has , much as Youngkin did in 2021 when he appealed to parents angry over pandemic school closures and “critical race theory.” 

The department’s action against the Virginia districts is part of an effort by President Donald Trump to force states and districts to comply with his stating that the federal government only recognizes two sexes. Following that move in January, the Education Department said it wouldn’t enforce the Biden-era Title IX rule, which expanded protections for transgender students.

On Thursday, Trump to pull all federal funding from “any California school district that doesn’t adhere to our Transgender policies.” The administration is already suing and on trans students’ participation in women’s sports. 

The conflict with the Virginia districts has been building since February when the department launched a probe into their policies. In July, officials found them in and gave them 10 days to change their rules and “adopt biology-based definitions of the words ‘male’ and ‘female’ in all practices and policies relating to Title IX.”

They refused, and with roughly $50 million for low-income students, special education and other programs at risk, last week’s move escalated the dispute to a new level.  

“You’re going to continue to see the Trump administration put 
 pressure in a variety of ways that affect funding. It feels like all options are on the table,” said W. Scott Lewis, managing partner with TNG Consulting, which trains districts across the country on Title IX. He added that where the Education Department directs its enforcement “may vary by state, depending on gubernatorial and state house control.”

‘Totally atypical’

The penalty is severe, experts said. The high-risk label is usually reserved for districts or states in serious financial trouble. 

In 2006, the Education Department slapped that designation on the for mismanaging money, including federal grants and charter school funds.

In another example, the Michigan Department of Education placed the in high-risk status after a found the district misused over $53 million. The district spent Title I funds, for example, on equipment and building improvements the state didn’t approve, paid vendors more than the amount of their contracts and couldn’t produce invoices and receipts for multiple transactions. The district remained under federal oversight for five years. 

In this case, the added layer of scrutiny isn’t because of suspected mismanagement of the grant funds themselves; it’s an ideological disagreement. David DeSchryver, senior vice president of Whiteboard Advisors, a consulting firm, called the action “totally atypical in terms of scale.”

With the school year just starting, the question is whether any “new hurdles” might slow down the reimbursement process, said Dan Adams, spokesman for the Loudoun County Public Schools. In a statement, the Virginia Department of Education said it “will closely scrutinize any future requests” for funding. 

At least one of the five superintendents, Arlington’s Francisco DurĂĄn, told the public at a that he’s prepared to take legal action if the district’s funding is challenged. 

But conservatives view McMahon’s approach as accountability for districts that are defying the president. 

“By refusing to reverse your reckless policies, you are failing our daughters and risking losing millions of dollars in funding,” Earle-Sears said at Arlington’s board meeting. “As governor, I will not stand by while political correctness tramples over science, fairness and safety.”

The district has faced criticism over in which a registered sex offender identifying as a transgender woman used a women’s locker room at Washington Liberty High School. The school’s indoor pool is open to the public after school hours, and DurĂĄn said officials were unaware the person was a registered offender. 

Ginny Gentiles, an Arlington parent and a school choice expert at the conservative Defense of Freedom Institute, said the districts are “clinging to activist-drafted policies that allow males to self-ID into female spaces,” but that she hopes officials will listen to those concerned about women’s and girls’ safety.

She urged community members to closely monitor expenditures.

“School board leaders clearly intend to spend taxpayer dollars on inevitable court cases and likely expensive legal fees,” she said. 

Earle-Sears also joined on Wednesday, where district officials threatened to suspend two boys for sexual harassment and sex discrimination. They complained last spring when a student identifying as a trans boy used the locker room to change and videotaped them.

‘Federal overreach’

Some observers say the battle between Washington and its neighboring districts is more than a culture war. Kristen Amundson, a former Democratic state lawmaker and Fairfax County school board member, said the administration is trying to exert control over blue cities. 

“This is not about trans kids; this is about federal overreach,” she said. She cited patrolling Washington and of the Kennedy Center Honors as further examples. “Do you see the pattern here?”

The impasse also comes at a difficult time for the state’s Republicans, which tend to elect governors from the party that’s . Northern Virginia already votes predominantly blue, and residents, Amundson said, are especially angry at Washington. 

“They have seen thousands of parents lose their jobs” because of and “parents snatched off the streets” in , she said. 

For Earle-Sears, a , the debate over trans students is a key campaign issue. In contrast, Spanberger, who has three school-age daughters, has an focused on improving instruction in public schools and addressing teacher shortages. 

Anne Holton, former secretary of education under Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, called the issue a distraction “from the issues that parents really care about,” like employing high-quality teachers and preparing kids well for college or a career. 

For now, districts say they are complying with the . Enacted in 2020, it allows anyone to use facilities that align with their gender identity.  In addition, the Trump administration’s policies, they say, conflict with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit’s opinion in Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board. 

That’s been their position since 2022, when Youngkin issued stating that students must use bathrooms and locker rooms that match the sex they were assigned at birth. A year later, Jason Miyares, the state’s attorney general, that the governor’s rules didn’t violate state or federal anti-discrimination laws. Yet district policies remain unchanged.

In Grimm, the court ruled that the district’s transgender bathroom ban was unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2021 in that case. In its upcoming term, the Supreme Court will hear lawsuits from West Virginia and Idaho that test whether states can ban transgender girls from competing in female sports.

Those cases “will further clarify Title IX’s application,” Arlington’s DurĂĄn said at last week’s board meeting. “But in the meantime, our policy will remain in place in alignment with state and federal law, and we are prepared to defend it and our federal funding if challenged.” 

was originally reported by Mel Leonor Barclay of .Ìę

During a recent campaign stop in central Virginia on a sweltering afternoon, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger drew the most energized reaction from the crowd after telling the audience that aside from tackling the high cost of living, her focus as governor would be on ensuring Virginia has “the best public schools in the nation.”

Four years ago, Republican Glenn Youngkin won an upset victory for the state’s highest office by turning his attention to education: Youngkin’s “Parents Matter” rallies stoked frustration at pandemic-era school closures and masking rules, railed against how schools were teaching students about race and LGBTQ+ issues and promised to expand alternatives to traditional public schools. Youngkin lambasted the state’s test scores, and turned the inclusion of transgender kids in schools into a political lightning rod.

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Youngkin’s message gave him an edge in Democratic strongholds around Northern Virginia, and while that region remains solidly blue for Democrats, data shows Trump and Republicans have held onto sizable gains there since the 2020 election. It also turbocharged Republicans’ war against diversity, equity and inclusion by putting kids at the center.

Now, as Spanberger campaigns to retake Virginia’s top office for Democrats, her strategy on public education could offer a playbook for a party that political analysts say has struggled to come up with a clear agenda to counter Republicans’ messaging. Her performance will help shape her party’s stance heading into the 2026 midterms, much like Youngkin’s election did for Republicans in 2021.

The Virginia governor’s race between Spanberger and Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears is one of the only competitive statewide contests on the calendar this year and will be closely watched as a referendum on President Donald Trump’s second term and a test of Democrats’ path forward following last year’s searing losses.

In speeches, statements and multiple interviews with The 19th, Spanberger said she is focused on making life more affordable for all Virginians and stemming what she described as the “chaos” of the Trump administration. She is also focused on countering Republicans’ efforts to “erode faith in our public schools,” and wants to make sure the state is contending with the challenges of teacher shortages, crumbling school buildings and post-pandemic academic recovery.

With two women at the top of the ballot, Virginia is poised to elect its first woman governor this year. If Spanberger wins, the state will be run by a former lawmaker with a law enforcement and intelligence background, and — for the first time — a mom to school-aged children. Spanberger’s daughters are enrolled in public schools around central Virginia, one each in elementary, middle and high school.

Recently, a whirlwind day of campaigning ended with a busy evening at home prepping a Wicked costume for a school spirit day. She tries to be home for either hair braiding and school drop off in the morning, or by bedtime to tuck them in at night.

Still, Spanberger isn’t dwelling much on the historic potential, but during a recent event with Black ministers, she said a question about how schools should educate students on history and race illustrated how actively parenting shapes her views and helps her connect with voters.

“It matters to other people,” Spanberger said. “One of the gentlemen at the round table came back to me and said, that was the most important thing that you said — how you see it as a mother.”

Earle-Sears campaigned alongside Youngkin in 2021, backing many of his promises on education. “She will prioritize parents’ rights and basic reading and math skills over ideological grandstanding,” Earle-Sears’ website reads. The lieutenant governor is also promising to expand alternatives to traditional public schools in the state — Virginia Republicans have charter schools and vouchers for private school tuition — and “empower parents to choose the best school for their children.”

Earle-Sears has also said she supports Trump’s policies on transgender students, and will promote policies in Virginia that exclude transgender girls from girls’ bathrooms, locker rooms and sporting teams.

Spanberger unveiled her agenda for the state’s public schools Friday with an event in Portsmouth that marked the launch of a new coalition of supporters called “Parents and Educators for Spanberger.” The group will highlight her support for strengthening the state’s schools and her “focus on academic excellence.”

According to a copy of the plan shared with The 19th, as governor, Spanberger will focus on championing the state’s public schools, lobbying to cover funding gaps for school operations created by the state and the federal government, and oppose efforts to create vouchers for private education. Spanberger also promised to lobby state lawmakers for funding to fix old and dilapidated schools.

The Democrat said she will also prioritize addressing the state’s teacher shortage by boosting recruitment and mentorship, and raising teacher pay, though she did not commit to a specific raise amount.

Citing reports that the state is lagging behind when it comes to reversing the learning losses of the pandemic, Spanberger said she will make sure schools have the resources they need to help students meet learning standards and uphold “academic excellence and rigor.” She’ll also direct the state to update its best practices for school safety.

During the Portsmouth event, Spanberger told the audience about her experience watching one of her daughters struggle with reading. “My little girl was having a little bit of trouble getting where she needed to be,” Spanberger said. It was her public school teacher, Spanberger told the audience, who worked “tirelessly” to turn things around and built a child who is now an eager reader.

“We need to focus on ensuring that we are not playing games, that we are not using teachers or parents or educators as political pawns,” Spanberger said. “We need to focus on the results that matter to our kids.”

A poll out of Virginia Commonwealth University found that education is the top issue for nearly 1 out of every 10 voters.

Spanberger’s event highlighted her efforts to refocus voters on the challenges facing public schools and hurting student learning, and away from the culture-war issues that have dominated the political conversation around education.

Republicans have increasingly seized on the inclusion of transgender children and teens in public schools, including in the most recent presidential election when GOP ads attacking trans rights in the last few weeks of the campaign. It was Youngkin back in 2021 who on the issue as part of a broader message on school safety and parents’ rights, and his upset victory in Virginia cemented it in Republicans’ election playbook.

This cycle, Spanberger is hoping to reset the terms of the conversation. Republican policies, she said, are disempowering parents and local communities, and hurting vulnerable children.

“As a parent, my heart goes out to the parents who are just trying to do right by their kids and don’t want to see their kids at the center of a political back and forth, or a political punching bag,” Spanberger said.

“It’s easy to get people kind of confused and scared, and that I find to be the really unfortunate thing.”

Spanberger said Republican members of Congress and Trump are going after “the basic provision of health care that a parent is able to get for their kid.” And federal and state level policies banning transgender students from some sports teams are throwing out a process that “was driven by parents, teachers and coaches” under the purview of the state’s sporting league.

Earle-Sears’ campaign did not respond to a request for comment on her education agenda, but in a with a local TV station, Earle-Sears said that if Virginia districts don’t willingly create private spaces and sporting teams according to students’ sex at birth, she would sign legislation forcing them to. (Separately, the Trump administration is threatening to from Virginia districts who don’t do away with inclusive policies around transgender students.)

Earle-Sears said squarely that the issue of transgender student inclusion is driving parents away from public schools.

“That’s why parents are saying, you know what, give us our tax money and let us make the decision on where to send our children to school,” Earle-Sears told WJLA, adding that some parents are turning to private schools, parochial schools and to homeschooling. She called schools that refuse to adopt such policies “rogue schools” that some parents feel “pit me against my child.”

Spanberger has not outright opposed charter schools, but is opposed to policies that would “siphon” funding from traditional public schools.

During the 2021 campaign, Republicans in Virginia tapped parent frustrations over school closures and rules mandating masking in schools, creating a gateway for a national cultural critique of teachers and school leaders. It was a time of “extreme, really unprecedented parental frustration,” said Jon Valant, the director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution.

“Especially as more research came out about how schools were opening and it seemed safe, Democrats found themselves on their heels politically. You had a very potent political argument from Republicans saying, ‘these public schools are shut down when you want your kids to be in school — they’re not listening to you. They screwed up their pandemic response. Who do you trust on education?’

“Democrats could not figure out how to navigate that,” Valant added.

For all of the attention on groups like Moms For Liberty, which leaned on the idea of “parents’ rights” to promote in public schools, Valant said the group is no longer the political powerhouse it appeared to be years ago. Book bans proved unpopular among many voters, and Republican candidates for governor who campaigned with Youngkin and tried to borrow from his education playbook in subsequent election cycles their bids. That includes who lost to Gov. Laura Kelly in Kansas and who lost to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan.

While Democrats have become more effective at pushing back on Republican attacks, Valant said he doesn’t think “there is a clear Democratic Party agenda on education policy. That is a challenge for the Democratic Party by the 2028 election.”

Spanberger’s race in Virginia offers a trial run.

In an interview, the Democratic nominee said she could personally relate to the uneasiness many parents were feeling the last time Virginians elected a governor. “My youngest daughter was in kindergarten when the schools shut down, and my oldest daughter was in middle school. My middle was in elementary school,” Spanberger said.

“I know what it felt like to be a parent, where your kids just get sent home from school one day,” she added. She described it as a really uneasy, fraught time for herself and many parents. “I’m watching them do school virtually, and it’s very clear that it’s certainly not the same. It’s very clear that they’re missing their friends, and they’re missing that social exposure, and they’re missing just the experience that comes with being in a classroom.”

Spanberger said that landscape created a political opportunity. But four years later, she wants voters to reflect on the challenges that still face public schools and the legacy of an agenda she said created distrust in schools and demoralized teachers.

Spanberger pointed to the results of a recent national standardized test that measures student achievement in math and reading. Virginia fourth graders saw virtually no improvement in reading and slight improvement in math, while eighth graders did worse in both subjects. An by Harvard and Stanford universities that tried to measure pandemic academic recovery found that Virginia ranked 41st in reading recovery between 2019 and 2024, and 51st in math recovery.

The Youngkin administration said the scores reflected the “massive learning loss” that continues to persist from the pandemic. “We had big work to do coming out of the pandemic,” when the scores were released.

Spanberger also criticized the governor for a tip line he launched early in his administration that encouraged parents to report “inherently divisive practices” in schools, and that was criticized for . The tip line was about a year later. YoungkinÌę signed several teacher pay raises into law totaling $1.6 billion while in office, but last year that would have brought Virginia teacher salaries to match the national average, arguing that data from a national teachers’ union on the matter was flawed. The union reported that Virginia in teacher pay.

“During this time of recovery, there’s this governor who said he prioritized public education, but what did he actually do? You want to prioritize public education, but you’re going to vilify teachers?” Spanberger said.

“I have three daughters in Virginia public schools, and I know everything that is possible for so many kids is dependent on the education that they do or don’t get in our public schools,” Spanberger said. “And so, education is a priority issue for me, but it’s actually contending with the real issues related to education.”

Early voting in Virginia starts September 19. The general election is November 4.

was originally published on .