Manassas Journal Messenger | Another pledge drive
A coalition of education and business interests will be asking candidates for state office to sign a pledge this fall.
This pledge doesn’t include a promise “not to raise taxes,” though it does feed off the popularity of pledge signing.
A group calling itself the Alliance for Virginia’s Students will ask General Assembly candidates to sign a two-page pledge comitting themselves to support such noble causes as smaller class sizes, more teachers and better salaries.
At a press conference in Richmond yesterday, members of this coalition quickly distanced themselves from Gov. Mark Warner and said the pledge was not necessarily linked to raising taxes.
If that’s the case, then everyone will probably sign it because no one wants to be viewed as against our children. The coalition will release the names of who signed and who didn’t sign later this year, perpetuating the “for us, or against us” mentality that pledges foster.
The “education pledge” now joins the “no tax” pledge, but what we need is a “common sense” pledge.