Glenn Youngkin hammered home his commitment to listen to Virginia’s parents on the campaign trail.
Now, the governor-elect is showing he doesn’t just talk the talk.
On Thursday, Youngkin announced the appointment of two conservative outsiders to the leading positions at the Virginia Department of Education: superintendent and assistant superintendent of public instruction.
Bacon’s Rebellion further reports:
Jillian Balow, superintendent of Wyoming’s public schools, landed the top slot. Elizabeth Schultz, a senior fellow with Parents Defending Education and an outspoken foe of Critical Race Theory in Virginia schools, will be Balow’s deputy.
“Jillian and Elizabeth are going to be crucial in helping Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera restore excellence in education,” Youngkin said in making the announcement. “Under my direction, they will get to work on ensuring our schools remain safely open, ban critical race theory and political agendas from our classrooms, and rebuild our crumbling schools.”
Balow is a fifth-generation Wyoming native who graduated from the University of Wyoming. She taught in Wyoming classrooms for ten years. Among her accomplishments as superintendent of Wyoming’s public schools, says her profile page:
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She led the transformation of the state’s early literacy laws “into some of the most rigorous in the country.”
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Worked with tribal partners to enact “Indian Education for All” so that Wyoming students would learn about the history of the Northern Arapahoe and Eastern Shoshone tribes.
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Hewing to the belief that “small government is best,” reduced in-agency personnel by 11% and agency operating funds by 15%.
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Overhauled the state standards review process to be the most collaborative and transparent in the nation.