Take back our schools

We applaud Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s initial response to a startling national report by the Center for Public Integrity. That report found that Virginia’s public schools refer students to police and courts more often than other states.

The governor has directed several members of his cabinet to investigate and recommend policy changes.

Leading the investigatory panel are state Secretary of Education Anne Holton, whose father and husband are former governors; state Secretary of Health and Human Resources Bill Hazel; and state Secretary of Public Safety Brian Moran, a former member of the House of Delegates and former chairman of the state Democratic Party.

Their work is critical to and potentially life-changing for thousands of young people attending public schools in Richmond and across the commonwealth, where police officers are roaming the halls with license to arrest students for behavior that school principals and teachers handled in the past. Scores of students are being treated like criminals and landing in court for misbehavior.

We expect nothing less than concrete and significant changes to be offered by the panel. And we look to Gov. McAuliffe to provide the key — and the push — to shut off the school-to-prison pipeline that is drowning our young people and disproportionately impacting African-American, low-income and disabled students.

Brian Coy, the governor’s spokesperson, aptly expressed our sentiments: “Virginia parents send their children to school to learn, not to end up in the juvenile justice system.”