Thousands of government, technology and construction workers, many of them Hispanic, Asian and African-American, are streaming into new subdivisions within commuting distance of the Pentagon and the headquarters of America Online. They are transforming a school system that was once small and overwhelmingly white into one that is sprawling and increasingly cosmopolitan.
The explosive recent growth has forced school officials into last-minute improvisations in Loudoun County, too. In 15 years, enrollment in the district has tripled, to 47,361 in 2005 from 14,633 in 1990; the number of Asian students has multiplied twelvefold and Hispanics seventeenfold. The district has built 38 schools since 1995, including Legacy Elementary in Ashburn, Va., which opened a year ago on a landscape that bulldozers were rapidly transforming from soybeans to suburbia.
Our local elementary school in Fairfax, Greenbriar West, placed sixth in its segment in the worldwide Odyssey of the Mind Competition. http://www.odysseyof... Though Greenbriar is in a well-established subdivision, it typifies the Virginia melting pot. A quick look at the school newsletter, especially the three photos highlighting the various victories of its Oddysey of the Mind teams, shows the faces of the future of America. http://www.fcps.k12....
George Allen will lose, and should lose, because of his narrow vision of what "the real" America is.