MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. The role of charter schools in K-12 education reform could gain focus in this fall’s Virginia gubernatorial election. Republican candidate Bob McDonnell said last week Virginians ought to have alternative ways of getting many more good charter schools online. Democratic candidate Creigh Deeds also has indicated he favors charter schools, although he has not yet emphasized them in his campaign.

If you haven’t heard of the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care yet, wait. It is fast becoming the Book of Kells in the Washington policy world. The Obama White House has realized that Dartmouth’s research could enable it to pull off—or at least to sell—the big dream of health-care reform: affordable universal coverage. Under ordinary circumstances, broadening government involvement in health care would be a hugely expensive proposition—and the more generous the benefits, the higher the cost. But researchers at Dartmouth have compiled decades of data showing two things: (1) there are huge geographic differences in Medicare outlays (e.g., more than $16,000 per beneficiary in Miami, versus less than $8,400 in San Francisco), and (2) those differences seem to produce no difference in health outcomes.

Benedictine High School’s headmaster has been forced out by senior monks who are reorganizing the administration of the 98-year-old school . The monastic order in charge of the school says it is undertaking the changes to save money and take a greater role in Benedictine’s operations. The decision, reached Sunday by unanimous of consent of 11 senior monks at Mary Mother of the Church of the Abbey in Goochland County, forces out current Headmaster John McGinty, who has led the school since 2003.

Va school leader receives state honor

School redistricting in Henrico County has ended, but the discussion hasn’t. In the Foxhall area, neighbors feeling blindsided by a last-minute switch to new school zones were planning to meet this weekend to explore their options, including legal action. Other parents already have applied for variances so that rising sixthor ninth-graders could start middle school or high school this fall in the location where they will be assigned one year later.

Virginia is joining 45 other states and the District of Columbia in an effort to create unified standards of learning for the nation’s schoolchildren. The state-level effort likely grows out of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which requires states to make progress in student performance across the board. But states with more rigorous standards—such as Virginia—end up suffering in national comparisons. They get penalized for not clearing a high bar with the same speed at which other states clear lower ones. Uniform standards would help clarify which states are truly teaching the children—and, therefore, how best to do so.

Robert B. Wray III, a second-year cadet at Virginia Military Institute and a graduate of James River High School in Chesterfield County, is the first recipient of the John Marshall Cadet Memorial Scholarship. The grant was recently created by the John Marshall Cadet Alumni Association with a gift of $250,000 to the VMI Foundation.

Richmond could need a fresh supply of school principals in the near future. Educators at Virginia Commonwealth University think they know how to fill that need. Thanks to a $5.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education that was announced yesterday, the two can begin working together on a novel approach to training school administrators.

The halls are alive with the sound of music in Henrico County’s schools. For the 10th consecutive year, the school system has been named one of the best communities for music education by the nonprofit NAMM Foundation, which rates schools on funding, graduation requirements, music class participation, instruction time, facilities, support for the music program and other factors.

The state is working on a regional proposal with Maryland and Washington to win some of the $5 billion in competitive grants that will be awarded to states most aggressively pursuing reforms.

Gubernatorial candidate Brian Moran wants to retrofit schools with energy-efficient technologies while teaching students about science and the environment, he said in a news conference yesterday, Earth Day. It is one piece of his schools plan that ranges from reducing class sizes and increasing teacher salaries to expanding pre-kindergarten, an issue dear to the man he hopes to succeed, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine.

Alma Gaynelle “Gay” Whitlock was born in Mineral in Louisa County. She studied, and later taught, at universities whose dining halls could seat the entire Mineral population of under 500. She was equally at home in either environment, relatives and colleagues say. Dr. Whitlock died Sunday of cancer, 10 days after her 70th birthday. Until recently, she had been hard at work as director of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center for School-Community Collaboration and as a town historian and preservationist in Mineral.

Powhatan County is getting about $500,000 more than it expected in federal stimulus money for education. But school officials wonder whether they ultimately will lose money, because county supervisors are trying to use stimulus funds instead of local dollars they ordinarily would appropriate for public schools. School officials are not sure that plays by the rules of President Barack Obama’s plan to save school jobs and bolster local education.

Roanoke’s school board has voted to privatize its transportation system. It will sell its bus fleet to Krapf Transportation Services. The Roanoke Times reports that drivers will get higher pay, but fewer hours and lower benefits. The school system expects to save about a quarter-million dollars a year. That is not a huge sum, though in times as tight as these every little bit helps. But Roanoke has another, even better reason to privatize: School officials will be able to concentrate on academics.

Terry McAuliffe wants to pay teachers more—and help them pay their bills. Pitching for the important teachers vote in the June 9 primary, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate is going beyond an article of faith with educators: pushing their wages to the national average. According to a Web site that tracks teacher-compensation issues, Virginia ranks 27th in classroom salaries at $43,823—about $8,000 off the national average.