Andy Schmookler: I’m betting on Mark Obenshain acting honorably

AFP

Earlier this month, an alarm about Virginia’s razor-close Attorney General’s race sounded in some Democratic circles. Adam Swerver, in an article posted on the MSNBC website, declared that even if the defeat of Republican candidate Mark Obenshain is confirmed in a recount, he might still be able to have himself declared the winner.

odu

ODU basketball tops Presbyterian, 69-51

AFP

Keenan Palmore scored a career-high 24 points to lead four ODU Monarchs in double-figures to defeat Presbyterian 69-51 Thursday. Richard Ross, Aaron Bacote and Dimitri Batten all reached double-digits as ODU raced out to an early lead over PC. The Monarchs scored the first 11 points of the game and stormed out to a 17-2 run over the first six minutes.

VDOT: Route 727 bridge in Mount Crawford to open on Friday

Chris Graham

VDOT will open Route 727 (Airport Road) in Rockingham County on Friday. Contractors from Fairfield-Echols LLC of Fishersville have substantially completed the project just west of Route 11 at Mount Crawford. The work included construction of a new bridge over the North River and realigning part of the road to eliminate two sharp curves.

State Board of Education approves A-F school grading system

Chris Graham

The Virginia Board of Education today unanimously approved an A-F grading system that will assign letter grades to schools based on the percentages of students demonstrating proficiency, academic growth and college and career readiness. Initial letter grades will be announced at the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year.

Ken Plum: Invest in the young

Ken Plum

There is no program or service for which public dollars can be invested that will have a greater return than those invested in young children. People who work in early childhood and day care programs have known intuitively and anecdotally for a long time that children in their programs were much more likely to be successful by a number of different measures than were children who did not have access to their programs.