Dear George-

I find many of the newspaper articles, with their big headlines, extremely misleading about the charter initiative - UVA, W&M and VA Tech's attempt to privatize the Virginia higher education system.

The legislation presented tomorrow (January 21st) will be vastly different from the legislation presented at last year's General Assembly. It has been slashed to the bone and it appears UVA et al will not be getting everything they originally wanted. And they might have figured this would happen, they'd start off big and then end up with something they can live with. The media makes it sound like Governor Warner and all the legislators are firmly behind this. Not so. There are still many many questions to be answered that have not been addressed yet.

It is only because of groups of people here in C'Ville that this bill will not be giving these universities complete autonomy from the state, virtually accountable to no one. It is because of the many people at the Staff Union at UVA, the Communications Workers of America, the Faculty-Staff-Student Alliance, the Graduate Labor Union, the General Faculty Council, the Faculty Senate, the employees, faculty, students, and parents who stood up, spoke up, asked questions, demanded answers, visited legislators, wrote op eds, wrote letters to the editor, wrote their legislators, persuaded editorials to be written throughout the state, and did NOT let UVA off the hook.

So I hope the media will not continue to believe UVA's spin, talk to some actual people in our community (not just John Casteen and Leonard Sandridge) and write a REAL story about the rise and eventual fall of charter. I hope they will READ the legislation and see if what UVA says is what UVA actually DOES in the final bill.

After all, it is OUR community, OUR workers, OUR families, and OUR kids that this very important bill affects. No matter what their politics are, the media in Virginia is obligated to give fair and UNBIASED coverage of this bill. And some have, most have not.

I thank every single person who got on board with this and stood up to the big bully at the end of Main St.

Jan Cornell (electronic mail, January 20, 2005)