Editorial: Jan. 20 paper

Virginia’s family ties
Expect state officials to crow about a new study showing Virginia has the fourth-best education system in the country. That finding from Education Week deserves praise, and will get plenty of it. Don't expect state leaders to draw as much attention to a far less flattering study, whose results were made public just the other day.
The report from the Virginia Commission on Youth finds that Virginia ranks dead last in the country when it comes to kinship care — the practice of placing foster-care children in the homes of blood relatives.
Nationwide, 24 percent of foster-care children are placed in kinship care. Virginia's average: less than 5 percent.
The study cites a number of reasons for the disparity, including a belief that people shouldn't be paid to care for young relatives and a sense among some social workers that "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree." But where's the evidence that foster kids in kinship care fare worse than foster kids placed with strangers?
This state of affairs is unfortunate. It is also embarrassing, or should be, for the Virginia Republican Party and the administration of Gov. Bob McDonnell. Both put a lot of stock in family values, and the administration has just finalized adoption rules that allow discrimination against homosexuals by private groups that provide adoption services. Those groups have a right to act on their beliefs, even wrong ones. Yet there's little doubt some conservatives embraced the new rules partly out of a smug sense that gay couples aren't "real" families.
Such professions ring somewhat hollow in light of the commission's findings. If real families mattered as much in Virginia as social conservatives claim, then why don't more foster children get to stay with their own? — The Richmond Times-Dispatch

Stafford County Sun editorials represent the opinion of the managing editor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on his page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily the Stafford County Sun.