These citizens have seen their commute times to Metro doubled by the incumbent supervisors' consistent approval of up-zoning, which has wedged thousands of townhomes and condos into Fairfax's Route 29/Interstate 66 corridor beyond what these routes can bear.

Even commuters who public-mindedly sacrifice time to take a bus instead of driving alone from western Fairfax to the Vienna Metro will see those buses further mired in the gridlock already surrounding the Vienna station. Davis is right to throw a wrench into this plan.

The supervisors' rationale? Apparently, a one-time cash boost from selling off Metro land on which the parking lot sits. That's a stated reason. For unstated reasons, explore the ties between supervisors' election campaign finances and developers.

If Fairfax's supervisors could keep expenditures in line with inflation and population growth, they'd have no need for such gambits, given budget windfalls from soaring property values.

But they habitually have outspent, by a wide margin, even Fairfax homeowners' considerable income growth during the past decade, and they should not be allowed to add insult to injury by foisting more traffic onto a place that already suffers from too much, and longer commutes (just to reach a Metro station) onto longtime county residents.

Matthew Edwards

Centreville

School Spending Should Yield Better Results

The article "Property Owners' Burden Rising; Area Home Taxes Foot Bigger Share of Government Costs" [Page A1, April 12] claimed that the reason why area school spending is rising is "complicated." In fact, it is a predictable outcome of management without oversight.

In Fairfax County, for example, school central office administrative staffing rose 59 percent between 1998 and 2003, while student enrollment rose only 9 percent. A larger problem for taxpayers and students is a failed central office curriculum. Over $180 million each year, or 12 percent of the Fairfax school budget, is spent on programs to treat reading difficulties. Despite this massive spending, among the 10 Virginia districts with the largest black enrollments, Fairfax County's black students ranked 10th on seven out of eight elementary grade Standards of Learning (SOL) tests in 2004. Wealthy Fairfax finished behind not just other suburban districts but also Norfolk, Newport News, Hampton and Richmond on nearly every test.

Why these astonishing and dismaying results? Other Virginia districts applied for and received federal funding of up to $1 million a school to implement science-based reading reforms at high-poverty schools, and their minority test scores soared. Fairfax administrators complained about the cost of reforms but refused to even apply for federal reading funds at six out of the seven eligible schools in Fairfax. Local administrators continue to maintain that reading programs they have written do not need reform despite the SOL results.