Month: October 2019
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Jerry Baliles, the Opportunity Governor
by James A. Bacon I was saddened to hear that former Governor Jerry Baliles, a moderate, pro-business Democrat, passed earlier this week. Man, oh, man, I miss him. Virginia Democrats have begun fantasizing about the left-wing agenda they will pursue if, as they expect, they take control of both houses of the General Assembly. Guns,…
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Dueling Headlines
Headline in today’s New York Times: “In Virginia Suburbs, Republicans Sound a Lot Like Democrats.” Headline in today’s Washington Post: “Days Before the Election, Virginia Republicans Take Hard Right Turn.” — JAB
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Map of the Day: Median Housing Values
The StatChat blog has published a fascinating map showing the median value of owner-occupied housing across Virginia by census tract. The map appears as part of an essay on the relationship between housing affordability and school quality, which I may blog about later. But in the meantime, I thought the map was worth publishing on…
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End Parental Discrimination in Surrogacy Cases
by Jay Timmons Residents in the Richmond area are represented by three Republicans in the state Senate with very different views of Life and Family. All three will be on the ballot Tuesday. When it counted, Siobhan Dunnavant stood strong for children and the unborn. But sadly, Glen Sturtevant and Amanda Chase chose discrimination and…
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Why Can’t I Have My Cake And Eat It Too?
Sometimes the tensions and contradictions in our public discourse are summed up with stunning simplicity. The Richmond Times-Dispatch has been running a series setting out the answers of candidates for local office to a set of standard questions. Today the spotlight was on Hanover County. The answers of a long-time incumbent on the Board of…
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Orsted Drops Projected OSW Capacity Factors
By Steve Haner The company that will partner with Dominion Energy Virginia to build a massive offshore wind farm off our coast has just cut the energy production forecasts for its own facilities, sufficient to lower its profit margins and drop its stock values. “Our models weren’t sophisticated enough,” Orsted’s chief financial officer is quoted…
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Wealthy Greenies Dump Millions into Virginia Elections
by Hans Bader You may not be following Virginia’s legislative elections, which will occur on November 5. But liberal billionaires across the country are. They are spending millions to help progressives take control of the Virginia legislature. The Washington Post reports that heaps of money are flowing into Virginia political campaigns ahead of the election.…
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Virginia Air Pollution Continues Downward Trend
Switching topics from reading test scores, here’s a downward trend Virginians can appreciate. Air pollution emissions in the Old Dominion continued their long-term downward trend in 2017 for most categories of emissions, according to an analysis of federal data by the Consumer Energy Alliance, an organization of major energy consumers. Between 1990 and 2017 Virginia…
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Virginia Reading Test Scores Plunge
by James A. Bacon Reading scores of Virginia students taking the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests, a national standardized test, plummeted this year, and math scores declined as well. The average reading scores of Virginia fourth- and eighth-grade students on the national tests fell by four and six points, respectively. The average math…
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W&M Grad Students Plead for More Gruel
Working graduate students at the College of William & Mary are launching a campaign to demand better treatment, pay and benefits, reports WY Daily. The grad students want health, vision, and dental insurance paid as part of their yearly compensation and benefits, says Jasper Conner, a spokesman for the William & Mary Workers Union. “The…
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Revamping Virginia History as Oppression Studies
Virginia schools do a poor job of teaching the history of African-Americans in the United States and Virginia, says Governor Ralph Northam. Black history is “difficult, complex and often untold,” he said yesterday when addressing the Virginia Commission on African American History Education, a body he created 10 months ago in the wake of his…
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Send in the Carriers! What Carriers?
By Peter Galuszka The stunning slaying of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the ultra-violent Islamic State terrorist leader, on Oct. 25 by U.S. Special Forces in northwestern Syria was the most spectacular such endeavor since Osama bin-Linden was dispatched in Pakistan in 2011. President Donald Trump, under attack for withdrawing most American forces from war-torn Syria, got…
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Making Solar Power a Win-Win for Everyone
by Felix Garcia There is a simple and common-sense approach to energy policy in Virginia. Go to the energy source which provides abundant, safe electricity at the least cost — solar. Our company is called AgriSunPower (ASP). Along with our co-developer Hecate Energy, our thought process begins with a simple premise. Solar power is the…
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Fairfax County: A School Board Election that Truly Matters
by James A. Bacon The implementation of social-justice policies in public schools is gaining momentum in urban and suburban school districts across Virginia. Nowhere is the trend more evident than in Fairfax County, which administers the state’s largest school system. The Democrats’ social-equity agenda has inspired a spirited resistance this year. Republican School Board candidates…
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This Is What Meritocracy Looks Like in 2019
The Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology has published the admission rates, broken down by ethnicity and gender, for the the 2023 class. Nearly three-quarters of the students admitted to the elite Fairfax County institution, one of the most highly regarded public schools in the country, were classified as Asian. One in five…