Month: November 2020
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What Works: Helping Students Complete their College Degrees
by James A. Bacon In Virginia, nearly 30% of students who enroll in community college or four-year college fail to complete their degrees within six years. There is widespread agreement across the political spectrum that it would be a good thing if more students completed their degrees and fewer dropped out of college after loading…
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Some First Amendment Rights More Important than Others
Cartoon circulating among University of Virginia alumni…
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Virginia’s Splintered GOP
by James A. Bacon Shaun Kenney a former executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia, offers a useful perspective into the state of Virginia’s GOP in a post-Trump presidency. The Grand Old Party in the Old Dominion is so fractured, he suggests in a new post on The Republican Standard, that it soon may…
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Why So Many Students Drop Out of College
by James A. Bacon Roughly 70% of all high school graduates in the United States pursue higher education. Among first-time full-time students who enroll in four-year institutions 40% fail to complete a bachelor’s degree within six years, and most of those never will. The non-completion rate is even higher for community college enrollees. This “completion…
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Bettina Love at Virginia Tech – a Different Context
by James C. Sherlock A bad penny keeps on turning up. This appearance is however critically different in context from Ms. Love’s appearance at the University of Virginia School of Education. The Tech online get together is for faculty, and I have no problem with that. It represents legitimate academic inquiry. Presumably the audience will…
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Virginia’s Government – a Critique
by James C. Sherlock At the age of 75 with a life of experience in and with government, I will offer here my assessment of the current structural problems in our state government that make that government significantly less efficient and effective than it should be. You will note that these comments generally do…
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VMI Wins with Wins as Interim Superintendent
by James A. Bacon The Virginia Military Institute has appointed retired Army Maj. Gen. Cedric T. Wins, an African-American, as interim superintendent. He will serve while the Board of Visitors searches for a permanent replacement for retired Gen. J.H. Binford Peay III, who resigned after Governor Ralph Northam announced an investigation into charges of “relentless…
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Man, That’s the Last Time I Say Something Nice about the Guy!
by James A. Bacon Serves me right. Just yesterday, I praised Governor Ralph Northam for not panicking in the face of rising COVID-19 cases in Southwest Virginia and slapping arbitrary, economy-stifling restrictions on the entire state. Today he announced that he is slapping arbitrary, economy-stifling restrictions on the entire state. He is limiting gatherings to…
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A Big Election Day for Marijuana
by DJ Rippert Rolling stoned gathers no moss. Marijuana reform has been gaining momentum in the U.S. since California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996. Today 36 states have either enacted medical marijuana access laws or are in the process of implementing such laws. In 2012 Colorado and Washington became the…
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Outcome Disputes May Help Kill Electoral College
By Steve Haner The battle is now rejoined to kill the Electoral College and elect a U.S. President in 2024 based purely on the national vote total. The stubborn refusal of President Donald J. Trump and many other Republicans to accept the November 3 outcome is likely to become a new talking point for Electoral…
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3% Subsidy Cap for Washington Mass Transit “Appears” to Help Virginia Taxpayers
by James A. Bacon A 3% cap on annual state contributions to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) “appears to be a useful tool” for managing runaway subsidies for the Washington-area transit agency, finds a report recently published by the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC). The main benefit cited by the report, required by…
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Statue Contract Investigation: the Ball’s in Herring’s Court
by James A. Bacon A special prosecutor charged with investigating a $1.8 million contract to take down Confederate statues in the City of Richmond, is asking Attorney General mark Herring to authorize the Virginia State Police to help him. “I hereby request that you authorize the Bureau of Criminal Investigation within the Virginia State Police…
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Daniel Invokes Honor Code to Clean up UVa’s Lawn
by James A. Bacon Aubrey M. Daniel III, author of two widely read letters critical of the University of Virginia administration for its handling of the controversial “F— UVA” sign posted on the door of a Lawn resident, has issued a third, which he says will be his last. Following the advice of university counsel,…
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A Challenge to the University of Virginia Ed School on the Teaching of K-12 Black Children
by James C. Sherlock I provided an extensive review in this space of the latest book by Dr. Bettina Love, an assistant professor in the education school of the University of Georgia. She advocates separate but equally funded schools for black children and a radically revised curriculum unique to black children. Readers can see in that…
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New Business Starts in Virginia by Jurisdiction 2019
by James C. Sherlock With the interest shown in my last post, I think it will prove interesting to this audience to see the distribution of business starts by political jurisdiction in Virginia along with some data to ponder. The preparation I have put together a spreadsheet sourced from the census bureau, and then added…