Month: November 2020
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Study Says Virginia School Segregation Getting Worse, Contradicting Its Own Data
by James A. Bacon “School segregation by race and poverty is deepening in Virginia,” asserts the opening line of a just-published study, “School Segregation by Boundary Line in Virginia.” The study proceeds to show no such thing. While it is beyond dispute that de facto segregation persists, especially in inner-city school districts, the study provides…
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COVID-19 Peaks in SW Virginia, No Cause for Panic Elsewhere
by James A. Bacon Spread of the COVID-19 virus is gaining momentum as the weather cools, and news reports from around the country are raising the alarm that hospitals are at risk of being swamped by a fresh surge in patients. Here in the Old Dominion, the situation is reaching a “crisis point” in far…
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Capitalism Transcends the Best Efforts of the Universities to Kill It
by James C. Sherlock We have chronicled here the broad and deep attacks on capitalism by the socialist and Marxist clerisy led by academics and their students in the media. The attacks are bitter and utterly relentless. There is hopeful news. PBS outlets all over the country yesterday published an article titled “The Unexpected Boom…
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COVID, Telecommuting and Urban Renewal
Just a year or two ago, the big momentum in commercial real estate markets was for businesses to relocate facilities from the suburbs to the metropolitan core. Young people wanted to live and work in or near Virginia’s downtowns, and corporations followed the talent. The City of Richmond snagged one prestigious tenant after another. One…
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Northam: Messaging, Not Mandates
Despite a surge in the number of COVID-19 cases, hair-on-fire national media coverage, and the imposition of tighter restrictions in neighboring Maryland, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C., Governor Ralph Northam is holding steady with a relatively light regulatory regimen for Virginia. As the Virginia Mercury puts it today, “Northam is stressing messaging — not mandates…
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Reality Check: COVID Forecasts and Cases
by Carol J. Bova Since mid-April, 2020, the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) has reported weekly on information from the University of Virginia (UVA) Biocomplexity Institute COVID-19 Model and RAND Corporation. One aspect of these reports is a forecast of weekly cases; another gives date ranges as to when regions are estimated to exceed hospital…
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Virginia 40th of 45 States for Charter School Friendliness
by James C. Sherlock We have often referenced public charter schools in this space. It is worthwhile to stop and discuss their availability in Virginia. In its eleventh annual ranking of public charter school laws in January of 2020, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) has ranked 45 states with such laws. Virginia. Virginia…
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Fifty Pounds of Weed in Arlington = Probation?
by DJ Rippert This landing may get bumpy. In late 2018 a chap was on a plane that landed at Reagan National Airport. He undoubtedly had the usual tools of travel — toothbrush, shave kit and clean socks. However, he also had 50 pounds of marijuana and 400 cartridges of hashish oil. Perhaps he got…
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Black Georgia Professor, UVa Ed School Teachers Conference Keynoter, Trashes Brown v. Board and Offers Return to Segregated Schools
We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina Love (2019) Reviewed by James C. Sherlock Background and Introduction I became interested in reviewing this book when I watched Dr. Bettina Love, as Associate Professor of Education at the University of Georgia, speak at a seminar for…
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Bacon Bits: COVID and School Choice Edition
Chesterfield “sick-out” pretty anemic. A “sick-out” by Chesterfield public school teachers fizzled Monday as the last cohort of students returned to in-person classes, reports the Virginia Star. Students in grades 6-12 entered a hybrid program in which students attended in-person classes two days a week to socially distanced classrooms. “Thank you for giving our children…
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WaPo’s Journalistic Jihad Against VMI Continues…
by James A. Bacon President-elect Biden may be calling for national unity after a contentious presidential election, but the Washington Post hasn’t gotten the message. Post reporter Ian Shapira continues his campaign against the Virginia Military Institute, which he has charged is guilty of “relentless racism,” by slanting coverage of the pending state investigation of…
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Higher Education and Economic Mobility
Virginia’s top public universities are largely stratified by socioeconomic status. Consider the following statistics that appear in the new book by James V. Koch and Richard J. Cebula, “Runaway College Costs: How College Governing Boards Fail to Protect their Students.” At the College of William & Mary only 13.6% of the student body comes from…
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More Falsehoods and Malarkey from Clean Virginia
By Steve Haner The big money behind the Clean Virginia activist group was all earned by a Charlottesville hedge fund manager through the great American system of capitalism. That didn’t stop his organization from a recent attack that could have come from Communist Party USA. This one would have made Bernie Sanders blush. Dominion Energy…
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COVID Is Still News
By Dick Hall-Sizemore I seem to recall that contributors and comments on this blog often said that “come November 4, COVID will no longer be a big news item.” The implication, of course, was that the main national news organizations were hyping the COVID issue in order to damage the Trump administration. Well, it is…