Category: Teacher Education
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Teacher Pipeline Programs Infiltrated by the Southern Poverty Law Center
A workforce solution has been turned into a social justice factory to indoctrinate children. by Victoria Manning Grow Your Own (GYO) teachers’ programs around the nation that receive federal funding have been hijacked by leftist extremist groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). To tackle the national teacher shortage, school districts have implemented teacher…
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Inside the Terror-Linked Program Training Virginia’s Teachers
A university program with ties to terrorist organizations gets to influence public school classrooms. by Victoria Manning What if a program with ties to terrorist organizations like Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood trained your child’s teacher using taxpayer resources? That’s not hypothetical. It’s been happening for years at Virginia’s Shenandoah University—largely operating under the radar.…
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Coming Soon to a 2nd Grade Classroom Near You – Critical Whiteness
by James C. Sherlock Marx believed the economic system determines the nature of social, political, and intellectual life. The University of Virginia (Main Campus) School of Education and Human Development has established itself as a leader in Marxist thought in education. This author thinks that Virginians will learn from that school’s “Critical Whiteness Study…
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Advocacy and Activism for Teachers
The Virginia Education Association emphasizes radicalism and resistance over reading and math. by Victoria Manning The Virginia Education Association (VEA), the state arm of the National Education Association, has no interest in educating your children. Instead, they want to push “advocacy and activism for educators”—a goal they stated explicitly and repeatedly throughout their November 2025…
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At Least They’re Culturally Competent!
by James A. Bacon A couple of days ago I skewered New Jersey for enacting a law, effective Jan. 1, that removes a requirement for teachers to pass a reading, writing and mathematics test for licensure. Noting that Virginia teachers seeking initial licensure must pass the Virginia Communication and Literacy Assessment (VCLA), I expressed the…
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Teacher Vacancies Easing – But Why?
by James A. Bacon Last week the Youngkin administration reported some good news about teacher vacancies in Virginia: they’re down from last year. The teacher shortage appears to be abating. The statewide vacancy rate stood at 3.4% at the beginning of the current school year, half a percentage point (0.5%) lower than last year. Today,…
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Charlottesville, Its Public Schools and UVa – Part Two – Black Students
by James C. Sherlock What drew me to this story is the fact that Black students in Charlottesville City Schools (CCS) have suffered to a degree unequaled elsewhere in the Commonwealth. Keeping in mind the domination of Charlottesville and its schools by the University of Virginia and its School of Education and Human Development discussed…
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Charlottesville, Its Public Schools and UVa – Part One – Bad things Happen
by James C. Sherlock In the relationship between Charlottesville and the University of Virginia, very bad things have happened to Charlottesville and continue to do so. I have developed a working thesis on that relationship. The city is at the mercy of the University by virtue of the latter’s wealth, influence, and power in Charlottesville…
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Virginia’s New School Chief: Raise Standards, Fill Teacher Vacancies
by James A. Bacon Dr. Lisa Coons, Virginia’s new superintendent for public instruction, has been on the job for only two weeks, but she has clear priorities for reversing the slide in educational achievement in Virginia’s public schools: raise standards, get chronically absentee kids back into the classroom, and address teacher shortages. Recruited from her…
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Increasing Teacher Vacancy Rates
by Matt Hurt The teacher vacancy rate in the Commonwealth has become such a problem that the Virginia Department of Education created a database to track this problem. The Staffing and Vacancy Report found on the Education Workforce Data & Reports page of the VDOE website displays unfilled Virginia educator positions at the state, region,…
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Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Virginia Public Schools – The Epidemic of Risky Behaviors and Experiences in Adolescents
by James C. Sherlock The 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) Data Summary & Trends Report: 2011–2021 , was released by the CDC on Monday, provides the most recent surveillance data, as well as 10-year trends, on health behaviors and experiences related to adolescent health and well-being among high school students in the United States. The survey was completed…
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School Discipline in Virginia – Part 4 – The False Legend of PBIS Effectiveness
by James C. Sherlock To discover the origins of the legend that Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is effective, we have to dig into the interlocking government and ed school interest groups that fund and publish “studies” that validate their views. The goal of the ed schools is always to capture the attention, funding…
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Educational Expectations
by Matt Hurt Since the Region VII superintendents initiated the Comprehensive Instructional Program in 2014, we have annually identified our top five most successful teachers of our most at-risk students in each SOL-tested course. In their classes, at least 50 percent of students were economically disadvantaged, and they also had a significant number of students…
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School Discipline in Virginia – Part 3 — A Sharp Policy Turn to the Left after 2009
by James C. Sherlock Here is the information from a slide briefing to the Loudon County school board on February 6, 2013. “Experimentally.” The slide itself was actually produced in 2008 by pbis.org. It seems like a bad joke now, but that was how it was presented. Not a word about race there, but there surely…
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School Discipline in Virginia – Part 2 – Positive Options Trumped by a Race Card
by James C. Sherlock I have found both surprise and confusion among some readers when I use the term “valid studies” in discussing the avalanche of doctoral theses and studies produced annually by schools of education. The federal Institute for Educational Sciences established What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) in 2002 to sort the wheat from the…