Category: Uncategorized
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Indictments For Loudoun County School Officials
by Kerry Dougherty Looks like Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares just turned up the heat on Loudoun County. When he was elected, Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed an executive order calling for an investigation into what happened in Loudoun County Public Schools, where an alleged predator in a skirt reportedly got a pass for raping one…
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Helping Minorities Thrive in STEM
by James A. Bacon There is a shortage of doctors, scientists, engineers and other employees with STEM (science, technology, engineering, and medicine) backgrounds in the U.S. economy. One reason is that American institutions of higher education aren’t turning out enough graduates with STEM degrees. And a big reason for that is that roughly half the…
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About that Bestiality Post…
I have received several responses from readers who were shocked by a recent post. Was I serious about contextualizing the behavior of a Hampton Roads man for videotaping an act of bestiality with his dog? The answer is NO, I was not serious! I was being totally tongue in cheek when I asked if the…
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RVA 5X5: A Five-Part Series of Stories
by Jon Baliles STORY #1 — The Pot Overfloweth There have been a lot of stories this week about the $21 million surplus announced by Mayor Levar Stoney and what he is asking City Council to endorse and how to disburse it in a budget amendment vote scheduled for a Monday evening vote. “The growth…
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Anti-Semitism in Virginia
by James A. Bacon Antisemitism in Virginia isn’t as severe as in some other states, but the number of incidents of harassment and vandalism has increased in recent years, according to a report by the Commission to Combat Antisemitism, “Combating Antisemitism in Virginia.” In 2021, 411 reported antisemitic incidents impacted residents of the Commonwealth, reports…
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Back To the Patrick Henry Building
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Governor Glenn Youngkin spent late summer and the fall campaigning around the country for Republican candidates for governor. He was passing out his signature red fleece vests all over the country. His main goal was to help Republican candidates knock off Democratic incumbents, but he did appear with three incumbent Republican governors.…
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Is there a Better Way to Manage Virginia’s State Colleges and Universities?
by James C. Sherlock My wife and I had the pleasure of dining recently with a woman pursuing a career in the financial services industry. I asked her about the leadership of her company. What was the climate in her workplace? She answered that the first thing she learned was to “color inside the lines.”…
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SCHEV’s Study on College Completion Rates Is… Incomplete
by James A. Bacon The dirty secret of the higher-ed industry is the high rate at which students drop out of college. The six-year graduation rate for full-time, in-state students entering Virginia’s public four-year institutions in 1995 was 60%, implying a drop-out rate of 40%, according to State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV)…
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New VPAP Modelling Shows Why Virginia Republicans Are Losing Elections
by Shaun Kenney There’s a common theme among Virginia Republican number crunchers that Fairfax County is the snake that swallowed the bowling ball. More accurately, that no matter how well Republicans might seem to do across the Commonwealth, when 1.3 million Fairfax County residents make their voices heard, that’s a massive fraction of the nearly…
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Don’t Forget the Dismal History SOL Pass Rates
by Carol J. Bova As the battle rages over the History and Social Science (HSS) Standards of Learning criteria — the State Board of Education decided earlier this month to delay its review of Youngkin administration revisions — it is worth noting how poorly Virginia students mastered the old standards. More than one-third of Virginia…
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The Curious Case of Anthony Johnson
by James A. Bacon The man who would come to be known by the English name of Anthony Johnson was born in the Angola region of southern Africa, enslaved by the Portuguese, and transported to Virginia for sale. There he was sold to a colonist, and then resold to a merchant planter by the name…
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Violence Prevention and TATs: A Dissenting Opinion
by Dick Hall-Sizemore There has been a lot of discussion on this blog about violence prevention committees and threat assessment teams (TAT). There have been disagreements over whether the University of Virginia is in compliance with state law as well as lamentations about the lack of enforcement where it is considered that an institution is…