Bacon's Rebellion

  • The Misguided Controversy over English Language Learners

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    James A. Bacon

    by Todd Truitt

    Many Virginia school administrators, public officials and activists have been up in arms about the fact that the new Virginia school accountability system will include the academic achievement scores of English Language Learners (ELs) after one year of entering school in the United States. One activist group called it a โ€œradical expectation.โ€ In fact, itโ€™s a 20+ year-old federal legal protection ardently supported by civil rights groups.

    EL Inclusion in New Virginia School Accountability System

    The Virginia Board of Education’s (VBOE) recent approval of a revamped accountability system is a substantial step toward greater transparency by providing clearer data on academic performance. This new framework is set to take full effect in the upcoming school year, and clearly separates federal accountability reporting standards from state accreditation reporting standards. As The Education Trust articulated, the federal accountability measures are designed to illuminate disparities and enable targeted support for struggling schools.

    Despite the clarity offered by federal accountability standards, confusion remains among some Virginia school leaders and the press regarding the rationale for including ELs in the new accountability system after just one year. This misunderstanding demonstrates the significant shortcomings of the previous system.

    (more…)

  • Teachers Behaving Badly

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Palestinians and Israelis may be locked in a death struggle in the Middle East, but that’s no excuse for their sympathizers to behave poorly in the United States. People — and that includes teachers — need to get a grip. No matter how passionate your views, you don’t have the right to use your position of authority to indoctrinate students. And you don’t have the right to destroy the expression of ideas you find reprehensible.

    Shayma Al-Hanooti, an Arlington County English teacher, has inserted the Israel-Palestine conflict into her classroom, requiring students to watch the pro-Palestinian documentary Born in Gaza and asking them to expose the “logical fallacies” in pro-Israeli arguments, according to emails obtained by Parents Defending Education.

    Al-Hanooti has the right to express her opinions inside the classroom and out, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with exposing logical fallacies — that’s an English teacher’s job. But students should be asked to sort through a range of competing facts, arguments and perspectives on a contentious issue. If Al-Hanooti wants to conduct her patently one-sided exercises in a voluntarily attended outside forum, she should be free to do so. But in a public school setting, she should not be structuring her class assignments to preordain rhetorical outcomes.

    Meanwhile, over in Loudoun County, teacher Andrea Weiskopf obliterated a map of Israel painted by a Stone Bridge High School student in his school parking space on the grounds that it constituted “hate speech.”

    (more…)

  • Stealing From the Poor

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    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Thereโ€™s a special place in Hell for those who steal from the poor.

    Thatโ€™s what happened this week when thieves broke into a Habitat for Humanity van and stole $5,000 worth of tools. 

    Ironically, this hit the news on October 1. Former President Jimmy Carterโ€™s 100th birthday.

    Carter, the second worst president in American history (after Biden), redeemed himself in his post-presidency years by regularly volunteering with this charity that builds and rehabs homes for the poor. 

    According to a report in The Virginian-Pilot:

    โ€œA celebration had been planned for Tuesday in Chesapeake to celebrate the birthday of former President Jimmy Carter, who spent years working with Habitat for Humanity to create housing for Americans across the country. Several volunteers were planned to work at a 44-year-old home on Transylvania Avenue, rehabbing it with all new rooms, walls, plumbing, wiring, fixtures and furnishings.โ€

    โ€œHowever, celebration plans were called off after staff discovered the theft. The nonprofit reported that someone had broken through the fence of the Tidewater Drive headquarters and broken into the organizationโ€™s construction truck planned for the project. A police report has been filed.โ€

    That home was earmarked for a single mother and her teenaged daughter.

    As we all know, a home of oneโ€™s own is a life-changing event. Now the charity will need to raise funds to replace the pilfered tools before going back to work.

    For shame. Keep on reading.

  • More Crime Than They Said

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Photo credit: Style Weekly

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    It turns out that the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) campus is not as safe as itย  purports to be.

    Federal law requires institutions of higher education to publish the number of crimes committed on, and adjacent to, campus.ย The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports today that the university has discovered that it has been significantly under-reporting the number of crimes.

    For example, in 2022, there were 287 reported acts of dating violence, yet the universityโ€™s published report lists only 12.ย There were similar discrepancies in other categories, although the dating violence category was the one most seriously out of whack.

    (more…)

  • Do We Want a Color-Blind Society or Not?

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    A University of Virginia mentorship program for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) students discriminates against White people on the basis of race, contends a complaint filed Tuesday by the Equal Protection Project.

    The BIPOC Alumni-Student Mentoring Program provides up to 25 UVA students in the School of Education and Human Development with individualized guidance from alumni educators. Its goal, according to its web page, is to โ€œimprove BIPOC undergraduatesโ€™ program experiences, career opportunities, and retention through pairing these learners with alumni mentors.โ€

    โ€œJust as it would be a violation of the universityโ€™s rules to have a whites-only mentoring program, itโ€™s a violation of the rules to have a non-whites-only program,โ€ said William A. Jacobson, founder of the Equal Opportunity Project, reports WVIR. โ€œThe university needs to be race-neutral in its educational and related programming.โ€

    (more…)

  • No, RTD, Hurricane Helene Not Proof of “Climate Change”

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    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    The Richmond Times-Dispatch no longer has a climate alarmist on staff, so today it fell to one of its liberal political columnists (it still has two of those; they will be the last employees out the door) to blame Hurricane Helene on โ€œclimate change.โ€

    It was a terrible storm, no question. But it wasnโ€™t the first terrible storm, and it was no worse than plenty of storms from decades or even a century ago. See for example The [Raleigh] News and Observer front page reporting a very similar storm in Asheville and the rest of North Carolina in 1916. That 1916 storm caused havoc on the entire East Coast, more territory than Helene just did (because it stalled over the mountains).ย 

    Michael Paul Williams’ column is quite honest about the history of similar storms, including Camille, that devastated Nelson and Albemarle Counties in 1969 and Agnes that caused major Virginia flooding in 1972. The algorithm that substitutes for human editors at the โ€œnewspaperโ€ added after the on-line column a series of photos from Agnes, 52 years ago, when CO2 levels were far lower than they are today.

    (more…)

  • Covering the Flooding

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Because I slammed the Richmond Times-Dispatch yesterday for its lack of coverage of the flooding in Southwest Virginia, I need to give it credit for today’s front page story, complete with a large photograph, regarding the response and cleanup. One of its best reporters, Dave Ress, describes some of the effects, along with the work by local and state agencies to provide assistance.

    rwh

  • Every School Gets a Participation Trophy — But Not For Long

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Eighty-five percent of Virginia’s public schools meet the state’s standards of quality and effectiveness under the current system for establishing accreditation, according to data released Monday by the Virginia Department of Education.

    Under the rating system, no school is denied accreditation. Rather, under-performers are tagged with the euphemism “accredited with conditions.”

    “Todayโ€™s accreditation certifications are a testament to the failure of Virginiaโ€™s current accreditation system to provide parents, educators, and communities timely, accurate and actionable insights into how well their students are actually performing academically,” Governor Glenn Youngkin said yesterday.

    “The issue couldnโ€™t be clearer: no schools are denied accreditation, and 85% of Virginiaโ€™s schools continue to receive the stateโ€™s highest ranking while 60.7% and 64.8% of Virginiaโ€™s students [in] 3-8 grades failed or are barely proficient in reading and math,” he said.ย ย 

    (more…)

  • Teacher Vacancies Easing – But Why?

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    New licensure pathways are increasing supply of teachers from non-traditional sources.

    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, according to a press release from Superintendent of Public Education Lisa Coons, 35 school districts have teacher shortfalls of one percent or less, and 64 of two percent or less.

    Not mentioned in the press release but available from the Excel spreadsheet it linked to: 11 school districts have vacancy rates of 10% or more. The rate in Southhampton County stands at a stupefying 27.9%.

    Still, Virginia’s public schools overall are moving in the right direction. The question is who or what deserves the credit? Has there been a shift in the job market? Are working conditions improving? Are the Youngkin administration’s efforts paying off?

    (more…)

  • There is News Outside of Richmond

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Flooding in town of Pembroke in Giles County. Photo credit–Cardinal News

    This past weekend, the remnants of hurricane Helene caused major flooding and damage in southwest Virginia. Two people died as a result of the storm.

    But you wouldnโ€™t know this if you just depended on the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Not a word in the digital or print editions, except for a brief mention in the wire service stories in section B.ย However, there were lots of stories and headlines about sports and food.

    Aftermath of flooding in town of Damascus, Washington County. Photo credit–Cardinal News

    It is at times like these when I wonder why I even bother with the RTD.ย  The paper will cover state political news and some happenings in Richmond city hall. But thatโ€™s about it.ย Very little coverage of state government; Henrico and Chesterfield counties and the rest of the state may as well be foreign countries.

    If one wants to know what is happening in Southside and Southwest Virginia, the best source is the non-profit Cardinal News. It is running several stories today on the storm.

    The irony is that we are in an era when we have more information than ever at our fingertips, yet our sources of news have become so fragmented.

    rwh

  • Jeanine’s Memes

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    James A. Bacon

    From The Bull Elephant

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

    Posted on

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    James A. Bacon

  • Ceasefire Virginia Sounds Great. But Does It Work?

    Posted on

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Attorney General Jason Miyares has released a video about his Ceasefire Virginia initiative, a collaboration between the AG’s office and local police to reduce violent crime.

    The video caught my attention because its production values are slicker than anything that I recall coming out of the AG’s office before. Some of the testimonies are striking. But the video could be far more effective. It starts with a documentary-like feel but peters out with a series of interview clips strung together to no particular effect.

    Ceasefire Virginia provides a potentially powerful crime-fighting alternative to leftist bafflegab about addressing the “social causes” of crime. It tackles gun violence head-on through the common-sense expedients of (1) enforcing existing gun laws; (2) punishing people who use guns in crimes; and (3) targeting repeat offenders who account for a disproportionate share of violent crimes.

    None of this is explained in the video. I like what Miyares is doing, but Ceasefire Virginia needs better PR.

    (more…)

  • The Costliest Floods in Interior Virginia Since 1969

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    sherlockj

    Car in tree in Nelson County after Camille

    by James C. Sherlock

    Updated September 27, 2024 ย 

    Ahead of Helene, I recommend re-reading this story.

    I offer this survey of Virginiaโ€™s biggest interior floods since 1969, mostly courtesy of the National Weather Service, as equal time for my reporting on coastal flooding in Virginia.

    The interior is where the most deaths have occurred in Virginia floods, not the coast.

    The deaths reach those levels in interior Virginia through a combination of:

    • topography, especially where rain runs off the mountains;
    • sometimes relatively short notice alerts compared to coastal weather forecasting; and
    • the historic practice of building in “hollers” in the mountains and bottom lands adjacent to rivers.

    Rainwater surging down mountains into rivers can be catastrophic at every point in its flow.

    This will provide both a photo remembrance and a brief written record of each of those four storms. (more…)

  • A Transparent Effort to Prevent SCC Approval of Hydrocarbons

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    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    Any doubt that some members of the Virginia General Assemblyโ€™s reconstituted electricity regulation commission intend on taking full control of our energy economy was dispelled at its second meeting Wednesday. With that control, the goal is to then impose a full anti-hydrocarbon energy agenda.   

    Senator Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, Chair of the Commission on Electric Utility Regulation.

    Three proposed legislative initiatives were floated.  None were voted on, and opposition quickly surfaced from some other panel members and in comments, especially from the stateโ€™s dominant electric utility. The three proposals (also available on the groupโ€™s state website under materials) were: 

    • A draft bill that would dictate a 13-point checklist of factors the regulatory State Corporation Commission would have to use in evaluating any application where it has the power to decide what is or is not in the public interest. Anti-hydrocarbon fuel provisions were prominent among the new elements. 
    • A staff white paper on a complete revision of the integrated resource plan process now in state law. One proposal was to override an SCC requirement that those plans offer an option that illustrates the lowest cost for meeting the energy needs, which invariably is a lower consumer cost than the plans which comply with the Virginia Clean Economy Act. It also proposed bringing transmission and distribution issues into what would be an โ€œintegrated system planโ€ and again adding emphasis on ending hydrocarbon energy.   
    • A draft bill to change of the groupโ€™s name from the Commission on Electric Utility Regulation to the Virginia Energy Commission, with an expansion of its oversight authority to the entirety of the stateโ€™s energy policy, which envisions ending the use of hydrocarbons in Virginia agriculture, transportation and new buildings along with electricity.   
    (more…)

Now Available

Book cover of 'Dust Mites: A Second American Revolution' by James A. Bacon, featuring astronauts planting a flag with a blue and white emblem on a lunar landscape, with Earth visible in the background.
For sale on Amazon.com

The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….

This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.

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Bacon’s Rebellion is Virginia’s leading politically non-aligned portal for news, opinions and analysis about state, regional and local public policy. Read more about us here.

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