Bacon's Rebellion

  • 2023 School Success Stories

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    Bob Rayner

    by Matt Hurt

    According to the SOL data from the end of the 2022-2023 school year, thirty-four Virginia schools (of three hundred seventy-seven) in the Comprehensive Instructional Program (CIP) consortium achieved the highest level (Level I) for all academic indicators the state uses for accreditation. The intended purpose of these performance benchmarks is to ensure we effectively assure success for all students, regardless of subgroup status.  The Level I benchmarks for the academic indicators for school accreditation ratings are listed below.

    English Performance

    • Overall school combined rate (combination of students who scored proficient or advanced and students who were not proficient but made significant gains towards proficiency) of at least 75%;
    • Each subgroup (for which there are at least 30 students in the subgroup enrolled in the school) must also meet the 75% combined rate.  Subgroups used for accreditation purposes are as follows: Asian students, Black students, economically disadvantaged students, English learners, Hispanic students, students with disabilities, White students, and multiracial students.

    Math Performance

    • Overall school combined rate (combination of students who scored proficient or advanced and students who were not proficient but made significant gains towards proficiency) of at least 70%;
    • Each subgroup (for which there are at least 30 students in the subgroup enrolled in the school) must also meet the 70% combined rate.  Subgroups used for accreditation purposes are as follows: Asian students, Black students, economically disadvantaged students, English learners, Hispanic students, students with disabilities, White students, and multiracial students.

    Science Performance

    • Overall rate of students who scored proficient or advanced of at least 70%.

    Once these outcomes were discovered, several of these schools were visited prior to teachers leaving for summer break.  Schools with the highest poverty rates and/or highest minority enrollments were targeted since time only allowed for eight school visits (Bessie Weller Elementary- Staunton City, Highland View Elementary- Bristol City, Saltville Elementary- Smyth County, Sugar Grove Elementary- Smyth County, St. Paul Elementary- Wise County, Tazewell High School- Tazewell County, Tazewell Intermediate School- Tazewell County, Woolwine Elementary- Patrick County).  During these visits, teachers and principals shared the factors that they felt were most significant in their success.  The following narrative is intended to communicate the most common factors for success noted by these dedicated educators.

    (more…)

  • RVA HISTORY: Strides of Strength

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    Bob Rayner

    by Jon Baliles

    Richmond unveiled a new sculpture last week on the site of the old Westhampton School (near St. Mary’s Hospital) that marked the desegregation of the West-End school in 1961. The 12-foot piece, entitled “Strides,” marks that day when 12-year old student Daisy Jane Cooper (now Jane Cooper Johnson) arrived as the first African American student following a three-year legal battle that took a U.S. District Court’s intervention. (Photo courtesy of Bon Secours.)

    At age 9, Jane was having to travel five miles to get to the segregated Carver Elementary School. In 1958, civil rights attorney Oliver Hill submitted an application to the Richmond City School Board on behalf of Jane’s mother to transfer Jane to the all-white Westhampton School. The State Pupil Placement Board rejected the request, which led to the lawsuit that lasted three years and resulted in a groundbreaking victory in 1961. It impacted not only Richmond City schools but other localities as well — and the ruling meant that African-American students no longer required permission from the State Board to attend a white school.

    A year after first walking through the doors of Westhampton, Cooper also became the first African-American student to integrate Thomas Jefferson High School in September 1962, after deciding she wanted to go there instead of the all-black Maggie Walker High School. (more…)

  • Stay Calm: Police Finally Release Make and Model of the Va. Beach Pier Car

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    Bob Rayner

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Everyone try to maintain your composure. Let’s all stay calm. Perhaps a few moments of meditation are in order.

    Deep breath.

    Ready?

    We finally know the make and model of the car that drove off the 14th Street pier more than a week ago.

    The police had that information but withheld it from the public, they said, “to avoid a panic.”

    The car that spent almost a week in the Atlantic because the city couldn’t figure out how to remove it from its watery 17-foot grave is a red Nissan Kicks.

    Good Lord that’s shocking. Thank goodness THOSE details didn’t leak. Imagine what might have happened.

    In case you’re wondering, as I was, what a Nissan Kicks looks like, we’ve included a photo of the panic-inducing compact SUV from the NissanUSA website. (more…)

  • Failure Is Not an Option with Proposed SOL Revisions: Part Two

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    Bob Rayner

    Lisa Coons

    by Charles Pyle

    Last month, we examined two items on the agendas for the Board of Education’s January 24-25 meetings that seemed to fly in the face of Governor Glenn Youngkin’s 2021 campaign promises to raise expectations for students and schools and increase transparency in how the commonwealth reports on the performance of both.

    Under one of Superintendent of Public Instruction Lisa Coons’ proposals — which was abruptly removed from the agenda of the board’s January 25 business meeting — students would no longer fail Standards of Learning tests in reading and math. Rather, students who failed to meet the proficiency benchmarks would be reported as performing at the “basic” or “below basic” levels. 

    As pointed out in last month’s article, while these descriptors mirror those on the national reading and math tests, the potential for confusion would be high given that Virginia sets the proficiency bar on its reading and math SOL tests much lower than the benchmarks students must meet on the national tests, known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

    Youngkin expressed his concerns about Virginia’s low expectations on the campaign trail in 2021, and vowed in his May 2022 report “Our Commitment to Virginians: High Expectations and Excellence for All Students” to raise the commonwealth’s expectations for students to equal the rigor of the national benchmarks. The governor’s report noted that while other states raised standards during recent years, Virginia’s expectations relative to national standards had slipped to the lowest in the nation. 

    But a recent but little-noticed National Center for Education Statistics study confirms that this is still the case, despite the governor’s promise to raise expectations. (more…)

  • The Most Improved Virginia School Division in 2023

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    Bob Rayner

    by Matt Hurt

    In a previous paper (Tales of Student Success in 2023) the successes of four of the top five divisions that realized the greatest improvement in SOL pass rates in 2023 were highlighted. Since then, I was afforded the opportunity to visit Greensville County, the division that realized the greatest improvement in Virginia. During this visit teachers and administrators outlined the aspects in their division which they felt lead to these significant improvements. These stories mirror those in the other divisions previously discussed.

    Table 1: Top SOL Pass Rate Improvement Divisions from 2022 and 2023

    The educators in Greensville County attributed  their significant improvement in student outcomes to a number of factors. They felt that the increased focus on relationships, expectations, leadership, and focusing on the positives helped them to ensure more success for their students than in the past.

    Teachers related that they had invested more heavily in relationships with their students over the last few years. As in some other rural areas, these teachers reported that they were mostly from the county, but may not have lived in the same communities as their students. Through discussion with peers, teachers began to consider that some students live in situations that are significantly different from their middle-class experiences. Some of the teachers were familiar with these situations and shared this perspective with others. (more…)

  • Rare SCC Deadlock Sinks Dominion’s Energy Plan

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    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    The year long debate over Dominion Energy Virginia’s proposed integrated resource plan, which threw climate catastrophe activists into a frenzy because it added a new natural gas plant, is ending with no decision.  Two State Corporation Commission judges split on whether to approve it, basically a win for the anti-fossil fuel forces.

    In December, a hearing officer assigned to study the case had ruled that Dominion’s plan should be rejected because it included the expansion of gas generation, when the anti-natural gas forces in the General Assembly had passed laws against that 2020 and 2021.  Those laws did include provisions for maintaining or adding fossil fuel generation on the basis of a threat to reliability, but only under limited circumstances. (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

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    James A. Bacon

    From The Bull Elephant

  • No More Legacy Admissions in Virginia

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    James A. Bacon

    Out of luck

    by James A. Bacon

    Bills to ban preferential treatment for relatives of alumni at Virginia’s public universities flew through the 2024 session of the General Assembly in remarkable time. In a legislature marked by intense partisan divisions, companion bills passed subcommittees, committees, and the full Senate and the House of Delegates on unanimous votes. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Governor Glenn Youngkin has indicated he will sign the bill.

    “If we’re going to have an even playing field, let’s have an even playing field,” said Democratic Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico, who sponsored the Senate bill.

    VanValkenburg’s statement presumably alludes to last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling restricting preferential treatment in college and university admissions on the basis of race. Many Republicans and conservatives argued that policies should not tilt the playing field for or against members of a particular race or ethnic group. Admissions, they contend, should be based on merit.

    In this case, Virginia Republicans appear to be true to their meritocratic principles. Attorney General Jason Miyares was among those backing the ban on legacies. The Times-Dispatch summarized his thinking this way: “Colleges should judge applications based on what a student can control — such as classes, grades and extracurriculars — not the color of their skin or their parents’ school.” (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

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    James A. Bacon

  • Scott Surovell’s End Run Around Jason Miyares

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    James A. Bacon

    Sen. Scott Surovell

    by James A. Bacon

    The battle for control of higher-ed institutions in Virginia is boiling over into the state legislature. Senator Scott Surovell, D-Mount Vernon, has submitted a bill, SB 506, that would allow Virginia’s public universities to hire their own legal counsel in place of lawyers answering to the Attorney General.

    The bill would give governing boards of every institution authority over the hiring of “outside legal counsel, the oversight and management of any legal counsel, and the appointment of a general counsel to serve as the chief legal officer of the institution.”

    Attorney General Jason Miyares

    Public universities are classified as state agencies. Like other state agencies, their legal interests are represented by counsel that reports to the Office of Attorney General.

    The underlying political conflict is who controls Virginia’s colleges and universities. The issue surfaced last year when former Bowdoin University President Clayton Rose addressed the University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors and suggested that board members owe their primary loyalty to the institution, not their personal agendas. He received pushback from two board members appointed by Governor Glenn Youngkin who argued that the duty of board members is to represent the interests of the Commonwealth of Virginia, not the institution itself. (more…)

  • Five Far-Left Virginia Democrats Vote Not to Deport Illegals with DUIs

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    Bob Rayner

    by Kerry Dougherty 

    If you hobnob with prominent Democrats and find yourself in the company of any of the following Virginia Congress members — Bobby Scott of Newport News, Gerald Connolly of Fairfax, Jennifer McClellan of Richmond, Jennifer Wexton of Leesburg or Don Beyer of Alexandria — invite them to take a drive with you down Virginia Beach Boulevard.

    Make sure you stop at the intersection of the Boulevard and Kings Grant Road.

    Urge them get out of the car and pause at the faded makeshift memorial for Tessa Tranchant and Ali Kunhardt. On the night of March 30, 2007 these two teenagers were killed by a drunken illegal named Alfredo Ramos. He plowed his car at high speed into the rear of the car where they sat, waiting for the light to change.

    Tessa was 16. Ali was 17. They were best friends.

    Ramos was a Mexican who entered the country illegally and amassed not one, but two alcohol-related charges, including a DUI, before the inevitable happened: he killed two innocent Americans. (more…)

  • Mea Culpa, Bills Targeting UDC Should Fail

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    Steve Haner

    Is the historical homestead of the Lees of Virginia, Stratford Hall, being stripped of its tax exemptions just because of its connection to one Lee in particular?

    By Steve  Haner

    Racial animus and revenge are always bad policies. It is now very clear those are the motivations for the bills advancing to strip tax exemptions from legitimate historical and charitable institutions, simply because of connections to the Southern Confederacy. They should die.

    The beeping sound you hear is me backing up my truck to prepare for a 180- degree turn. My initial reaction to House Bill 568 was to not really care, but that was based on a cursory reading of the fiscal impact statement. I also forgot the lessons of 40 years of watching the sausage factory and failed to read the bill to the end. (more…)

  • Checking up on Steve Descano

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Steve Descano. Commonwralth’s Attorney, Fairfax. Photo credit: WTOP

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Contributors and many readers of this blog have been highly critical of Steve Descano, the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Fairfax County.  They belittle him as being a Soros-backed, “woke” prosecutor, soft on crime. They seem to have missed Descano’s involvement in a recent high-profile case.

    As described by The Washington Post, the defendant in the case had agreed to allow his home to serve as a delivery point for marijuana that was going to be sold by the victim. There had been a dispute between the defendant and the victim. When the victim knocked on the door of the defendant’s apartment, he sneaked out the back door, retrieved an AR-15 -style rifle from his car, and opened fire on the victim, killing him, and spraying bullets into adjacent occupied apartments. (more…)

  • NJ Greenmailed Into Massive Wind Energy Costs

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    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    New Jersey just agreed to two ocean wind projects with astronomical guaranteed power prices. The price demanded and received by independent competitive suppliers shows there is at least some upside to the utility-owned, captive ratepayer-financed model behind Dominion Energy Virginia’s massive offshore wind facility.

    In late 2023 the news was full of reports that independent wind developers were pulling out of various projects along the East Coast because the projects were no longer economically viable. Those who thought the future of the industry was in jeopardy were wrong. (more…)

  • Looking More Like New Jersey Every Day

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    I’ve frequently made the observation that Virginia has been leaking population through domestic migration. However, as recent data published by Old Dominion University’s Strome College of Business make clear, the loss of population through domestic migration is more than offset by net international migration. Between April 1, 2020, and June 30, 2022, Virginia lost nearly 30,000 people through domestic migration, but gained nearly 53,000 through international migration.

    That data (shown in the table above) and more can be found in ODU’s 2023 State of the Commonwealth report on Virginia’s economy.

    Perhaps the most interesting data tell us the states where people are coming from and the states where Virginians are going to. As can be seen in the tables below, people moving to Virginia in 2021 came mainly from the northeast — New Jersey is at the top of the list — and they’re moving mainly to southern states. (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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