Bacon's Rebellion

  • Teacher Vacancies in Virginia Cities with a Majority of Black Students Continue to be Very High

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    The statewide performance of Black kids on Virginia’s SOLs was horrible. Chronic absenteeism is a primary reason.

    But I continue to look for underlying reasons and solutions for both.

    This morning I checked the Staffing and Vacancy Dashboard.

    The teacher vacancy rate for Region 2, Tidewater and the Eastern Shore, is currently the highest in the state at 7.62%. That statistic combines teachers and special education teachers aides and paraprofessionals. There are 3,115 unfilled positions in Region 2.

    That region has been the worst in the state for a long time.

    The next highest is Central Virginia at 4.9%. Southwest Virginia is lowest at 2.28%.

    Region 2 vacancies both in actual numbers and in percentages are always high because school staff vacancies in Hampton Roads’ majority Black urban cities, and their proportion of the region’s public-school population, drive them up.

    The data reveal that in divisions with majorities of Black students in the rest of the state, some are very high and some not.

    Petersburg, as such things happen, is off the charts.

    But there are a major differences in teacher vacancies, and in student performance, between Black kids in Black majority urban cities (Suffolk is a officially a city but not urban) with the honorable exception of Hampton’s Black student SOL scores, and those in Black majority rural counties.

    We should perhaps look at what vacancies can tell us.

    And another time at what the City of Hampton Public Schools has been doing right for so long. (more…)

  • Racism Comes in All Colors

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    Bob Rayner

    by Kerry Dougherty 

    What follows here is fiction. Totally imaginary. Still, picture this with me:

    The mayor of Virginia’s largest city — that would be Virginia Beach, population 458,000 — decides to hold a holiday party for city council members on city property.

    The mayor — and let me remind you this is hypothetical, it did not happen — sent out invitations characterizing this in some kind of strange pidgin English as a party for “white electeds,” which meant that the four black members of council were not welcome.

    Because of their skin color.

    What would the reaction be when the whites-only party became public?

    I can tell you.

    There would be loud cries of “racism”! Calls for the mayor’s immediate resignation. There would be  protests in the streets, with both whites and blacks denouncing the mayor’s shocking behavior. The local newspaper would call for the mayor to be removed from office and the editorialists would lament that Virginia hadn’t progressed from the days of Jim Crow.

    The news would make national headlines and no doubt state and federal prosecutors would be looking at the civil rights violations in an exclusive, all-white Christmas party for elected officials.

    It would be — pardon the expression — a poopstorm.

    Odd then, that when something similar actually happened, not in Virginia, but in the largest city in Massachusetts, Boston — there is just a mild outcry. And lots of folks defending the move.

    Could it be because the Boston mayor excluded whites, not blacks? (more…)

  • Oh, That Song of Solomon!

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    A Hanover County parent has submitted a complaint to the school system’s Library Materials Committee about a book in school libraries, writing that its “vulgar and inappropriate” content depicts rape, prostitution, sexual assault, violence, illegal activities and sexual activities. The book:  The Bible;  specifically, the New International Version of the Bible.

    To emphasize the harm she feared emanating from the accessibility of The Bible to her child, she stated, as reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, that she feared “it would absolutely turn my child into a groomed, immoral, prostituting, violent, polygamist and/or rapist.”

    Under the Hanover County School Board’s  book review policy, amended last summer, any parent of a child in a Hanover County school or any resident of Hanover County “may file a challenge regarding any material located in a school’s comprehensive library or within a classroom library which is believed to contain sexually explicit content.” If the school principal or librarian determines that the challenged material meets the criteria for “deselection,” the material is removed from the school libraries. If the principal or librarian determines that the material does not meet the criteria, the challenge is forwarded to the Library Materials Committee, which reviews the material and makes a recommendation to the School Board. The School Board, by a majority vote, in its sole discretion, may remove any material from school libraries or classrooms. (more…)

  • The “Chanukah Dilemma”: Is the Menorah a Religious or Political Symbol?

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    Bob Rayner

    Chabad-Lubavitch of Williamsburg Rabbi Mendy Hebor leads a menorah lighting at William and Mary.

    by Ken Reid

    Thursday night is the final night of Chanukah, the eight-day Festival of Lights that I (and millions of Jews across the world) celebrate, to mark the miracle that occurred when the 2nd temple was restored following a rebellion by religious Jews against secular Hellenistic Jews and their Greek-Syrian allies in the 160’s BCE.

    Because of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, in which 1,200 Israelis and other nationals were murdered by Hamas thugs, Chanukah has a really special meaning this year – bringing “light” to conquer the “dark” (i.e. Hamas).

    But while the ongoing war has united Israelis, and probably most Jews worldwide, there is a deep divide in the U.S. and other nations on whether Israel’s response in Gaza is inhumane; some 18,000 Gazans have died in Israel Defense Force (IDF) aerial bombing and ground attacks.  The pressure, mostly from the far Left, for a permanent ceasefire keeps pressing on,  

    Enter the controversy about lighting a menorah in public at a recent Williamsburg arts festival.

    There, the board of the festival voted not to allow CHABAD of Williamsburg to light a menorah at the festival, thinking it was a one-sided political statement for Israel.  Arguments also were made that this is a religious holiday, and the festival was to be secular – although Christmas decorations and Christmas stuff abounded there  But then a sop was thrown at Rabbi Mendy Heber to have a pro- ceasefire message there as equal time.

    Kerry Dougherty’s  article on the controversy is here  but a more detailed article in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency is worth reading. too  

    Chabad moved the menorah lighting to the William & Mary campus, but the incident went viral.  Gov. Glenn Youngkin denounced the arts festival’s ban and Chabad has complained to the Virginia attorney general’s anti-Semitism task force.

    Is the menorah a religious or political symbol, both, or neither? (more…)

  • Metro is at the Precipice. Declare Bankruptcy.

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    Steve Haner

    Recent ridership figures for Metro. Source: WMATA Click for larger view.

    By Derrick Max

    Tuesday, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) warned that without substantially greater subsidies from DC, Maryland, and Virginia, they would be facing a $750 million annual shortfall that would require draconian cuts in services, including closing 10 stations, cutting 67 bus lines, and laying off 2,000 employees.  They would also freeze salaries, raise fares and parking fees, reduce bus and train frequency, and close all stations at 10 p.m.

    The threat of such cuts was meant to be a bargaining chip for more funding rather than a true plan to save WMATA, as any such cuts would just accelerate, not slow, the demise of WMATA.  It is time for Governor Youngkin and the two other regional funders, all of whom are facing reduced federal aid in their own budgets, to seriously consider forcing WMATA into bankruptcy.  And if WMATA’s unique structure as a bi-state compact agency makes it ineligible for Chapter 9 bankruptcy — a complete restructuring and rethinking of WMATA along a similar line as Chapter 9 bankruptcy are in order.

    The truth is that bankruptcy is not a new idea.  In 2016, WMATA hired one of the nation’s top bankruptcy lawyers, Kevyn D. Orr, to advise the agency on fixing its troubled finances.  At the time, WMATA had a $1.8 billion operating deficit (a loss of over 200 percent of operating revenue) with $917 million in long-term debt (not counting pension and other benefit liabilities).  The hope was that Mr. Orr’s expertise would help WMATA restructure its debt without resorting to bankruptcy, take a tougher line on labor negotiations, and wrest more money from the three Washington-area funding jurisdictions.  Sadly, whatever reforms were implemented have had little, if any, impact on WMATA’s financial situation today. (more…)

  • Boys Left Behind Academically – Yet Another Crisis in Virginia Schools

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Girls significantly outperform boys in English Language Arts (ELA) (reading and writing) in public schools and perform about as well in math and science, both across the nation and in Virginia.

    Virginia statewide SOL performance statistics give the details here.

    Across the state, girl students are better readers and far better writers than boys. Those English language arts performances at the state level of course mask both smaller and greater gaps in individual divisions and schools.

    The writing gaps exist in both high-performing Loudoun County and in poor-performing Richmond City schools.

    Broken down to the next level of detail in writing performance statewide, it looks worse.

    There is a single-sex classroom option that has been operating for a long time at a middle school in Prince William County. For the best ELA results, it is reasonable to think that model may have to be extended to elementary school.

    College and Career Readiness statistics offer confirmation of the outcome of boys’ ELA deficiencies.

    The Virginia Literacy Act starting in the 2024-25 school year will make major upgrades to literacy instruction.

    Absenteeism.  It would be easy to consider educational gaps in boys to be an artifact of higher absenteeism than girls.  But that’s not it.

    One of the artifacts of my research into chronic absenteeism in Virginia public schools statewide in 2023 was that male and female results by percentage were exactly the same: 19.5%.

    That, on the surface at least, may confirm parental influence on absenteeism.

    The science of learning in boys. The medical community has offered scientific observations of brain science and social development that matter here.

    Those observations typically include, aggregated by Microsoft Bing AI search from three different sources:

    • Boys’ brains secrete less serotonin, which is directly related to impulse control;
    • Boys start out primarily as tactile and kinesthetic learners;
    • Boys show more areas in the brain dedicated to spatial-mechanical strengths;
    • Girls generally demonstrate a focus on verbal-emotive processing;
    • Girls have more of their cerebral cortex defined for verbal function;
    • The hippocampus, where memory and language live, does develop more rapidly and is larger in girls than in boys. This impacts vocabulary, reading, and writing skills.

    We will consider those to be illustrative. They certainly seem to argue for different approaches to educating boys and girls.

    Asian students.  The special case of Asian students in ELA and all other subjects must be taken into account when seeking solutions to the boy/girl gaps. They absolutely blow away all other demographics of students, despite the fact that English may not be the first language spoken at home.

    That clearly represents a difference in learning style and effort, not in teaching style.

    The public data on Asian students are not in Virginia deconstructed by male and female results, but I have asked VDOE to provide and I will report it.

    Educational evidence.  In 2005, the Policy and Program Studies Service of the U.S. Department of Education published Single-Sex Versus Coeducational Schooling: A Systematic Review.  

    The reviewers used What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) standards to sort through 2,221 studies.

    The Executive Summary is here. I urge you to read it.

    You will see that the bulk of the evidence at the time of that review favored learning in single-sex schools. But you will also see that the support for the conclusions is generally thin because of a dearth of scientific studies of important issues.

    A current search of WWC on that topic yields no study that meets their standards.

    The ed schools have moved on.

    Single-sex classrooms have been offered successfully at Woodbridge Middle School in Prince William County for more than a dozen years.  We will examine that in more detail in the next article.

    But that single school effort is not robust enough to meet WWC standards. It will take a much broader, scientifically designed and run trial.

    Bottom line. The educational gaps between boys and girls are too big for state government and citizens to continue to ignore in Virginia.

    Indiana has not ignored them. See both sides of The Great Gender Debate: Should Boys And Girls Learn Separately? published by Indiana’s State Impact Project.

    It is time to focus on the education of boys who, unsurprisingly, act and learn like boys.

    Woodbridge Middle has proven it is possible to offer single-sex classrooms in co-ed public schools, subject to parental choice of classroom assignments.

    And it has apparently solved, if such a thing is achievable, the ACLU’s objections to single-sex schools detailed in The Great Gender Debate.

    Next time I will offer a concept for the voluntary implementation by school divisions of single-gender and co-ed classrooms in co-ed public schools across Virginia.

    It will serve as the basis for a definitive study to provide the evidence needed to solve the debate.

    Updated Dec. 19 at 15:20 to add the discussion about Woodbridge Middle and to eliminate the discussion about ed schools.

  • Sorry, Senator. Zalenskyy is No George Washington

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    Bob Rayner

    Sen. Tim Kaine

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Tim Kaine jumped the shark.

    Get a load of the nonsense this United States Senator – from VIRGINIA – Tweeted on Tuesday:

    President Zelenskyy spoke to the Senate today about the critical role of American support for Ukrainian democracy. He stood beneath a portrait of George Washington, who helped birth an America free from domination by a great power. A moving moment.

    — Tim Kaine (@timkaine) December 12, 2023

    Seriously, senator?

    No member of Congress should ever compare America’s first president with this little corruptocrat.

    This is the problem when Virginians vote for a Kansan to represent them in Washington. He missed fourth grade Virginia history and apparently they didn’t teach American history in the schools he attended either.

    If they had, the senator would know that Washington was a humble man who fervently believed in freedom and the rights of man. He was an educated, measured leader who stepped down after two terms in office and refused to allow himself to be set up as anything more than a man of the people.

    In his farewell address, Washington warned against foreign entanglements.

    Presidents have been ignoring Washington’s admonitions for decades, unfortunately. (more…)

  • A Brief Case for Giving Virginia Legislators a Raise

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    Bob Rayner

    by Gordon C. Morse

    I thought it would be worthwhile to pursue further the subject of legislative compensation in Virginia. A report I’ve  referenced before is dated December 1998 – 25 years ago – and offers the following rationale for increasing the amount paid to Virginia lawmakers holding these posts, attending the annual legislative sessions and all that pertains thereto: 

    The significant increase in the time required for members of the General Assembly to carry out their responsibilities, to our way of thinking, requires an increase in compensation and in per diem allowances. In addition to the 90 days required of a legislator for the two sessions of the General Assembly, the time a legislator has to devote to attending meetings of committees, subcommittees and study commissions has increased sharply. Those members of the General Assembly who responded to our questionnaire indicated that they spent from between 30 and 60 days on legislative duties between the sessions of the General Assembly. 

    Moreover, a legislator is expected to keep in touch with his constituents and to answer inquiries from them. While the performance of this duty is time-consuming, nevertheless it is necessary for a legislator to keep in touch with the views of those he represents, and to maintain a relationship with them which will reveal their desires and concerns.

    There are any number of metrics and tables and summaries and all that in the report. Things sometimes get stashed away casually in the Commonwealth, but I am working on the optimistic belief that other people and/or institutions retained a copy. Legislative demands have increased in the intervening years, along with the willingness of elected lawmakers to make this their primary work in life. The implications of that, undoubtedly, will cause some of the newer members to wonder why the General Assembly is organized the way it is, as well as seed an interest in reform. Others will resist this impulse and I would be inclined to agree with them, that a full-time legislature would be unlikely to produce an improvement in representative democracy.  (more…)

  • The Asymmetrical Application of Free-Speech Principles

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Clifford S. Asness, founder of AQR Capital Management, did a masterful job of distilling the free-speech debate on college campuses to its essence. Though he had in mind the disastrous testimony of the three Ivy League presidents last week regarding Palestinians and Jews, his Wall Street Journal op-ed describes the dilemma at the University of Virginia as well.

    Alumni donors like me don’t object to free speech. What we can’t abide is the extremely asymmetrical application of free-speech principles. For years these schools, [the University of Pennsylvania] prominently included, have actively suppressed ideas disagreeable to the progressive worldview of their administrations, faculties and hard-core student activists. Now that those groups are talking about wiping Israel off the map, these college presidents are wrapping themselves in the First Amendment….

    Unacceptable is the current status quo of free speech for those chanting slogans that amount to “death to the Jews” but not for those committing alleged microaggressions against the politically favored.

    That is precisely the problem I have with the UVa administration.

    The day after Hamas terrorists slaughtered thousands of defenseless Israeli citizens and abducted hundreds more, the Students for Justice in Palestine at UVA were free to say the following [my bold]: (more…)

  • Online Porn Star/Democrat Candidate Continues to Play Victim

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    Bob Rayner

    Susanna Gibson at work

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Let me get this straight. A married mother of two, a Democrat, who engaged in smutty livestream sex for money with her husband, is still playing the victim card because she lost her bid to represent Virginians from the 57th House District.

    Politico just featured a laughable Q and A with the “victim” headlined: “Her Online Sex Life Was Exposed. She Lost Her Election. Now She’s Speaking Out.” In which Gibson basically said that the only people who cared about her escapades were aging Republicans.

    The cool kids — you know, millennials like her — know that abortion rights are way more important than anything she did on her side hustle with “Chaturbate.”

    “Younger voters don’t care. Very, very few of them, I would say. My age and younger, maybe even mid-40s up to 50 or so, didn’t care. I’m a millennial, I’m the oldest possible millennial — 90 percent of millennials have taken nude photos. So, I think we all understand.”

    So, the entire younger generation is morally bankrupt? Good to know.

    While it may be true that 90% of millennials have taken nudies, that’s not smart or a sign of good judgment. Still, there’s a difference between a nude snapshot and live-streamed sex acts for cash. (more…)

  • Deja Vu, All Over Again

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Virginia is trying again to land a sports facility for a national professional sports team, The Washington Post reports. This time it is an arena for the Wizards of the National Basketball Association and the Capitals of the National Hockey League. Both teams have the same owner and are currently located in Washington, D.C.

    The facility would be located in Potomac Yards in Alexandria. (If that name sounds familiar, that is where then-Gov. L. Douglas Wilder tried to lure the Washington Redskins football team 30 years ago.) According to the Post, the arena would anchor a “massive mixed-use development.” A stadium authority would own the facility and lease it to the company that owns the sports teams. There are no public details on potential costs yet. The owner of the Wizards and the Capitals would be expected to put up “hundreds of millions of dollars of its own money,” with the remainder being provided by the authority. The authority would sell bonds to raise the cash and use revenue from ticket sales, concessions, and parking to repay the bonds (theoretically).  (more…)

  • The Plain Truth about Climate Change in Virginia

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    Bob Rayner

    Surry Nuclear Power Station

    by Nelson Fegley

    Climate change is real. Major climate fluctuations have occurred over hundreds of thousands of years, and the future will be similar. The changes are both anthropogenic (human caused) and due to natural causes. The magnitude of natural changes in temperatures and sea levels have far exceed those from anthropogenic causes. It is highly unlikely that we can significantly influence the natural causes, so whatever happens we will need to adapt to the resulting changes in temperature, sea levels, etc.  More about this later.

    The Commonwealth of Virginia, due to the structure the power industry, is well positioned to deal with both the anthropogenic and natural causes of climate change. About 87% of the state’s power is generated via nuclear and natural energy sources. Nuclear energy generation involves zero carbon emissions, while natural gas is clean relative to sources like coal. The combination of nuclear and natural gas provides dependable power, not dependent on the wind blowing and sun shining. 

    The capability to provide reliable generation of power is a key reason why Northern Virginia has become the world center for cloud computing and data storage centers. And businesses such as Amazon have committed an additional $35 billion for further expansion of this technology throughout Virginia. The economic fallout from these investments will help provide resources that will be needed to adapt to the changes in climate due to natural causes. An example would be funding major infrastructure projects in the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Coast areas. 

    The current political climate involves a goal of having power generation methods that produce zero carbon emissions. Wind and solar power are being pushed, but they are unlikely to become a major source of reliable power due to their intermittent nature. Storage battery technology is under development, but unlikely to provide the needed base load capacity. The wind projects that have been funded are also facing “headwinds” due to major unforeseen costs.  (more…)

  • Asleep at the Switch in Harrisonburg

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    Bob Rayner

    by Joe Fitzgerald

    At some point while on the Harrisonburg City Council, I quit worrying about or getting angry about being misquoted by the Daily News-Record, and I got used to the people I met saying I wasn’t anything like what they expected. The expectations the paper created were just part of the gig. And I remember one time that I was pretty sure I’d be misquoted when I opened my mouth. I don’t remember what we, the council, had screwed up, but I told the reporter we had been asleep at the switch.

    I thought as I said it that he’d quote me as using the more well-known expression, asleep at the wheel. One means, in railroad terms, letting the train go down the wrong track. The other means, in driving terms, losing control through inattention. I didn’t complain. The difference didn’t matter, because it was just a metaphor.

    A lot has changed in 20 years. In the city politics of 2023, being asleep at the wheel is no longer just a metaphor. The other change is that City Council members no longer talk to the media. City publicist Michael Parks is quoted as often as the council members, and some weeks it seems he writes half the News-Record. The recent statements to school officials from Councilman Chris Jones at least brought comment from Mayor Reed, although Jones only answered through a prepared statement and the other three members were silent. Reed indicated the three were not upset by Jones’s remarks. It’s too bad they couldn’t speak for themselves.

    School officials, on the other hand, have legal and policy restrictions on what they can say about any situation in the schools, leaving Jones free to claim he was courteous and respectful and to claim school officials confirmed that characterization. (more…)

  • Kalven Principles for UVa?

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Five years ago, University of Virginia President Jim Ryan took to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter to comment upon the horrific murder of 11 Jews in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh by a white nationalist.

    “This kind of hate and violence goes against everything this country should stand for, and for which the University of Virginia will always stand,” he tweeted. “It falls to all of us to do everything we can, not just to keep our community safe but to prevent hate and bigotry from taking root in the first place.”

    Someone warned him at the time to be careful, Ryan recalled in remarks to the UVa Board of Visitors Friday. Once he started commenting on news headlines, it would be difficult to stop. There is always something happening around the world. If university presidents comment on one story, they are expected to comment on the next. And if they don’t, people read meaning into the silence.

    Maybe it’s time to rethink the practice of making public pronouncements on events of the day, Ryan suggested. Maybe it’s time to consider adopting the Kalven principles, a set of principles articulated by the University of Chicago’s Kalven Committee that urged colleges and universities to maintain institutional neutrality on social and political issues. (more…)

  • SCC Examiner Says No to Dominion Gas Plans

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    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    A hearing examiner at the Virginia State Corporation Commission has recommended rejection of Dominion Virginia Energy’s plan to maintain and add to its fleet of fossil fuel generators. It failed to overcome the presumption in state law that all such plants must go away, she wrote.

    In her extensive report following the months-long regulatory battle, Ann Berkebile notes that the Commission itself (still hobbled with only one full member and a retired commissioner sitting in) may reach a different conclusion. And the pending case, Dominion’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), does not actually involve final decisions on what power plants to add or delete from its assets in coming years.

    But Dominion was looking for a blessing from the Commission on its proposal to maintain most of its natural gas plants and even add one, a 1,000 megawatt facility it wants to place in Chesterfield County. The 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act has set a schedule for their retirement, with all fossil fuel generation expected to be gone in about 20 years. Dominion’s announcement last May that it was seeking to keep and add to its natural gas plants was immediately denounced by environmental advocates.

    The 2020 legislation included a provision to allow the SCC to approve an additional fossil fuel plant if a utility demonstrates “that it has already met the energy savings goals identified in § 56-596.2 and that the identified need cannot be met more affordably through the deployment or utilization of demand-side resources or energy storage resources and that it has considered and weighed alternative options, including third-party market alternatives, in its selection process.” (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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