Bacon's Rebellion

  • To Graduate or Not

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by John Butcher

    The 2023 4-year cohort graduation rates are up on the Virginia Department of Education Web site.

    VDOE likes to report its “On-Time Graduation Rate” because it inflates the numbers by counting the nonstandard diplomas. The data below are the “Federal Graduation Indicator” that counts only the Standard, Advanced, and IB diplomas.

    On average, Virginia’s economically disadvantaged students (ED) (mostly students who qualify for the free/reduced price lunch program) graduate at rates ca. 9% lower than their more affluent peers (Not ED). The handy VDOE database provides data for both groups.

    To start, here are the division average federal ED rates plotted v. the Not ED.

    The gold square is Richmond. The orange diamonds are the peer cities, from the left Norfolk, Newport News, and Hampton. The green diamonds are the Richmond ‘burbs, from the left Charles City, Chesterfield, Henrico, and Hanover. The aqua circle is the state average (average over all students, the averages of the division averages are slightly different, see below).

    The fitted line (with the state average removed and Highland not showing because of the suppressed ED datum) confirms what our eyes tell us: The ED rate is only slightly correlated with the Not ED. (more…)

  • Musings on Virginia Politics

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    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Southwest Virginia elections—The folks in the Mt. Rogers region take their politics seriously. Along all those mountain roads are numerous assemblages of campaign signs like the one shown above, although this is small in comparison to some. (You gotta love a candidate nicknamed “Stingy”!) Because the General Assembly seats are, for the most part, uncontested, the action is with the campaigns for local offices.

    Bellwether—The national columnist, E.J. Dionne, Jr., has picked up on David Toscano’s theme of Virginia being a bellwether state. In a recent column, he argues that both parties in Virginia are resorting to the familiar tactic of getting their voters to the polls by “scaring the daylights out of them.”

    The Democrats are warning ominously that Republicans, “MAGA extremists,” if they take over both houses of the legislature, will abolish abortion. For their part, Republicans are declaring that Democrats want to defund the police and let criminals “walk easy.” As Joshua Cole, a Democrat running for a House seat in the Fredericksburg area told Dionne, “It’s either abortion or it’s crime.”

    Dionne concludes, “Both parties will be intensely watching Virginia for clues about 2024’s political atmosphere…. The upshot: huge sums of money dropped on a few places are turning Virginia into a laboratory where competing theories about what moves voters are being tested.”

    Local elections are the most fun–Speaking of local elections, Dwight Yancey of Cardinal News has a fascinating summary of local elections around the state, albeit mostly in the western part.  It includes a description of three indicted Republican candidates on the ballots.

  • A Long Time Ago in a World Far Far Away

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    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Mafic dike in wall of granite. Roadcut on VA Rt. 16 near Mouth of Wilson Baptist Church

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    This past weekend I went back in Virginia’s history. Waaaay back. Over a billion years back.

    The occasion was the 2023 Virginia Geological Field Conference. This is an annual event staged by a group of leading geologists in the state. Attending were faculty members from several institutions, including one community college; geologists from the United States Geological Service; staff from several state agencies, such as the Department of Environmental Equality; college students, folks from the private sector; and one or two non-geologists (such as me) who nevertheless are keenly interested in the science.

    We met in the Mt. Rogers area (the site of the conference rotates among Virginia’s five geographic regions). There we spent a day and a half traveling among sites that have been explored and mapped by USGS geologists over the past few years. We would go to a site, get a briefing from the lead USGS geologist and then go crawl over and around the rocks, with many using their geologist’s hammer to break off chunks for examination. As for me, I would stand in front of a wall of rock or hold a chunk in my hand and ask one of the USGS or other geologists, “Tell me what I am looking at.” (more…)

  • List of Wrongly Purged Voter Registrations Gets Larger

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    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Susan Beals, Commissioner,
    Va. Dept. of Elections

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Remember my earlier report on the Youngkin administration cancelling the registrations of voters eligible to vote? These were felons whose voting rights had been restored who had committed a parole violation, which shows up as a felony in the State Police’s official crime database.

    In mid-October, the state Department of Elections reported that there are only about 275 individuals affected. Now, it is up to 3,400.

    When VPM, Richmond’s public radio station, first reported the errors, the administration was dismissive of the reports. Later, it minimized the extent of the problem. Now, it is trying to shift the blame. Jeff Goettman, the Governor’s chief of staff, says the administration suspects the errors “are the result of antiquated data systems and insufficient processes maintained over the last 20 plus years.” Anyone who has worked with data knows that, when one grabs a bunch of data that was compiled for one purpose and uses it for an entirely different purpose, one needs to be especially careful and needs to be thoroughly familiar with the dataset that is being relied upon. Anyone except, apparently, the folks at the Department of Elections.

    To cover himself, the Governor has ordered the Office of the Inspector General to investigate the “circumstances, data systems, and practices” surrounding this event and, as a counter measure, to prepare a separate report examining whether thousands of residents had been left on the registration rolls despite having been convicted of a new felony.

  • What is Actually Taught about the History of the Jews and the Jewish State in Virginia Schools?

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    by

    sherlockj

    German-Israeli woman Shani Louk, whose semi-naked body was paraded through Gaza by Hamas, has been declared dead. Her skull was found separated from her body. Credit Instagram

    by James C. Sherlock

    What comes first? Sadism or hatred? Does religious radicalism create sadists or do sadists flock there for approval and opportunity?

    Some on the radical right and the radical left in the United States share a hatred for Jews.

    The radical right may not be able to remember why, but pursue it anyway.

    Radical Islam combines Nazi views and medieval sadism and does not hesitate to act them out. Remember the Munich Olympics massacre, 9/11 and the ISIS beheadings? Now Oct. 7th? Any questions?

    Virginia’s schools have lessons to teach. Unfortunately it is not clear what the message has been and will be in the future. (more…)

  • Tales of Student Success in 2023

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    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Matt Hurt

    Virginia Standards of Learning test results remained rather flat from 2022 to 2023 (see Table 1).  This occurred despite the fact that many considered the pandemic over.  There were many contributing factors, such as (but certainly not limited to) worsening teacher shortages and continued high rates of chronic absenteeism.  However, among Virginia’s one hundred and thirty-one public school divisions, there were certainly some success stories.

    Table 1: Virginia SOL Results for 2022 and 2023

    Among Virginia’s public school divisions from 2022 to 2023, overall SOL pass rate differences ranged from 8.94% to -9.19%.  Oftentimes it is also useful to compare division rankings from one year to the next as relative measures of performance tend to control for a number of factors.  The division that earned the greatest pass rate rank increase surpassed the performance of thirty-seven other divisions in 2023, while the division with the greatest decrease declined forty-four positions. (more…)

  • The Californication of Virginia

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    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Does anyone really think fewer gas mowers will make a difference?

    More importantly, is it the role of government to tell citizens what they must use to trim their fescue?

    Of course it isn’t.

    Why should we in Virginia care? Because we’re just one car back on California’s crazy train.

    During the disastrous Ralph Northam era, when both chambers of the General Assembly were controlled by Virginia’s far-left Democrats, the Old Dominion linked its automotive climate policies to California’s.

    Unless sanity is restored in the November elections and the Senate flips to the GOP, gas-powered cars will no longer be sold in Virginia after 2035. (more…)

  • Electric Vehicles May Be Worse for the Environment than Gasoline-Powered Ones

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    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Hans Bader

    Electric vehicles require enormous damage to the environment just to produce their batteries — 250 tons of mining is required for a single battery, according to Real Clear Energy. Switching to electric cars would require a radical expansion of mining across the world, and the minerals for the car batteries will be refined mainly using the coal-powered electric grid of China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.

    Yet states are starting to mandate electric vehicles. Nine states, including California, have now decided to ban gasoline-powered cars by 2035, requiring that all cars sold be electric instead. In 2021, Virginia’s Democratic-controlled legislature passed a law adopting California standards for Virginia vehicles, so Virginia also will ban gasoline-powered cars in 2035, unless that law is repealed, as Republicans seek to do (the Republican-controlled Virginia House of Delegates voted to repeal the ban on gas-powered cars in 2023, but the Democratic-controlled Virginia state Senate kept the ban in place). (more…)

  • Resorts Like Airports

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    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Jon Baliles

    There has been a lot of boasting from the casino advocates about their partnership with Kentucky-based Churchill Downs, Inc. (CDI). The rebranded Richmond Grand casino developer Urban One is a radio and TV conglomerate that has said they are partnering with CDI because of their huge capitalization and experience with casinos. But let’s take a look at Churchill Downs’ casino portfolio, because it’s not what the casino advocates have been claiming.

    CDI is obviously world-famous for the running of the Kentucky Derby horse race, and they have expanded their portfolio to include more and more gaming facilities in recent years. CDI bought out Peninsula Pacific Entertainment (PPE) in a $2.75 billion deal in 2022, and PPE had been Urban One’s original partner in the first, failed casino referendum. The deal included the Colonial Downs Racetrack in New Kent, as well as six Rosie’s Gaming Emporium historical horse racing facilities across Virginia plus two smaller casinos, one in Iowa and one in New York. But among the eleven casinos in the CDI portfolio, none are anywhere near the scale what they promise for Richmond. And none of those eleven casinos resemble anything grand — except for the indisputable fact that the house always wins, even if the resort looks more like an airport.

    The Richmond Grand advocates claim their casino will have a 250-room hotel, an entertainment/concert venue with 3,000 seats, a TV and film production soundstage, and 15 restaurants and “dining options.” But if you look at their other casinos, they are all small casinos in small markets and are not even close to the “resort” they claim to be bringing to Richmond. (more…)

  • A’s for All!

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Grade inflation in American universities is a well-documented phenomenon. Nearly half of all grades handed out at Harvard are A’s. The average Grade Point Average (GPA) at the University of Virginia, having drifted steadily upward over the past 30 years, is moving higher at an accelerating rate. One possible explanation — in defiance of the downward trend in standardized test scores in K-12 education — is that the kids are just so darn smart! They deserve the A’s!

    Another explanation points to the obsession with equality and self-esteem, and to the attendant collapse in standards that would differentiate between excellence, mediocrity and failure.

    The question arises in a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education which profiles a controversy at James Madison University. Six economics professors told the Chronicle that their annual evaluations have been penalized because they are handing out too many D’s and F’s. (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    From The Bull Elephant

  • Foreign Student Influence in Students for Justice in Palestine Chapters at Virginia Universities and their “Allies”

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    Caption: “Show up, share, and support the resistance movement! Let’s keep the momentum going” GMU SJP member

    by James C. Sherlock

    The SJP organizations at three Virginia state universities, the University of Virginia, George Mason University, and the University of Mary Washington, have been active since October 7th on the Hamas side.

    Some attempt to thread two needles simultaneously: to separate Gazans from their elected government, the terrorist organization Hamas, and to separate Israelis from Jews.

    In celebrating the October 7th slaughter, those are distinctions without a difference.

    We’ll look at the influence of foreign students in Virginia universities’ SJP chapters, then the GMU chapter, and then briefly examine the progressive/Marxist “intersectionality” of SJP to see the extent of who and what we are dealing with.

    The results are interesting, but not surprising. (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

  • Hey NCAA, Let JMU Go Bowling!

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Kerry Dougherty

    File this under “Even A Blind Squirrel Finds A Nut Occasionally”:

    Louise Lucas, one of the worst members of Virginia’s General Assembly and the ringleader of the obstructionist “brick wall” in the state Senate that blocked chunks of Gov. Glenn Youngin’s popular agenda, is on the right side of an issue.

    For once.

    She recently posted this on X, the website formerly known as Twitter:

    Let me remind the @NCAA that they are required by their charter to follow state laws where they operate. If they continue to hold @JMUFootball hostage to a technical rule and stop them from competing in the postseason they will face a very unfriendly future from our legislature.

    I’m not sure there’s much to her veiled threat of “unfriendliness” from Virginia’s General Assembly, but her heart’s in the right place on this one. Until she brings race into it. As she always does. Sigh.

    She’s one of many Virginia politicians – Republicans and Democrats – who are lobbying the NCAA to allow James Madison University to become bowl-eligible this year.

    Let’s back up. In 2022 JMU moved up to Division 1 football after dominating the FCS for many years. This week the Dukes broke into both the AP and Coaches’ Polls national rankings in the 25th spot. The only Virginia college football program in the top 25.

    No surprise, considering that after seven games, the university in Harrisonburg remains undefeated.

    For most football programs, hitting six wins promises an invitation to play in one of the 41 bowl games. Seven wins? It’s a lock.

    But NCAA rules prevent programs from participating in bowl games until they’ve been in the higher division for two seasons.

    (more…)

  • Lee Statue Meltdown

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    At one point during the decade-long debate over Confederate statuary, the logic of the Taliban, er, progressives, was that the statues should not be commemorated in highly visible public spaces, but could be relegated to battlefields, cemeteries and museums. If the statues and memorials must be removed, that seems to be a reasonable fallback position, and we’ll see if and where it is honored.

    But the statue to Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, where the leftist electorate is infected by a rabid animus towards its enemies, will never be seen again. Not in a battlefield, not in a cemetery, not in a museum. In the Peoples’ Republic the attitude seems to be: we’ve got the power, we’ve got the statues, you can’t have them back, and by the way, f— you, we’re going to destroy them, and you can’t stop us.

    The news is out that organizers of the “Swords into Plowshares” project has melted down the Lee statue, which had been torn down in 2021 and the fate of which had long been the subject of litigation. The deed was done at an out-of-state foundry; the metal will be recycled into some form of progressive artwork.

    John Reid, chair of The Virginia Council, released the following statement:

    The Virginia Council denounces in the strongest possible terms the vile, vengeful, and repugnant act of destroying in a blast furnace the Robert E. Lee statue that stood for decades in Charlottesville.

    Rejoicing in the destruction of historic statues and paintings and gleefully comparing it to the “execution” of a “rabid dog” reveals an alarming and juvenile belligerence. Only a weak and sick society allows this to happen, and it ought to be an extraordinarily disturbing sign about the future of this country. (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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