Bacon's Rebellion

  • Blue on Blue

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Monica Lisle

    Monica Lisle, a long-serving Alexandria police captain, has charged the city’s police chief with denying her a promotion to assistant chief by stacking the deck against her in favor of Black candidates in order to “fill certain unannounced racial quotas.”

    As Lisle wrote in an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint last year, according to The Washington Post, “I believe that Chief [Donald] Hayes believes that diversity is specific to African Americans,” Lisle wrote in a complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) last year. “I am a member of at least three protected classes, as a gay, woman, over the … age of 40.”

    “Had the process not been flawed like it was, she would have been promoted,” said Damon Minnix, president of the Alexandria chapter of the Southern States Police Benevolent Association, adding that police department morale has suffered as a result. At full complement, the Alexandria police are authorized to have 322 sworn staff. In March, according to The Patch, there were 70 vacancies. (more…)

  • Changes in Student Populations and Choices of Majors in 4-Year Colleges and Universities 2010-2023 Challenge Virginia Schools

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    by

    sherlockj

    Virginia Union University

    by James C. Sherlock

    Tastes change, and with them trends.

    Between fall 2010 and fall 2021, total undergraduate enrollment in degree-granting postsecondary institutions in America decreased by 15% percent (from 18.1 million to 15.4 million students).

    In Virginia’s 4-year public colleges and universities, the drop was 8% in that same period, right at the national average for state schools.

    Virginia’s HBCU’s, except for the highest ranked, Hampton University, have fought the trend and increased their student populations dramatically recently.

    The Great Recession baby bust arrives as a freshman student cliff in 2025.

    National trends. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) data on enrollment in undergraduate majors in 4-year public and private institutions of higher education (IHEs) show significant shifts in majors between 2010 and 2023.

    There are winner and loser programs, with implications for staffing and perhaps offering a data basis for my magnet schools suggestion.

    Between 2010 and 2023, undergraduate majors in:

    1. liberal arts and social sciences continued to decline;
    2. engineering majors have been in serious decline since 2019;
    3. health professions and related programs, having seen huge increases between 2010 and 2019, and physical sciences with smaller increases in those same years, since then are in decline;
    4. technology continues to gain, even faster since 2019, possibly signaling a shift from engineering to technology majors for the same types of students;
    5. Psychology, flat between 2010 and 2019, is in a major uptrend since.

    Adjustments within higher education are clearly necessary to accommodate the declines in student populations, the coming student cliff and shifting educational preferences by students.

    Rational adjustments are clearly identifiable but rarely seen in practice. Because administrations and faculty oppose them. The ramifications: (more…)

  • Virginia Beach School Board Gives Parents the Middle Finger

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    Jen Franklin, Virginia Beach School Board member

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Virginia Democrats.

    Has there ever been a more arrogant bunch?

    In 2020 they were convinced that they had turned Virginia bright blue. They believed there would never be another Republican in the Governor’s Mansion. They believed they had a license to implement a smorgasbord of far-left policies.

    For example, they wanted to allow boys who pretend they are girls into school areas previously reserved for females only.

    They wanted to make sure that boys could shower with the daughters and granddaughters of Virginians in high school locker rooms. They wanted boys prowling around girls’ bathrooms and tampons in boys’ rooms.

    Worse, they wanted schools to alienate children from their parents by allowing troubled kids to switch genders in school without telling parents. They wanted to force teachers to use whatever wacky pronouns students desired.

    The all-blue General Assembly wanted to make sure that these radical school policies were implemented in every corner of the commonwealth, not just in the liberal metropolitan areas.

    So they blithely passed 22.1-23.3 Treatment of Transgender Students. (more…)

  • Broken Doorknobs, Broken Locks

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Memorial to Jwanta Scarbor. Photo credit: The Virginian-Pilot

    Last year Jwanta Scarbor, a resident of public housing in Norfolk, was found shot to death in her apartment. Now her mother has filed suit against the Norfolk Redevelopment and  Housing Authority on the grounds that it failed, despite repeated requests, to fix broken doorknobs, locks and windows.

    “My family is destroyed,” Tawanda Scarbor told The Virginian-Pilot. “Literally destroyed.”

    The killing remains unresolved, according to Norfolk police. There is nothing in the article to suggest that malfunctioning locks and doorknobs allowed the killer access he would not have been granted otherwise. Regardless, it is not unreasonable for tenants to expect landlords to maintain basic security features in proper working order.

    It is entirely legitimate to ask why the Norfolk public housing authority did not, or could not, respond in a timely manner to requests for apparently simple repairs. This is not an isolated incident. Poor maintenance of public housing seems to be a systemic problem. Why is that? (more…)

  • Virginia’s Balance Sheet is Embarrassingly Strong

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    Virginia is floating on a sea of unspent cash, but tax relief fails again.

    By Steve Haner

    “Our balance sheet couldn’t be stronger…this is our moment to soar.”

    So said Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin Wednesday. Every year, our governors come to the legislature to report on the end of the fiscal year financial result, and often they say something like that. They always prefer to bring a happy message over one of caution or doom.

    This time, however, it is true. (more…)

  • Skating Past FOIA in Harrisonburg

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    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Joe Fitzgerald

    Public officials will sometimes self-censor their emails, memos, and even texts for fear they’ll be embarrassed or caught telling the truth if a Freedom of Information request is filed. You’d think that caution would make them better communicators. Recent history proves that’s not the case. Sometimes it seems the Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, instead frees them to do the bare minimum.

    The often unjustified fear of information requests, para-FOIA, ignores how infrequent the requests are, not to mention how vanishingly rare convictions for violations are. Enforcement is by the officials covered by the law, and prosecution is up to the citizen. The real danger, if you can call it that, is a phrase or observation FOIA-ed and ripped out of context and going viral on social media. But in general the people who will do that find it easier to just make stuff up. (more…)

  • Webb’s Last Ditch Attempt to Save the Confederate Memorial at Arlington

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    The Confederate Memorial in Arlington.
    (Arlington National Cemetery photo by Rachel Larue)

    by Shaun Kenney

    Former Virginia Democratic U.S. Senator Jim Webb is begging federal officials to save the last remaining Confederate memorial at Arlington National Cemetery in a forceful op-ed to The Wall Street Journal. Webb writes:

    [President William] McKinley understood the Civil War as one who had lived it, having served four years in the 23rd Ohio Infantry, enlisting as a private and discharged in 1865 as a brevet major. He knew the steps to take to bring the country fully together again. As an initial signal, he selected three Civil War veterans to command the Cuba campaign. Two, William Rufus Shafter, given overall command of the Cuban operation, and H.W. Lawton, who led the Second Infantry Division, the first soldiers to land in the war, had received the Medal of Honor fighting for the Union. The other, “Fighting Joe” Wheeler, the legendary Confederate cavalry general, led the cavalry units in Cuba, after being elected to Congress in 1880 from Alabama and working hard to bring national reconciliation.

    Four days after the Spanish-American war ended, McKinley proclaimed in Atlanta: “In the spirit of fraternity we should share with you in the care of the graves of Confederate soldiers.” In that call for national unity the Confederate Memorial was born. It was designed by internationally respected sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a Confederate veteran and the first Jewish graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, who asked to be buried at the memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. On one face of the memorial is the finest explanation of wartime service perhaps ever written, by a Confederate veteran who later became a Christian minister: “Not for fame or reward, not for place or for rank; not lured by ambition or goaded by necessity; but in simple obedience to duty as they understood it; these men suffered all, sacrificed all, dared all, and died.” (more…)

  • Charlottesville Schools Ban Student Cell Phones

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    A Yondr cell phone pouch.

    by James A. Bacon

    The Charlottesville public school system has banned the students’ use of cell phones. Superintendent Royal Gurley decries students’ “addiction” to the mobile devices, and teachers have complained that the phones have become a tremendous disruption in the classroom, reports The Daily Progress. The restrictions, school officials hope, will “increase connectivity between classmates and teachers improve mental well-being.”

    Predictably, some parents are pushing back.

    “It’s too extreme,” M.J. Smith, whose son is a senior at Charlottesville High School, told The Daily Progress. “I think it’s in the right place, but it comes across as heavy-handed and not well thought out in light of the active anxiety that the community is facing with another school year and active shooter robocalls. We’re all worried about that.”

    I’ve got some questions for parents opposed to the ban. (more…)

  • Student Vets Win Back Their Space

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Military memorobilia at the Veterans Center. Photo credit: WVIR-TV

    by James A. Bacon

    The Student Veterans of America (SVA) at the University of Virginia notched up a small win Friday when Student Affairs officials reversed a decision to expropriate some of the Veterans Center space at Newcomb Hall. But the veterans’ battle for recognition and respect at UVa is far from over.

    What they need most, student veterans say, is for Student Affairs to designate someone with specialized knowledge of the G.I. Bill and other veterans issues to help them through UVa’s bureaucratic maze.

    Veterans comprise a tiny fraction of the undergraduate student body at UVa. SVA leadership estimates there are only 60 veterans among the 17,000 undergraduates. That count may not have identified every undergraduate veteran, but Tomas De Oliveira, president of the club, says it represents most.

    “It’s a chicken-or-egg problem. There aren’t enough vets to justify a significant commitment of UVa resources,” De Oliveira says. But the lack of support makes it difficult to recruit veterans cycling out of the military. UVa vets have friends. Word gets out. “Why would I recommend UVa?” (more…)

  • Deja Vu, All Over Again

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Cluster development in western Loudoun Co. Photo credit: Washington Post

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Today’s Washington Post has an article about efforts to preserve farmland in Loudoun County.

    That headline instantly took me back to the late 1970s and early 1980s when there was a flurry of activity regarding the need to preserve farmland and provide landowners incentives to keep their farmland from being developed.

    Loudoun County was in the center of that activity. At that time, the population of the county was about 57,000. Development in the area near Dulles Airport and the Rt. 7 corridor was in the early stages. A large part of the county was open land, consisting of large estates, as well as medium and small farms. The tools for preserving that land that were being discussed, sometimes heatedly, were conservation easements and transfer of development rights. A sample report of some of those studies is here. (more…)

  • Virginia’s Schools Really Do Need More Money

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Suzanne Munson

    Recent General Assembly debates about state budgets open a cornucopia of questions about the future of education in Virginia — charter schools, lab schools, vouchers, funding for religious schools? Now might be a good time to examine some background about public education in Virginia.

    Thomas Jefferson proposed the state’s first legislation in support of universal education, for rich and poor alike, in 1779. He viewed pubic education as necessary for an informed, successful democratic republic: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be.”

    As school funding involved tax dollars, well-to-do Virginia legislators ignored Jefferson’s appeal for decades. Meanwhile, our neighbors to the north were educating their populace. It would take a Civil War and its aftermath for this state to develop a nascent system of public education.

    Today, Virginia’s school divisions across the board receive 14% less funding from the state than the 50-state average, equal to about $1,900 less per student. This is neither admirable nor sensible, if we are to have a successful economy, students trained for challenging work, and an informed electorate.
    (more…)

  • Beach School Board Votes on Parents’ Rights Tonight

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Tonight’s the night, Virginia Beach. A chance to show the leftist school board members that parental rights matter in the Resort City.

    There are several ways to do it: flood school board members with emails, sign up to speak at tonight’s board meeting (you have until noon) or just go to the meeting that starts at 6 and frown when the leftists start wringing their hands about the “rights” of troubled teens to keep their gender confusion secret from their parents.

    Last month the Youngkin administration put the finishing touches on its new transgender model policies for schools. What they came up with is a rational, reasonable approach that allows students to change their gender in school WITH PARENT APPROVAL.

    The way it should be handled. (more…)

  • Decency and Democracy Prevail in Roanoke County

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Scott Dreyer

    In recent years, much of America has been convulsed by riots, arson, looting, and mayhem to the point where basic safety and simple dialogue have become impossible. When faced with shocking headlines, many can only shudder in horror and be thankful they don’t live in such places.

    In what some call “the Virginia Way” and “the Roanoke Way,” however, our region has largely avoided such large-scale disorder. Even during the tumultuous days of school integration in the 1950s and ’60s, when many U.S. cities had riots, violence, and police brutality, integration in the Roanoke Valley was largely peaceful, thanks to a generation of both white and black leaders who acted like adults and generally shared a common Christian worldview.

    Thus, when the July 27 Roanoke County School Board meeting fell into chaos, it made headlines, shocked many, and showed that mob rule threatens to derail dialogue and official proceedings.

    For over two hours, Board members listened to 27 people speak during the public comment period. Then, when School Superintendent Dr. Ken Nicely was discussing new regulations from the Virginia Department of Education in Richmond, he was interrupted with heckling that included profanity.

    Chairman Brent Hudson warned that profanity would not be tolerated, but it continued. Since Nicely was unable to clearly continue his presentation, Hudson took the remarkable step of ordering the room cleared. Two agitators refused to leave: one is a Roanoke City resident and the other a County resident who confronted Hudson in a threatening manner. Police arrested both. (more…)

  • More Ruminations on Higher Education in Virginia

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Radford University

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    James Sherlock has done a great service for this blog by starting a conversation on the future of higher education in the Commonwealth.  There are several paths that could be followed.

    One of his contributions was identifying the schools that have been losing enrollment. I was not surprised that Longwood, Radford, and Mary Washington led the list. They are essentially going after the same students. I was aware that VCU enrollment was down. It may be the victim of its over-optimistic projections. However, its enrollment decline may have been temporary. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports today that one the largest freshman classes in the school’s history arrived on campus this past weekend. I was surprised that the enrollment at Old Dominion has declined. Being the only major four-year institution in South Hampton Roads, one of the state’s growth leaders, and having a natural constituency with all the military installations in the area, one would have thought it was prepared for healthy growth. Alas, with the Virginian-Pilot being only a shadow of its former self, there are no media reports on the size of its incoming class this fall. (more…)

  • Huge Swings in Student Populations Among Virginia’s 4-year Public Colleges and Universities Have Consequences

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    University of Mary Washington

    by James C. Sherlock

    I have previously in this series on Virginia’s public institutions of higher learning (IHE’s) used the term “cannibalization” to describe some getting bigger and some getting smaller, a few much smaller, in terms of student populations.

    I will here provide the numbers to back that up.

    While the total undergraduates dropped 1.5% (minus 2,572) in the system between the fall of 2018 and the fall of 2022, the increase in graduate students (plus 3,604) made up for it and the total campus population changed 0.4%.

    Basically flat.

    But those system numbers mask huge swings in student populations, both undergraduate and total, among the 15 schools. The data compiled in that spreadsheet are sourced from the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV).

    The trends have enormous consequences for Virginia’s 4-year colleges and universities, both those that are growing and those that are shrinking.

    The same trends have easily predicted consequences for Virginia students if not reversed. (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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