Bacon's Rebellion

  • Alumni Free Speech Alliance Affiliate at William & Mary

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Robert Kaplan, Karla K. Bruno, and John S. Buckley

    The cross removed from Wren Chapel in 2006. “Marshall-Wythe” deleted from the name of the law school during the past decade. Recently, urine thrown by a student protestor at other students promoting pro-life views on abortion and an ACLU spokesperson speaking on campus about free speech shouted down by Black Lives Matters advocates. Alas, even the venerable College of William and Mary in historic Williamsburg, Virginia, is not new to, or immune from, anti-free speech and inquiry, political correctness, and historical “presentism” that has come to characterize higher education throughout America.

    It’s time for William and Mary alumni to get more involved. With a tip of a hat to The Jefferson Council at the University of Virginia — an independent association of recent vintage of Charlottesville alumni — alums at W&M are now organizing to keep a more vigilant eye on left-wing indoctrination and assorted bullying tactics that appear to be at play among faculty, administration, and students.

    Our intention is to affiliate with the rapidly growing national Alumni Free Speech Alliance (AFSA), a consortium of independent alumni organizations at major universities across the United States, formed to advocate for free intellectual inquiry in the halls of higher education. It so happens that the Commonwealth of Virginia has of late the greatest concentration of AFSA affiliates in the U.S. with organizations at the University of Virginia, Washington and Lee, Virginia Military Institute, and James Madison University, with William and Mary on its way. (more…)

  • A Rebound Towards Excellence — and Smiles — in Newport News Public Schools

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    by

    sherlockj

    NNPS McIntosh Elementary School Odyssey of the Mind team – courtesy NNPS

    by James C. Sherlock

    The national and international headlines were awful.

    The shooting of Abby Zwerner at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News was horrible.

    The investigative reports were chilling.

    Newport News Public Schools (NNPS) has chosen the right path forward — positivity, community consultation and openness centered on the children.

    There are signs that they are getting it right in practice. (more…)

  • Without Full $1B Tax Cut, Let July 1 Deadline Pass

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    by

    Steve Haner

    by Steve Haner

    Because the federal government cannot operate without constantly borrowing money, members of Congress in both parties recently held their noses and voted for a compromise budget and borrowing deal. That need not and should not happen now in Virginia.

    There is no similar pressure in Virginia, even though the June 30 end of the state fiscal year approaches. Virginia has a viable, fully balanced budget that runs through June 30, 2024. The stalemate underway involves only unadopted second-year amendments.

    Governor Glenn Youngkin and the House of Delegates should insist that any amendments to that new fiscal year budget include every dollar of tax relief they approved earlier this year. None of the spending increases approved by either the House or the Virginia Senate should be included unless the full amount of tax relief accompanies them.

    If the July deadline passes with no action, with no agreement to couple tax cuts with spending increases, Virginia’s Republican legislators will have accomplished what their colleagues in Washington failed to do (and in fairness couldn’t do). They will have stood firm until the taxpayers received the same level of consideration as those who consume those taxes.

    The real decision deadline is Election Day in November. Continuing the stalemate would give the voters a clear choice between the House vision of tax relief coupled with reasonable spending growth, or the Senate vision of mainly higher spending and zero tax relief. (more…)

  • Thanks, Loudoun County! We Needed That.

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Kerry Dougherty 

    Dear Loudoun County,

    Thanks so much for hiring Aaron Spence as your new superintendent of schools.

    Love, Virginia Beach

    Good news for those who care about returning sanity and common sense to Virginia Beach Public Schools: superintendent Aaron Spence is leaving to head up the troubled Loudoun County Public schools.

    Spence is not stupid, just incredibly woke. No doubt he realized that after last year’s school board elections he was exactly one vote away from being sacked. Why not take a high-paying job in a larger Virginia district where he’ll no doubt look terrific compared to the last guy, who was fired and is under a criminal indictment?

    The Washington Post reported in December that not only had Scott Ziegler been canned by the Loudoun County School Board, but a grand jury indicted him on criminal charges.

    Virginia special grand jury charges against former Loudoun County Public Schools superintendent Scott Ziegler and spokesman Wayde Byard were unsealed Monday. At least some of the indictments appear unrelated to the subject of the grand jury’s investigation: how the district handled two high-profile sexual assault cases in 2021.

    (more…)

  • What the Minutes Say About Public Education in Virginia

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    by

    Robin Beres

    by James Wyatt Whitehead, V

    School may be out for the summer, but the report card for the Commonwealth’s public schools is headed for the inbox. It is hoped that progress can be measured and built upon.

    School boards face a siege of ailments not likely to be cured overnight. The challenges range from pandemic-era learning loss to chronic absenteeism, falling test scores, teacher retention, bus driver shortages, expanding achievement gaps, crumbling and aged schools, declining student conduct, and a concerned public that desires better outcomes from the billions of dollars spent on schools.

    Politicians and education experts have spilled gallons of ink outlining reforms that will correct the failures of public education in Virginia and move our students in the promising direction of success and achievement. Yet none of the reforms have examined an immediate solution that is in plain sight and could be implemented for August 2023; time.

    Since there are no caped crusaders who will save the day for the coming school year, school boards, superintendents, principals, teachers, and students are going to have to use the one thing that they do have. The Code of Virginia stipulates 180 instructional days or 990 hours of instructional time. Five-and-a-half hours or 59,400 minutes must occur each day and educators should waste none of this precious commodity. A typical high school class must have 140 hours or 8,400 minutes of instructional time to qualify for a standard credit for graduation. High school credits are measured by seat time thanks to the Carnegie Unit. But this measurement was conceived in 1906 and does not measure knowledge learned. Every school board in Virginia must ask the superintendent if that time was delivered to every teacher.
    (more…)

  • Belated Bacon Meme of the Week

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    James A. Bacon

  • New Jefferson Institute CEO: Derrick Max

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    Derrick Max, new CEO of the Thomas Jefferson Institute of Public Policy

    The following was released this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy:

    The Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy announced today that Derrick Max has been appointed the new CEO and President of Virginia’s non-partisan, free-market public policy organization.

    An experienced thought leader and advocate, Derrick Max will succeed outgoing CEO Chris Braunlich, who is retiring from full-time employment,  and assume full responsibilities on July 1, 2023.

    Derrick Max has worked at the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute and served as a staff economist on the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce where he led investigations into the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the Departments of Education and Labor, the National Endowment for the Arts, and AmeriCorps.  Derrick led two business organizations trying to reform Social Security and co-founded and ran Cornerstone School, a private Christian school in Southeast DC, serving low-income students for more than 23 years. (more…)

  • A Fool’s Errand Finds Takers in Charlottesville

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    As an experiment, I went to the UVa Ed School research page and searched “all topics” for “Charter Schools.” The response: “No research items found matching your search.”

    So, I expanded the search to “Charter” and got the same response.

    I then investigated what should have proven a promising lead.

    The Partnership for Leaders in Education (UVA-PLE) is a unique joint venture between the highly ranked University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business and School of Education and Human Development.

    Darden is involved, so it must be professional, businesslike, right? It certainly claims so.

    UVA-PLE combines the most innovative leadership advancement, practical expertise, and proven methodologies from both business and education to demonstrably improve educational and life outcomes for our nation’s students.

    “Proven methodologies” it says.

    Now take a look at “UVA Partnership for Leaders in Education – Exploring New Frontiers for K-12 Systems Transformation” published by UVA-PLE in February of this year.

    It is a 28-page word salad unblemished by any assessment of the pedagogy of charter schools, especially the most prominent and successful K-12 public school operation in the United States, Success Academy in New York City. (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    From The Bull Elephant

  • Back in Vogue at UVa: Viewpoint Diversity

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Douglas Wetmore

    by James A. Bacon

    The University of Virginia leadership normally keeps its Board of Visitors meetings running on such a tightly scripted schedule that board members rarely get an opportunity to engage in free-wheeling discussion. But Rector Whitt Clement and President Jim Ryan made an exception Friday during the board’s June meeting: they set aside nearly an hour to talk about Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.

    Board member Douglas Wetmore, a Richmond businessman appointed by Governor Glenn Youngkin, set the tone as soon as the discussion began. On paper the administration values “viewpoint diversity” along with demographic and other forms of diversity, he noted. But unlike the meticulous statistics it compiles on the racial and gender breakdown of students, faculty, and staff, he said, the university does not track viewpoint diversity at all.

    “We want a wide range of competing ideas,” Wetmore said. “One hundred percent of statistics are related to race and gender. I haven’t seen one reflecting viewpoint diversity,” he said.

    While a few board members suggested that viewpoint diversity was not a serious issue at UVa, the ensuing discussion revolved mainly around how to define viewpoint diversity, how much of such diversity was desirable, and how to measure it while respecting individuals’ right to privacy.

    The Board conversation was unprecedented at UVa, where the DEI bureaucracy dedicated to advancing the interests of “marginalized” minorities has grown to 55 employees by the university’s own count. (more…)

  • UVa’s Undergraduate Female/Male Demographics vs. Diversity, Equity and Federal Law

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    UVa President Jim Ryan

    by James C. Sherlock

    The University of Virginia measures its diversity efforts by statistics. We’ll hold them to their own standards.

    That seems only equitable.

    President Ryan has said that the demographic composition of students is easy to measure. The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion office, proving him right, proudly displays a Diversity Dashboard.

    All eyes, including their own, go to race.

    But we’ll look at sex. And we’ll remember the requirements of Title IX of the 1972 Federal Education Amendments.

    no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

    It is demonstrable statistically that males are woefully underrepresented in the undergraduate population of the University of Virginia at rates inexplicable by chance.

    We will examine as potential root causes the skewed demographics of:

    • the undergraduate student population on the one hand; and
    • the Undergraduate Admissions Office and Office of Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights on the other.

    And then we will see if we can identify any other potential causes of those discrepancies.

    It won’t go well. (more…)

  • Deflating Degree Inflation

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Robin Beres

    In May 2021, The Harvard Business Review featured a column by Michael Hansen, CEO of Cengage Learning titled, “The U.S. Education System Isn’t Giving Students What Employers Need.”

    Hansen argued that today’s education system is not equipping students “with the skills and capabilities to prepare for a career where they can obtain financial stability.”

    It’s no secret the pandemic drastically upended the American workforce. After millions of workers lost their jobs and were sent home, they began to appreciate the value of downtime and a stress-free lifestyle. So much so that many of those newly-unemployed were reluctant to return to the nine-to-five grind.

    Businesses, anxious to be up and running again, have been desperate to get warm bodies back on their payrolls and in the office. Many CEOs have come to realize that degree-inflation — requiring an often-unnecessary bachelor’s degree for entry- and mid-level positions — has been a barrier to bringing on good, hard-working men and women.

    These types of jobs can include well-paying positions such as regional managers, supervisors, support specialists, administrative workers, and countless others. While a kid right out of high school may not have the skills necessary for many of these jobs, someone who has worked in the field for five or 10 years or more usually has picked up the qualifications necessary to do the work well.

    Last week, Gov. Glenn Youngkin joined six other state governors in a trend that began last year when he announced that the Old Dominion will no longer require college degrees for nearly 90 percent of state government jobs. It will also no longer give higher preference to degree holders. Every year, Virginia state agencies advertise more than 20,000 job openings. (more…)

  • The Craziness Gets Worse

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Now I understand why so many people are opposed to DEI.  It is “an inherently un-Christian practice.”

    At least that is what some conservatives outraged at Chick-fil-A are saying as they call for a boycott of the company.  As one asserted, “you cannot hold to that position [DEI] and glorify God.”

    What seems to have set off the storm of criticism is this statement on the company’s website;

    One of our core values at Chick-fil-A, Inc. is that we are better together. When we combine our unique backgrounds and experiences with a culture of belonging, we can discover new ways to strengthen the quality of care we deliver: to customers, to the communities we serve and to the world. We understand that getting Better at Together means we learn better, care better, grow better and serve better.

    Chick-fil-A, Inc.’s commitment to being Better at Together means embedding Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in everything we do.

    The website goes on to explain that it would achieve this goal by: “ensuring equal access, valuing differences, and creating a culture of belonging.”

    The company’s critics were also outraged that Chick-fil-A had hired a Vice-President, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Never mind that the company policy has been in place for many years and the vice-president had been in that position since at least 2020.https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/31/business/chick-fil-a-woke-dei.html

    Keep in mind that this is a company that declares that its corporate purpose is “To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us. To have a positive influence on all who come into contact with Chick-fil-A.” As part of fulfilling this purpose, the company’s stores are closed on Sundays to give their employees the opportunity to go to church.

    This country is going crazy.

  • UVa President Ryan Has “No Idea.” Golly Gee.

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    As a follow-up to yesterday’s story on the slide show for the UVa Board of Visitors on DEI at the University, I think it only fair to offer President Ryan’s preamble to that presentation.

    To summarize:

    • He cannot imagine what all the fuss is about; but
    • He assures that DEI efforts at UVa are misconstrued by critics, who he divides into two camps:
      1. those who support the goals of DEI “but are concerned about overreach threatening academic freedoms or seem designed to enforce ideological conformity”; and
      2. “one that asserts that the programs are being used to promote a stringently liberal, if not radical agenda – one that stands in opposition to merit and excellence and unfairly privileges certain groups over others.”
    • He asserts that any fair criticisms will be taken seriously; and
    • He is trying to create a level playing field.

    He asserts that:

    We ought to define the terms that comprise DEI; assess and resolve instances where DEI efforts are in potential conflict with other core values; and continually examine what is working and what is not and adjust accordingly.

    He then proceeds to define the terms diversity, equity and inclusion in a clear attempt to push critics of his DEI program, expanded enormously in a progressive attempt to “never let a crisis go to waste” in 2020, to the edges of reasoned debate.

    He professes he has “no idea where this notion” (that equity means equal outcomes) came from. This from a man whose own DEI bureaucracy publishes only statistical outcomes.

    “No idea.”

    I call this the “golly gee” approach. “Golly gee” indicates surprise, excitement or both from an innocent in the ways of the world.

    Seriously?  Spare us. (more…)

  • UVa Board Trims Next-Year Tuition by 0.7%. Big Whoop.

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Responding to a Youngkin administration request for Virginia’s public colleges and universities to curb tuition increases, the University of Virginia Board of Visitors voted this morning to reduce a scheduled 3.7% tuition hike next year to 3.0%.

    As explained by Chief Operating Officer J.J. Davis, the shaving of $5.5 million from the budget represents a “good faith” effort to comply with the administration’s request. But in response to a question, she acknowledged that it only “partially” complied.

    “This is very late in the budgetary cycle,” which closes June 30, said former Rector and the board’s financial guru James Murray. “We’re supposed to have a budget number in March. It’s very difficult in this point the year to say, ‘Go find millions of dollars.’” He described the partial rollback as “a concession to political reality.”

    In other business, the Board also approved a $5.4 billion operating budget for Fiscal 2023-24, which begins July 1. The budget encompasses the academic divisions of the University of Virginia main campus, the campus in Wise, and the UVa Health System. The UVa main campus operating budget amounts to nearly $2.3 billion.

    To an outside observer, the proceedings were remarkable — for the lack of oversight. Board input into what is arguably the most important vote of the year was inconsequential. Aside from praise for the UVa financial staff and a few requests for clarifications, board members had little to say. They offered no substantive questions. They provided zero pushback. (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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