Bacon's Rebellion

  • Teacher Shortages – a Tale of Three Virginia Beach Elementary Schools

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    I offer for your consideration a tale of three Virginia Beach elementary schools and their teacher shortages.

    The data provided are from the school quality databases of the Virginia Department of Education and from the jobs database of the City of Virginia Beach Schools, accessed this morning.

    All three of the elementary schools I chose for this sample were near where I lived and worked when I was on active duty in the Navy.

    John B. Dye Elementary is an extremely high performing school, Trantwood Elementary is a high performing school, and Birdneck Elementary a low performing school in the state SOL assessments.  Birdneck is a Title 1 school.  Virginia Beach has 17 Title 1 schools, all but one of them elementary schools.

    The data in this very small sample show gaping differences in currently open teaching and counselor positions among those three schools. They are not only in the same school division, but within the same zip code.

    John B. Dye and Birdneck are 18 minutes apart by car with Trantwood in between. Each is within easy commute distance for the same set of available teachers and counselors. Because of the high availability of Navy spouses, this area tends to have no shortage of teachers.

    The relative poverty levels of the student bodies differ, but not as greatly as among many other state public schools, again because of the effects of the Navy on the economy of Virginia Beach in general and the 23451 zip code in particular.

    Chronic absenteeism differences reflecting the learning environments in each school, on the other hand, are profound.

    There is more to school climate than data will show, but I think readers will find the information thought-provoking.

    Bottom line: Teachers and counselors appear to have bailed on Birdneck Elementary, but not on John B. Dye or Trantwood. (more…)

  • Virginia’s New Race-and-Healthcare Dogma

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    James A. Bacon

    Colin Greene. Photo credit: Roanoke.com.

    by James A. Bacon

    It is now outside the bounds of acceptable discourse in Virginia to question the proposition that “structural” racism accounts for health disparities between racial/ethnic groups.

    Virginia’s new health commissioner, Colin Greene, has been called on the carpet for expressing the view that racism is not a public health crisis and, in particular, as The Washington Post summarizes his views, for saying that he was not convinced that structural racism causes higher rates of maternal and infant mortality among African Americans.

    Members of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus have declared themselves “outraged,” and members of the Virginia Board of Health have reprimanded him for publicly questioning “basic scientific facts regarding disparities.”

    It did not take long for the Youngkin administration to cave. In a letter to Department of Health employees, Greene issued a groveling apology: “I am fully aware that racism at many levels is a factor in a wide range of public health outcomes and disparities across the Commonwealth and the United States.”

    The science, it appears, is settled. Virginia’s political-pundit class — in this case, Black legislators, political appointees to the Board of Health, and a Washington Post essayist masquerading as a reporter — now arbitrates what the “science” says. No one is allowed to question it. With Greene’s capitulation, structural racism as a cause of health disparities  now can be considered Old Dominion dogma. (more…)

  • ACA Marketplace Insurance Costs to Skyrocket? Wanna Bet?

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    We know it every time we see it. It is the time-honored Congressional ritual of “temporary” federal subsidies.

    Such subsidies for nearly anything that are positioned originally as “temporary” tend to be extended and then often made permanent entitlements. As with everything else, the people who get subsidies care far more about preserving them than those who are not subsidized care about eliminating them.

    For example, see the nation’s system for regulating peanut farming. The federal government subsidizes peanut farmers and their incomes by restricting supply.

    The laws require a Federal license in order to grow peanuts. Very few licenses have been issued since the early 1940’s.  The result: Americans pay 50% more for home-grown peanuts than they would if the market was not restricted.

    I can find no record that President Carter raised the issue.

    In this case, concerning federal Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies, NBC news has alerted us to a pending issue.

    During the open enrollment period for 2022 coverage, 307,946 Virginia residents enrolled in private qualified health plans (QHPs) through the Virginia exchange/marketplace.

    It involves temporary federal subsidies to ACA Marketplace customers to keep demand high, supporting the prices that are paid to insurers and by insurers to hospitals and healthcare providers. These subsidies are set to expire.

    The Kaiser Family Foundation published a study that shouts:

    On average, premiums are set to rise by more than 50% for people getting health coverage through a (ACA) marketplace plan.

    Wanna bet?

    (more…)

  • Beach Politicians Want Personal Assistants

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    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Keep an eye on Virginia Beach City Council. They have a habit of shoving aside controversial matters only to bring them back when they think no one’s looking.

    This week, the conscience of the council, John Moss, embarrassed his colleagues by shaming them for wanting “personal assistants.”

    They put off the vote on a plan to hire personal help until some vague point in the future. You know, when the public’s attention is elsewhere.

    These self-important little potentates — who refused to reduce the real estate tax rate to help struggling residents this spring — now want to use tax dollars to hire personal aides to lighten their work loads.

    Seriously? (more…)

  • Chinese, Hindu, Jewish Groups File Brief Supporting TJ families

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    James A. Bacon

    Editor’s note: This column was published June 21.

    by Asra Q. Nomani

    Today, a diverse coalition of seven organizations representing parents and students from the Hindu, Jewish and Chinese communities, as well as others, filed an amicus brief — aptly named a brief by friends — supporting the families of Coalition for TJ as they fight to end the anti-Asian racism in Fairfax County Public Schools’ new admissions process to one of America’s top high schools, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, or TJ.

    In February, in a lawsuit, Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board, U.S. federal judge Claude Hilton ruled the new admissions policy is “patently unconstitutional” because it discriminates against Asian students in an obvious effort to increase the number of Black and Hispanic students at the school. The school board removed a race-blind, merit-based exam to the school in December 2020 and replaced it, in a “rushed” process, the judge ruled, with a subjective admissions process.

    Fairfax County Public Schools, dubbed #UnFairfax by parents, is filing an appeal in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Pacific Legal Foundation, representing the Coalition for TJ, has filed its arguments why the ruling is correct. Oral arguments are expected in September. Fourth Circuit judges already indicated they are biased toward the school system, allowing them to continue the unconstitutional admissions process this past spring. If the Coalition for TJ loses the appeal, it will likely appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will next fall hear a similar case alleging anti-Asian bias by Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

    Why does all of this matter? This case raises questions about whether Asian families can expect equality under the law in America, as school systems pursue “equity” plans that discriminate against Asian students. (more…)

  • Is Virginia’s Lab School Law Constitutional?

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    The Governor and General Assembly may wish to look at Virginia’s new laboratory schools law in light of the Supreme Court’s June 21, 2022 Carson v. Makin (Carson) decision. 

    Held: Maine’s ‘nonsectarian’ requirement for otherwise generally available tuition assistance payments violates the Free Exercise Clause.

    The facts of Carson, in which Maine spent state money to fund students to attend private schools but not religious ones, seem to align generally with the facts of the establishment of laboratory schools under Virginia law.

    Code of Virginia § 22.1-349.1. Definitions; objectives.

    “College partnership laboratory school” means a public, nonsectarian, nonreligious school in the Commonwealth established by a public institution of higher education or private institution of higher education that operates a teacher education program approved by the Board. (Emphasis added)

    That definition may be found to make the same constitutional error that the Supreme Court found in the Maine law on tuition assistance.  (more…)

  • Highest Need Primary Care Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) in Virginia

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Without adequate primary medical, dental and mental health care, people cannot function properly. They often go through life sick and untreated. 

    By “sick” in this case I refer to less well than achievable with proper primary care.

    Just because there is adequate access to primary care in a particular area does not mean that all people take advantage of it, but lack of access raises significantly the probability of a lifetime of sickness.

    Babies are born sick, children go to school while sick, adults work while sick and the elderly suffer and die early.

    It is useful to review the areas in Virginia that have profound shortages of primary care providers. Medicaid is a false promise when such shortages exist. Economic development is very unlikely.

    Some are where you might guess if you thought about it. Some are not. (more…)

  • Virginia as Bellwether on Wokeism

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    James A. Bacon

    Bellwether

    by Phil Leigh

    Like during the Civil War, Virginia is becoming a key battleground state in the present conflict between the Woke Agenda and Traditionalists. Since the state’s Traditionalists were among the Americans most committed to settling differences with mutual respect and compromise, racists and feminist demagogues initially ran roughshod over them with tyrannical, hasty, and inflexible demands.

    It took no more than a simple majority in the legislative body and a sympathetic Ralph Northam governor to irrevocably destroy many of the most prominent statues memorializing our Confederate ancestors. Wherever possible the Woke Crowd deliberately rejected suggestions that the future of the statues be decided by referendums because they realized that the public would likely vote to keep the statues. They also rejected any suggestion that the Confederate monuments could share public spaces with statues of deserving ex-slaves and civil rights leaders. Their hearts were filled with irrevocable vengeance, not social justice. (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

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    James A. Bacon

    From The Bull Elephant

  • Virginia’s Plan to Attack Gun Violence — Will It Survive?

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    James A. Bacon

    by David Toscano

    It has been [a month] since the shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas, took 31 lives and once again crystallized the need for more effective measures to combat these outrages. It is not clear whether Congress can summon the will for even the most minor of reforms, but our leaders need to transition from “thoughts and prayers” to real policy change if we are ever to combat the scourge of gun violence in this nation. Virginia Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner recently called on Congress to enact the “Virginia Plan” of gun violence reforms, based on major changes made in the Commonwealth in the 2020 and 2021 legislative sessions.

    Virginia Has Seen Its Share

    Virginia has neither escaped the carnage of mass shootings nor the heated debates about what to do about gun violence. The 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech left 32 dead, and another 12 were killed during the 2019 shooting in Virginia Beach. Neither involved AR-15 style weapons (the killers used semiautomatics, but they were pistols). The Virginia Tech tragedy prompted creation of a government commission that brought only minor change. But Virginia remained a strong gun-rights state into the 2010s.

    The school shootings at Parkland drew further attention to the issue. The Republican Speaker of the Virginia House grudgingly convened a special committee to address school safety, but then prohibited it from discussing guns. Following the Virginia Beach shootings in 2019, Governor Northam called a special session on gun violence; Republicans adjourned it in 30 minutes with no action. (more…)

  • What China Tells Us About U.S. Educational Achievement Gaps

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Shaomin Li, a business school professor at Old Dominion University, specializes in studying China’s economy. His book, just published by the Cambridge University Press, “The Rise of China, Inc.,” is well worth reading for its description of how the Chinese political/economic system works. Li, whose job early in life was painting portraits of Chairman Mao, is an advocate of human rights and a determined foe of the Communist regime, but also a steely-eyed realist.

    Among China’s greatest assets, Li argues, are traditional values that the Communist regime has been unable to extinguish. An under-appreciated factor contributing to its rise to economic superpower status has been the country’s spectacular gain in labor productivity, which he attributes in large measure to the high value the Chinese place upon educational achievement. In his international business classes, he tells students what they’re up against in a globally competitive economy by comparing two schools — Maury High School in Norfolk and Maotanchang Middle School in Anhui Province.

    Li describes Norfolk as an “old, mid-sized city (population 244,000) in Southern Virginia with a lower income level and higher concentration of minorities than its neighbors.” Maury is the best high school in Norfolk and one of the best in the United States, ranking 3,139 out of 24,000 nationally, he writes. The school has good infrastructure, including an indoor swimming pool, a fine library, and an up-to-date computer lab. The teachers, he says, are dedicated. Many have advanced degrees from esteemed universities such as Duke and the University of Virginia. But the school’s academic performance is nothing to brag about. (more…)

  • $93 Million for Virginia Trails

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    James A. Bacon

    A newly opened hiking/mountain biking trail outside of Missoula, Montana, in land protected by conservation easements.

    The Bacon Family has just returned from a nine-day hiking trip to Montana. We were not surprised that the trails at Glacier National Park, with its rivers and lakes and snow-capped peaks, were world-class spectacular. But we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the trails around Missoula, where we enjoyed two days of walking around the city’s highly walkable downtown and hiking the hills all around. Virginia has nothing resembling the Glacier National Park, a natural wonder that simply cannot be replicated (unless you have a few hundred-million years to work on it), but we do have college towns set in the mountains like Missoula (home to University of Montana). Blacksburg, Lexington and Harrisonburg come to mind.

    What Missoula has done — setting aside land with conservation easements, and investing in hiking trails — can be replicated. Indeed, Virginia’s new budget contains $93 million for multi-use trails, eight times the previous year’s General Fund commitment of $10 million, according to the Virginia Bicycling Federation. (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

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    James A. Bacon

    From The New Yorker. (Hat tip: Janice Woolley)

  • Lab Schools: An Experiment Worth Making

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Lab School, Washington, D.C., affiliated with American University

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Governments fund the activities upon which they place priority. Budget is policy. A budget bill is chock full of choices and priorities. Analyzing an entire budget bill would be a long and tedious process, but proposed amendments to a budget provide an opportunity to focus on specific policy choices.

    With that in mind, and before it fades too far into our collective memory, it would be beneficial to examine over the course of several articles some of the amendments proposed by Governor Youngkin and their reception by the General Assembly. Because Steve Haner has already discussed the amendments dealing with taxes, I will not include them in this discussion.

    One issue that has been the subject of much discussion on this blog has been that of charter schools. A variation of charter schools was one of the primary issues addressed in the budget amendments. (more…)

  • This Year the VRS “Diet COLA” Will Really Hurt

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    Steve Haner

    by Steve Haner

    The most recent year-over-year inflation measure approached 9%, with many key food or energy items growing in cost even faster. The official inflation estimate just used to increase the state’s gasoline taxes as of July 1 was 7%. So what inflation factor will be used to adjust state and local employee pensions this summer? Those will go up less than 4%.  (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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