Bacon's Rebellion

  • Richmond Punts Again on Unionization Ordinance

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    sherlockj

    By James C. Sherlock

    Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney

    The Richmond City Council still has not decided whether to accept Mayor Stoney’s plan for unionization.

    He has submitted an ordinance that would let Richmond walk before it runs and maintain the sensible management controls he has laid out in a draft ordinance.

    Basically, he is OK with negotiating pay and benefits as long as those contracts are phased in, but he wants working conditions under management controls.

    The City Council is under pressure from a strong faction to pass an alternate ordinance that permits unionization of all employees immediately and strips management of many of its rights as specified in the mayor’s bill.

    The mayor has submitted his draft budget for FY 23 without the advantage of a submittal from the school board.  The school board declines to estimate the costs of the full unionization it has already approved.

    By rule, Richmond City Council then studies the content of the mayor’s draft, develops applicable amendments, and adopts a balanced budget by the annual deadline of May 31.

    I have what I hope is a reasonable question.

    How are they doing that without a definition of the city’s path to unionization, its pace, and thus its costs.  And no school board input?

    (more…)

  • 1619–A Portentous Year. A Book Review and Summary

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Horn, James. 1619:  Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy.  New York: Basic Books, 2018.

    Notwithstanding the title, this book is not part of the controversial 1619 Project.  The author is currently the most prominent and knowledgeable scholar of early colonial Virginia.  He is the president and chief officer of the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation, which is responsible for the management of Historic Jamestowne, the original site of the first permanent English colony in America.  As a reviewer in The Wall Street Journal put it, “If anyone today knows colonial Virginia, it is James Horn.”

    Relying heavily on primary sources, Horn provides a brief summary of the early years of the colony of Virginia, culminating in  1619, when the “Great Reforms” were instituted.  Although coincidental, Horn declares the meeting of the first representative government and the arrival of the first African slaves in 1619 was “portentous.”  His thesis is that  “1619 marks the inception of the most important political development in American history, the rise of democracy and the emergence of what would in time become one of the nation’s greatest challenges:  the corrosive legacy of racial stereotypes that continues to affect our society today.”

    As Horn describes it, the early history of the Virginia colony can be divided into four phases:  1606-1609, the early unruly years; 1609-1619, the military rule years; 1619-1622, the Great Reform; after 1622 and the dissolution of the Virginia Company. (more…)

  • Improving Petersburg Public Health is a State Issue as Well as a Local and Personal Responsibility

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    sherlockj

    By James C. Sherlock

    The RTD today published an article “Petersburg is Virginia’s least healthy locality, and money is a big reason why” about one of my favorite subjects – the stubborn health problems in Petersburg and other poor urban areas of Virginia.

    The story references the latest annual study from the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute that ranks localities in Virginia from 1 to 133 in both health outcomes and health factors.

    Residents of Petersburg, where the median household income is among the lowest in the state, face a life expectancy of only 66.2 years, the lowest in the state and 10 years worse than the national average, according to a study from the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute that was circulated by the Virginia Department of Health.

    It has ranked as the state’s least healthy locality in eight of the past 10 years.

    The RTD headline attibutes those results to lack of money.   But the headline is nonsense.

    We can and should do far better with the government assets and funded programs already in place to help Petersburg.

    (more…)

  • Planning for Telecommuting’s Effects on Virginia

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    sherlockj

    By James C. Sherlock

    I think that we don’t yet realize the full impact of the revolution being wrought by the telecommuting that accelerated during COVID.

    Virginia Railway Express Route Map

    I am sure I don’t.  But Virginians, and our state and local governments, must try to figure it out.

    We are moving towards a world in which white collar workers will be increasingly exempt from commutes.

    We have already seen during COVID the leading edge of the migration of workers and their families away from many of America’s cities, especially those with increasing crime, closed businesses and otherwise lowered quality of life.

    Look at New York City.  I visited it a couple of months ago.  Many places I used to enjoy have become an urban wasteland.  D.C. is not far behind.

    Virginia urban areas and some of our suburbs have experienced COVID-related business failures and are threatened with more that result from the lifestyle changes that COVID brought.

    The attractions in these places are not directly related to employment, but rather to population density. Restaurants, night life and the arts were exposed by COVID as vulnerable.  Some people got out of the habit of centering their social lives on them.

    The costs of cities and suburbs, especially housing, are less and less affordable.  Prices have continued to increase in the face of fast-rising mortgage rates (Note 1).  This cannot continue, so it will not.

    Other Virginia locations that offer attractive lifestyles, lower costs of living and the communications infrastructure to support telecommuting with bandwidth and speed at scale can expect to see in-migration and its economic benefits if they both prepare for and solicit them.

    The knock-on effects may prove far-reaching.  I will offer a few of them for consideration.  Virginia state and local governments will either plan to accommodate them or be run over by effects which, planned for or not, they cannot control.

    (more…)

  • Virginia Partisanship in Congress

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Rep. Abigail Spanberger
    Photo credit: Richmond Times Dispatch

    Virginia Congressmen have scored at the extremes on a national measure of bipartisanship in Congress.  As reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-7th, has been ranked as the fifth most bipartisan member of the House of Representatives and Rep. Bob Good, R-5th, the fifth least bipartisan member.

    Rep. Bob Good, Photo credit: Richmond Times Dispatch

    The Lugar Center, founded by the late Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Indiana), and the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, annually publishes the Bipartisan Index.  The Index “measures the frequency with which a member co-sponsors a bill introduced by the opposite party and the frequency with which a member’s own bills attract co-sponsors from the opposite party.”  It is not a simple compilation of co-sponsorships.  The Index utilizes a 20-year baseline of data to standardize the data and there is a weighting factor to account for members who sponsor or co-sponsor lots of bills or just a few bills.  Not counted in the compilation were resolutions or private bills, such as those that name post offices. (more…)

  • A Mature Dialogue: Mathews Board Discusses War Memorial

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    James A. Bacon

    by Carol J. Bova

    In Mathews County’s November 2021 referendum, 3,782 (80.06%) voted against relocating the Confederate Memorial that has stood next to the Historic Courthouse since 1912. At the April 26, 2022 Board of Supervisors meeting, there was a motion to authorize a survey to delineate the land under the Memorial to be transferred to the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

    The local paper, the Gloucester Mathews Gazette Journal, mistakenly printed a headline that read, “Mathews board approves ownership transfer of monument.” To their credit, unlike larger papers that don’t acknowledge errors, the Gazette Journal reprinted the edition to say, “Mathews board approves survey of Court Green, intends to convey ownership of land under monument.”

    Unfortunately, whether due to lack of time or space, the newspaper omitted the details of a bigger story — the Board’s openness to hearing and responding to the perspective of the African-American community expressed by Supervisor Melissa Mason, as well as their intent to offer a second plot of land for an African American memorial.

    Before acting on a motion to authorize the survey, Chairman Paul Hudgins suggested that while they were “doing the deeding” of the piece of land that’s under the monument, that the Board also should consider another spot on the Courthouse Green, if Supervisor Melissa Mason could find a group interested in putting up an African-American monument or memorial as he had discussed with her. (more…)

  • Does This Highway Need to be Widened to Six Lanes?

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    i-64 in New Kent County  Photo credit: Richmond Times-Dispatch

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    There is a campaign underway to expand a stretch of I-64 from Richmond to James City County.  Currently, the Interstate highway is a four-lane divided highway.  The proposal is to add an additional lane in each direction.

    The Department of Transportation estimates the cost of the project at $750 million.

    The first public evidence of the campaign came in the form of proposed amendments to the state budget bill.  The House of Delegates has proposed dedicating $30 million in general fund revenues to the project.  The Senate has gone bigger; it proposes $190 million in general fund appropriation. (more…)

  • Deja Vu, All Over Again

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    As reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Governor Youngkin “wants state employees back in their offices under a new telework policy that will take effect July 5 to guide executive branch agencies out of workplace restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

    To that effect, he has announced a policy that will let state agencies determine which jobs will be eligible for remote work and how often employees will be allowed to perform their duties outside of their government offices.

    That is a reasonable-sounding approach.  In fact, it is so reasonable that it was the state’s policy before COVID-19 resulted in most state employees working from home.

    The big difference now, of course, is that so many state employees have experienced working from home and many of them like it. The pressure will be on agency heads and supervisors to determine which jobs are suitable for remote work and to deal with those employees who will be unhappy that they will not be allowed to continue to work from home as often as they would like.

  • Welcome, Secretary Guidera and Superintendent Balow

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    sherlockj

    By James C. Sherlock

    Aimee Rogstad Guidera, Virginia Secretary of Education

    I dedicate this as a welcome to our new Secretary of Education and Superintendent of Public Instruction.  Both are very accomplished and we are lucky to have them.

    I find it upon occasion useful to review for myself the facts on the ground when dealing with Virginia K-12 education reform.   They are daunting.

    Some of the most challenging include:

    1. Our state constitution assigns responsibility to both the state and to local school districts for school quality.  The state sets standards but has no effective authority to hold the school districts accountable for meeting them.  That cannot work, and does not.
    2. Fierce and important culture war issues now tend to obscure information about fundamental student learning.  They set people who should be allies in improving basic learning at odds with one another about fundamental questions concerning the definition of what should be taught, learned and how.
    3. Many in education, like much else in public policy in Virginia, appear viscerally opposed to emulating proven best practices (New York’s astonishing successful urban charter school networks) from other states, or even considering them as possibly applicable in Virginia.  See Note*
    4. Virginia’s graduate schools of education aggressively stoke the culture wars from the left.  Indeed, many have proven to be opponents of the foundational standards of Western civilization. That will stir a debate every time.  Many have proven to be opponents of setting objective, measurable standards for K-12 learning and of employing standardized tests for school accountability.
    5. Statewide all-student SOL averages in our public schools hide the tragedy of the failure of many children of the urban poor to learn what they need to know to have a fair chance in life.  We don’t live in Lake Wobegone.  Consider English reading SOL results from 2018-19. 
      • Twenty-two percent of all kids failed English Reading SOLs.    
      • Thirty five percent of kids reported as economically disadvantaged failed those same tests.
      • Black (35%) and Hispanic (34%) children failed at nearly exactly that same rate as the economically disadvantaged.  Failed.  Could not read at grade level.
      • To the degree that children must read to learn, which is true in every subject starting in 4th grade, they cannot learn.  And do not.

    6.  COVID has proven to be a huge disruptor to a flawed system.

    (more…)

  • Dust Mites Book Review: “A Surprisingly Creative Effort.”

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    James A. Bacon

    by Peter Galuszka

    Jim Bacon has released a self-published novel that is wildly imaginative. He envisions the politics of a U.S.-related colony on the moon in the year 2075.

    At Galileo Station, a semi-autonomous outpost, residents live and work in underground spaces while they work to harvest various important minerals as well as a helium isotope used to power the intergalactic universe. The miners are called “Dust Mites,” hence the title.

    The 500-plus-page whopper of a novel relays a power struggle between Washington politicians and liberty-loving Galiletians who resemble American Revolutionary patriots standing up to King George III.

    During a dispute over mining, things get so out of hand that U.S. Attorney General Alyssa Reyes (an apparent look alike for Vice President Kamala Harris or U.S. Rep. Alexandra Ocasio- Cortez) orders U.S. Marshalls to blast off for the moon and charge Alexander Macaulay, the Governor of Galileo Station, with sedition. (more…)

  • “Let the Sunshine In”

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Dominion solar energy farm in Powhatan County.  Photo credit: Dominion Energy and Cardinal News

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Dwight Yancey, editor of Cardinal News, has a fascinating piece today dealing with solar energy in Southwest Virginia and Southside Virginia.  In a piece replete with information and rumination, he sets out 13 takeaways from the recently-released Virginia Solar Survey “and other solar energy news, as viewed through the lens of the Southwest and Southside parts of the state.”

    I am not going to go through all of them here, mainly because I could not do Yancey’s descriptions justice.  In addition to being an advocate for solar, he does acknowledge some of the problems and objections that have been raised. Here are some of the points that stood out to me: (more…)

  • Another Perspective on Youngkin Education Policy

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Aimee Rogstad Guidera, Virginia Secretary of Education

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    After thinking about this a little more and doing some poking around on the Internet, I want to take issue with some of what Virginia Secretary of Education Aimee Rogstad Guidera said at an AEI forum, as reported on Bacon’s Rebellion yesterday.  The goals are sound, but I am not so sure about the approach this administration seems to be taking.

    In order to draw a contrast with the previous administration, she painted a picture of Virginia education that is worse than it is.

    On the 4th Grade reading test for the NAEP, 38 percent of Virginia students scored proficient or above.  That was above the national average of 34 percent.  The Commonwealth’s score ranked 8th in the nation.  It is true that Virginia scores are lower than they were in 2015.  In that year, 43 percent of the 4th graders scored at proficiency or higher and the state was tied for 4th in the country.  However, scores across the country have been falling as well.  In 2015, Massachusetts was the highest ranked state with 50 percent of 4th graders scoring proficient or better.  In 2019, Massachusetts was still the highest ranked state, but its percentage of 4th graders scoring proficient or better slipped to 45 percent.  Nevertheless, Virginia did decline in absolute terms, from 43 percent to 38 percent, and in relative terms, from 4th place to 8th place.   There is work that needs to be done.  (For NAEP data, see here for 2015 and here for 2019.) (more…)

  • Intregripedia

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    James A. Bacon

    by Jim McCarthy

    Surely, at some point, an accomplished polymath will create Integripedia to provide info-hungry internet users with a comprehensive source on political integrity. Specifically, the compendium should cover the promises and pledges of political leaders as well their foibles and accomplishments and perhaps most memorable statements. For the present, however, we must rely upon Safari, Google, Bing and others to identify such topical information. Worse, we may be relying upon cable news pundits who are no longer characterizing their spiels as journalism.

    At the end of April, Virginia’s youngish governor conducted a press conference to discuss his first 100 days in office and parse his administration’s accomplishments. Only a few outlets, rather unenthusiastically, reported upon the signature event. For the most part, the Governor offered that great progress has been made.

    A reading of the media coverage confirms that the Governor made no mention of efforts to enhance the Commonwealth’s election integrity, as he promised during his campaign. No mention was made of his legislative amendment to restore integrity to the Loudoun County School Board which, during the campaign, he declared to be guilty of “gross negligence” and “violating the Virginia Constitution.”

    Lay folk would likely agree that electoral procedures and processes should be annually administered to ensure the validity and credibility of each and every vote for each and every election. To this end, the proportions or numbers of electoral malfeasance discovered or prosecuted are vital mile posts in identifying soft spots and creating remedial measures. (more…)

  • Utah Bound!

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    James A. Bacon

    I’m leaving Wednesday on a much-needed vacation, in which my wife, traveling companions and I expect to do a lot of hiking with spectacular views such as this one. I’ll be gone about 10 days — without a laptop, unable to blog! (Is there a blogging-withdrawal antidote comparable to Oxycodone? Oh, maybe it’s spending time with friends and the great outdoors.) I will take a tablet, so I hope to keep up with email, but that’s about it. I’m counting on the BR crew to keep the blog lively in my absence. They’ve done it before, and I’m sure they’ll do just fine. Who knows — maybe they’ll do better! Everybody please behave while I’m gone! — JAB

  • The Detrimental Effect of Cell Phones in Public Schools

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    James A. Bacon

    by Robert L. Maronic

    I read a sad commentary three days ago entitled, “At This School, the Cellphones Rule,” written by James A. Bacon of Bacon’s Rebellion in Richmond. His commentary, which conceals both the name of the teacher and “high-poverty high school,” truly has to be read in order to be believed, but as a former high school Latin teacher, I don’t find it surprising. In my opinion, it should be required reading for all education students, especially their all-knowing, ivory-tower professors, in both the Commonwealth of Virginia and other forty-nine states. That also includes Governor Glenn Youngkin.

    I first observed this serious problem of the highly addictive nature of cell phones, which some have likened to either nicotine or heroin, among high school students while teaching myself and listening to the frequent complaints of other teachers beginning in 2009 in Roanoke City Public Schools. I later learned that Roanoke County Public Schools were often not much better, depending on the high school. Now this problem has become truly dystopian in most major urban and “inner city” school districts throughout Virginia. (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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