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Jeanine’s Memes
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Is The Traditional Public School Grading System Racist? Part I: Standards-Based Grading
by James C. SherlockStandards-based grading (SBG) is a way to view student progress based on proficiency levels for multiple standards within a specific grade level course of instruction.
It contrasts with the traditional method of relying on a single grade representation as the sole measure of achievement for a grading period in a specific class.
It is not difficult to find favorable assessments of standards-based grading. It, like every other grading system, has advantages and disadvantages.
But now SBG is being been sold — and bought — with an “equity” tag.
If you don’t use it, your school system is being told it is presumptively racist. Teachers stand accused in the dock. Parents and children are positioned as helpless victims of the grading system without agency in outcomes. In certain zip codes, that predictably has induced panic buying. (more…)
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When the Numbers Stopped
by Joe FitzgeraldThe Virginia Department of Health began posting daily COVID numbers on March 17, 2020, and effectively quit Thursday. A press release on the VDH website explains the changes, but doesn’t include enough real information to make it worth the trouble of linking there.
For two years, though, VDH produced daily information that made it possible to produce snapshots of information about the history, current state, and projected trajectory of the pandemic down to the zip code level.
A math degree and journalistic experience made it fairly simple for me to figure out what was relevant to the central Shenandoah Valley every day so that Deb and I could make personal decisions based on more than our reading about national and worldwide trends and about efforts on the various medical fronts. (more…)
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Feel-Good Stories for a Cold, Wintry Day
by James A. Bacon
Yes, hot war is raging in the Ukraine and culture wars are burning in the United States, but a few things are happening here in Virginia to make you feel good about the world: Longwood University making it into the NCAA tournament, Crozet resident Kenedi Anderson winning a platinum ticket in American Idol, and Liberty University football star Malik Willis giving the shirt off his back (actually out of his suitcase) to a homeless woman.
America’s new favorite underdog. Let’s start with America’s new Cinderella team in the NCAA — Longwood! Here’s how The Wall Street Journal (yes, the WSJ!) kicked off a story about the college’s improbable entry into the biggest tournament in college basketball after winning the Big South Tournament Championship:A coach who assisted in perhaps the greatest college basketball upset of all time is now creating another underdog story. Specifically, a man who has overcome both cancer and the decision to become an attorney is now leading his unheralded team into next week’s NCAA tournament.
The Longwood Lancers had never had a winning record in conference play until Griff Aldrich arrived to coach four years ago. A graduate of Hampden-Sydney and the University of Virginia Law School, he took a six-figure salary with a Houston firm, then abandoned his conventional career to take a basketball coaching job for $32,000 a year. Read the WSJ article for the rest of the story. Go Lancers! (more…)
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Early Reading Skills Still “Going in the Wrong Direction”
by James A. BaconGovernor Glenn Youngkin is getting an inkling of how difficult it will be to reform Virginia’s public school system. The Virginia Association of School Superintendents (VASS) has issued a letter criticizing the administration for its action two weeks ago of deleting from the Virginia Department of Education website any references to “divisive language” — mainly references to policies and guidelines premised on the idea of society as divided between White oppressors and minority victims.
“School division superintendents, along with their communities, know best their curriculum, personnel, and student services, and they believe that gross assumptions have been made, without evidentiary support,” stated the letter addressed to Superintendent Jillian Balow.
Meanwhile, a report just issued by the University of Virginia education school — with abundant evidentiary support — highlights the disastrous impact of the shutdown policies pursued by many of the very same school superintendents during the COVID epidemic. While individual school systems had released data on reading assessments of kindergartners, first graders and second graders, the new report is, I believe, the first detailed statewide review.
The conclusions are grim. Data from the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS) assessments found that the percentage of children in those three early grades who fell short of basic reading benchmarks rose from 21.3% in 2019 to 34.9% in 2021. The percentage was highest (42.2%) for second graders. (more…)
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DEI Training Comes to VMI
by James A. BaconAs other Virginia universities rushed to build Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) programs over the past decade, the Virginia Military Institute was long a holdout. In the mythos of the military academy, the infamous Rat Line — an adversarial system that leveled all first-year students and built them back up as cadets — was a great equalizer. It didn’t matter where you came from or how rich your mommy and daddy were, you were a brother Rat.
But American society moved faster than VMI, with historical roots in the ante-bellum South, could evolve. Former Governor Ralph Northam installed a Superintendent and Board of Visitors eager to purge Confederate iconography and embrace Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Now VMI leadership is implementing a DEI plan that includes “diversity” training.
VMI has issued a notice of intent to award the diversity-training contract to NewPoint Strategies, a McLean-based diversity-training firm. (The contract has not been signed yet.) I have not seen a copy of the proposal, but I have reviewed the RFP that it responded to. The RFP provides insight into how VMI under the leadership of Superintendent Cedric T. Wins intends to use DEI to transform the culture of the military academy. (more…)
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Cutting Off One’s Nose To Spite One’s Face
by Dick Hall-SizemoreThe Virginia Senate Democrats have acted irrationally. They have refused to confirm four of the five appointments made by Governor Youngkin to the Parole Board. This action was in retaliation for the House refusing to confirm 11 appointments made by then-Governor Northam last year, including those to the Board of Education and the State Water Control Board. The only Parole Board appointment confirmed was that of retired judge Chadwick Dotson to be the board chairman.
Until new members are appointed by the Governor, no decisions will be made on the cases of those offenders who are eligible for parole consideration and a backlog will be created and grow. Furthermore, the Parole Board hears the cases of offenders on parole who are charged with “technical violations,” that is, violation of their terms of parole, but not charged with the commission of a new crime. Each month, the Board considers several hundred parole and parole violation cases.
In summary, until the Parole Board has additional members some offenders will not be granted parole and accused parole violators will remain in jail, awaiting a hearing. It is fairly certain that this is not a result that many Democrats would want. (more…)
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Virginia Democrats Play Childish Games With Public Safety
by Kerry DoughertyWhat in the world are Virginia Senate Democrats thinking?
On Thursday, in a childish game of tit-for-tat, these partisan hacks blocked three of Governor Glenn Youngkin’s nominees for the state parole board.
There was nothing objectionable about the trio. This was political gamesmanship and a fresh reminder that Democrats have little interest in law and order.
Trouble is, by foolishly drawing attention to the parole board, these dimwits reminded the commonwealth that when they were in charge of making appointments they filled the board with bleeding hearts who set killers loose. (more…)
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Economic Illiterates Demand Youngkin Halt Gasoline “Price Gouging”
by James A. BaconVirginia Democrats are calling upon Governor Glenn Youngkin to combat rising gasoline prices by declaring a state of emergency and activating the anti-price-gouging law.
“Governor Youngkin has the power to act and help protect Virginians at the pump, but so far, has failed to do so. Instead, he continues to point fingers and waste precious time,” Eileen Filler-Corn, the House of Delegates minority leader said earlier today. “Virginians do not need talking points and failed campaign promises — we need leadership and action.”
This idea is wrong on so many levels. While I disagree with Democratic lawmakers on most issues, I count on them to maintain at least a tenuous connection with economic reality. I can draw only one of two conclusions. Either Democratic leadership is woefully illiterate about economics or it assumes that the American people are illiterate — and they can get away with peddling snake oil. Either way, it’s bad news.
Republicans have not impressed me with the power of their analysis either — they, too, have over-simplified the causes of rising oil prices in order to score partisan shots — but they haven’t been as abjectly wrong. Or hypocritical.
Let’s walk through the economics of gasoline prices. (more…)
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Virginia Remains a Green New Deal Mecca
by Steve HanerThe elections of a Republican Virginia governor and a new Republican majority in the House of Delegates have not changed Virginia’s status as one of the greenest of Green New Deal states in the country. Every effort to reverse the course set during the previous period of Democratic hegemony has failed at the 2022 General Assembly.
The massive construction plans for ratepayer-funded solar, wind and battery facilities dictated by the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act remain on track. A bill to repeal VCEA failed in the majority-Democratic Virginia Senate. So did a simpler bill that merely restored the ability of the State Corporation Commission to review those construction plans for prudence, reasonableness and cost.
If California moves to ban the sales of new internal combustion engine cars and other vehicles starting with the 2035 model year, as expected, Virginia is still positioned to automatically follow suit. Until then, a growing percentage of all new car sales must be electric starting in 2025. A bill to revisit that 2021 legislation, and do a proper regulatory adoption process, also died in the Senate.
Legislative efforts to remove Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative regional compact all failed. A regulatory reversal may still be possible without legislation, but in the meantime the carbon tax remains on every Dominion Energy Virginia bill and works its way into everything touched by electricity costs. (more…)
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No Woke-ism to See Here, Move Along Now: VMI Edition
A correspondent has forwarded to me a communication to all Virginia Military Institute employees from the VMI chief of staff:The Office of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion would like to offer a voluntary workshop (with certification) for employees who would like to learn more about working with the LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, queer, intersex, asexual +) community in a military context. Please read the following link https://modernmilitary.org/portfolio-items/rainbow-shield/ to learn more about what topics are covered in the certification. If you are interested in participating, please complete the survey below; the suspension is Friday, March 11 COB. If there is enough interest will try to have the training in collaboration with W&L.
Thank you in advance for your participation in this survey.
The creation of a bureaucratic machinery for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at VMI came in response to allegations of systemic racism and, to a lesser degree, sexism. It looks like VMI will be treated to the full DEI experience, including LGBTQIA+.
At least the certification is voluntary.
— JAB
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What? The General Assembly Is Still Meeting?
Bob Brown, Richmond Times Dispatch photojournalist. Photo credit: Richmond Times Dispatch by Dick Hall-Sizemore
Jeff Shapiro has a nice column in today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch praising the work of the Bob Brown, the long-time news photographer who is retiring, after 42 years at the RTD, at the end of this month. His photographs have captured many moments in the legislature over the years and he is a common sight at the Capitol and around committee meetings.
Beyond the praise for Brown, what struck a chord with me was Shapiro’s description of what news coverage of the legislature used to be like and how the coverage has decreased over time. Today is a good example of that withering. It is Thursday, two days before the legislature is supposed to adjourn. Prominent legislation still needs to finalized. The budget conferees have missed their deadline for reporting a budget bill, meaning that the session may go into overtime or adjourn without an agreed-upon budget. (more…)
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Will Environmental Regs Throttle the Solar Industry?
by James A. BaconVirginia environmentalists are coming to grips with the fact that while solar farms may help fight global warming, they’re not always good for the local environment. In the wealthy northern Piedmont, known for its wineries, horse farms and scenic vistas, some residents have complained about the clear-cutting of forest to make way to acres upon acres of solar panels.
“The number-one thing I hear from communities in which we serve is concern about the loss of farms and forests with regard to these projects,” said Dan Holmes, director of state policy for the Piedmont Environmental Council, tells the Virginia Mercury.
A recent Virginia Commonwealth University study found that roughly 8,000 of the 14,000 acres disturbed in Virginia for solar installations were previously forested. The loss of wooded land and the compaction of cropland contribute to run-off and erosion that sets back the effort to improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay.
Legislation hammered out in the General Assembly this year, reports the Mercury, attempts to achieve a balance between protecting the local environment while allowing development of utility-scale solar farms to proceed. Projects affecting more than 50 acres of forested land or 10 acres of prime farmland will have to provide mitigation for those impacts, with the criteria to be worked out in a convening of stakeholders by the Department of Environmental Quality.
Chip Dicks, a lobbyist representing solar developers and renewable energy buyers, worries that the mitigation could be defined so narrowly as to preclude development on prime agricultural and forested lands entirely. That “would basically stop in its tracks most major solar projects in Virginia,” he has said. (more…)
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The Post “Reports” On Something That Has No Chance of Happening
by James C. SherlockGovernor Youngkin gets to fill three existing vacancies on the Board of Education (BOE) and replace two more members whose terms expire on June 30 of this year. That makes five of a total of nine.
Virginians have been watching the headline making depredations of the Democratic appointees on that board for years. Color the majority of us pleased. BOE policies and the parental pushback they generated are the major reason the governor won his election.
Now Virginia Democrats want him to reappoint three progressive BOE nominees that were rejected by the Virginia House. The Washington Post has regurgitated the press release and treats it as news.
It has no filter for the absurd. (more…)
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Economics 101: Gas Prices Are Crippling the Working Class
by Kerry DoughertyDon’t you just love it when the sneering class responds to a serious problem with a glib solution?
When I wrote earlier this week about soaring gas prices one reader pointed out that her husband bought an electric bike and rides that everywhere. The fact that I prefer to commute to work — on the interstate — in an automobile is somehow proof that I want to “kill kids.”
Oh, please.
Does she believe milk and bread can be delivered to the grocery store by electric bike? Does she think farmers can plow their fields with electric bikes? Does she believe rescue squads can get heart attack patients to the hospital by electric bikes? What utter nonsense.
One thing is clear. America is in need of an economics lesson.
For those who think the problem with astronomical gas prices is that spoiled suburbanites have to pay more to get their nails done WHILE UKRAINIANS ARE BEING BOMBED, please stop embarrassing yourselves. (more…)
