University of Virginia President Jim Ryan has stated that, as long as he holds office, the Thomas Jefferson statue in front of the Rotunda will remain in place. UVa’s founder, he says, will not be de-memorialized.
Talk is cheap. When given a golden opportunity to publicize Jefferson’s contribution to religious freedom — the 2019 publication of “Liberty in the Things of God: The Christian Origins of Religious Freedom” — Ryan took a pass. Neither he nor the administration’s propaganda organ, UVA Today (AKA UVA Pravda), have made mention of this important scholarship by Robert Louis Wilken, a UVa professor of the history of Christianity. (more…)
Someone needs to teach Washington Post reporters basic arithmetic. In an article published today, writers Nick Anderson and Susan Svrluga write how Virginia’s higher-ed institutions face a “racial reckoning.” That reckoning won’t end with the purge of memorials to men who were slaveowners and segregationists, or when memorials are erected to acknowledge the contributions of Americans of African descent. Scrutiny on matters of race, they say, extends to “the chronic underrepresentation of students and faculty of color.”
The WaPo approvingly quotes Michaela R. Hill, president of the Black Student Organization at the College of William & Mary, as saying more needs to be done to promote diversity at W&M. The Black share of enrollment there — about 7% — “does not reflect the state,” where the Black population is 19%. The Black population nationally is 12%.
School learning mode by state. Ranking of in-person leaning index, 2020/21 school year. Virginia highlighted in red. Source: Burbio’s School Opening Tracker.
by James A. Bacon
“Long haul” COVID is the term used to describe COVID symptoms that persist far beyond the normal four weeks of infection. It seems that Virginia schools are experiencing long-haul COVID, too: maladies that have arisen long after the impact of the original illness — the shutdown of in-person learning — has passed. Like long-haul COVID for people, long-haul COVID for schools often involves symptoms not seen previously.
School districts around the nation are canceling classes for what they call “mental health days” on the grounds that students and staff need breaks to handle the pressure of returning to school, reports the Wall Street Journal. More than a third of the 8,692 school closures reported this year have occurred in three states: North Carolina, Virginia, and Missouri.
The Journal article specifically cites school systems in Suffolk, Chesapeake and Richmond. Teachers are experiencing burnout, and superintendents are giving them time off to recoup. In large part, the burnout is a consequence of the COVID-driven flight to distance learning in the 2020/21 school year. Virginia public schools had the 7th-lowest rate of in-person learning in the country, by one set of measures in the Burbio K-12 School Opening Tracker and 3rd lowest by another set. (more…)
Mattaponi Tribe member Raven Custalow addresses a gathering in which Tribe members were protesting exclusion from certain tribal matters. Photo credit: Richmond Times-Dispatch.
by James A. Bacon
Jasmine Anderson wants to enroll as a member of Virginia’s Pamunkey Indian Tribe. Her mother is a Pamunkey and Mattaponi, and her father a Chippewa, she says. But she’s been turned down three times, she claims, because her ancestors helped Black people in the 1860s. “It’s flat-out racism,” she claims, according to reports in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Anderson says her family has been excluded from the tribe since an ancestor built a school and church for Blacks following the Civil War. The RTD article traces the discrimination back to the Racial Integrity Act, Jim Crow-era legislation enacted in 1924 that prohibited Whites from intermarrying with Blacks or Native Americans, both of which were classified as “colored.” As if there weren’t enough trouble in the tribal paradise, Mattaponi chief Mark Custalow is being accused by his second cousin, Gloria Custalow, of barring women from voting and tribal leadership.
Both Pamunkey and Mattaponi restrict participation of women in voting, running for tribal leadership, or attending tribal meetings. Free and fair elections would end sex discrimination in tribal enrollment, contend tribal dissidents. (The tribal chiefs are not quoted in the article, so we don’t know their side of the controversy.)
What’s the big deal? Why has this become an issue now? Good Lord, there are only 200 or so members of the Pamunkey tribe and 300 enrolled members of the Mattaponi. Both tribes maintain small reservations on the Middle Peninsula north of the James River, but only a fraction of tribal members live on the reservations. Why is it not sufficient to “self-identify” as a Pamunkey or a Mattaponi and follow tribal traditions? Why the need to enroll?(more…)
Allyn Walker, the Old Dominion University assistant professor who wants to normalize perceptions about pedophilia is out at ODU. Or rather, Walker will be out at the conclusion of the spring semester, when the professor’s contract expires.
Walker was placed on administrative leave earlier this month when an interview of the professor’s bizarre attitude toward pedophiles went viral.
In the meantime, the professor who uses the pronouns “they/them” and prefers to call pedophiles “minor-attracted people” will remain on leave and continue to draw an ODU paycheck.
This delay may do little to staunch the national outrage over the repulsive positions this professor has taken towards perverts who are sexually aroused by children. (more…)
Once again, the Fairfax County School Board has put its ideological priorities ahead of the educational needs of the children. Yes, the 12 Democrats sitting on the school board have sent out another youth sex survey, just like it does each year.
The survey delivered during academic time to children in grades 8-12 reads like a rap song instead of a questionnaire to children as young as 11 years old. With a whopping 173 questions, the most pressing question judging by the fact that it is first, is — wait for it — “Are you transgender?”
Other questions include:
“How old you were when you first had sex?”
“How many people have you had sex with in the last 3 months?” (with an answer option of 6+ people!)
Have you ever tried heroin, cocaine, and cabbies? (multiple questions)
There are also plenty of other questions asking about children’s smoking, vaping, huffing, and drinking habits, as well as marijuana usage. Other questions delve deeply into the private lives of these kids, asking intimate and inappropriate
questions about family – the eerie thrust of which seems to lead children to doubt their families’ love and care for them. For example, “How many times a month do your parents bully, ridicule, or tease you?” (more…)
Saw this headline in the Washington Business Journal.
“Toll Brothers pushes big residential plans in Ashburn — and a tribute to enslaved people who once lived there.”
Behind the headline: This is to be a development of 1,300 residences in a project named Mercer Crossing.
Since it is being built by Toll Brothers, we’ll assume they will be pricey.
Their Lenah Mill project in Aldie has homes for sale from “$1,323,895″ and from “$1,499,950,” depending upon how much space one needs and how close one wishes to live to one’s neighbor.
Six other Toll Brothers developments in Loudoun are nearing sold-out status. (more…)
Bill LaVecchia died recently at the age of 95. He was an example of the best in professional public employees.
He was a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War. He earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Virginia Tech, and, subsequently, a master’s in municipal engineering and public administration, as well. After working in municipal government in Tennessee and the town of Blacksburg, he was hired as Henrico County’s second planning administrator in 1959. He was to be an integral part of the management team that guided Henrico County over several decades from a largely rural county to one of the state’s large urban counties. His career culminated as county manager from 1984 until his retirement in 1992.
One of his most consequential actions occurred soon after he came to work for Henrico. He persuaded his boss, county manager Ed Beck, to attend hearings on the location of then-planned Interstate 64. They were the only administrators from the region attending and were ultimately successful in lobbying for a northern route for I-64 that brought it through Henrico.
Bill’s was not a household name, nor did it appear a lot in print. He probably preferred it that way. He was content to let others take on the public roles.
In addition to being a highly competent professional, more importantly, he was a genuinely nice person and had a humble air about him.
I was fortunate to have known and worked with him.
Source: “Pandemic Schooling Mode and Student Test Scores: Evidence from US States”
by James A. Bacon
Here is more proof, as if it were needed, that Virginia’s public school system suffered one of the greatest COVID-induced collapses in standardized test scores of the 50 states. A paper by Clare Halloran, a Brown University professor, and three colleagues recently published by the National Bureau of Economic Research drew data from 12 states, including Virginia, to probe the impact of COVID-related school shutdowns on student learning. Virginia students experienced the lowest rate of in-person learning — and they likewise experienced the biggest drop in test scores. It wasn’t even close.
Summarize the authors: “Of the states in our analyses, in-person learning rates are highest in Florida and Wyoming, and lowest in Minnesota and Virginia. Virginia and Colorado also have the highest share of district-time spent in virtual learning.” (more…)
“I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
The statement is actually one of the bedrocks of our public K-12 system. Teachers will go to college for four years to learn what to teach. Literature, history, civics, arithmetic, mathematics. They learn how these things link together, and can perhaps teach how the literature of the 1850s and the economics of slave labor influenced the road to Civil War.
They spend time as student teachers, finding out what it’s like to interact with a classroom full of students, and finding out whether the profession is what they want to pursue.
They know whether “The Fountainhead” or “A Tale of Two Cities” is a better way to teach about narrative, principle, and sacrifice. They know whether James M. McPherson understands the Civil War era better than the United Daughters of the Confederacy. They know different ways to add three-digit numbers, and different approaches to showing students how addition works. (more…)
In a bold move, Greenbrier Christian Academy in Chesapeake announced this week that when students return from Thanksgiving break they can be mask-free. Unless their parents want them in masks, in which case the school will make sure parental wishes are carried out.
In a video sent to Greenbrier parents, Superintendent Ron White said it’s been five weeks since the school had its “last Covid contact” and that no students or parents are being tested right now for possible infection so this seems like the right time to return to normal.
There are a couple of new issues between Virginia’s Bureau of Insurance (BOI) and the federal Centers for Medicare/Medicaid Services (CMS).
The problems were briefed today by a Board of Insurance representative to the Health Insurance Reform Committee.
CMS has told the BOI that the 2020 General Assembly passed a law (possibly without knowing the implications) that violated a federal statute. The Virginia law attempted to protect the state from having to spend money to fund a new health insurance mandate for Qualified Health Plan (QHP) holders. QHPs are small group and individual policies sold on the ACA exchange.
The feds are not amused. Virginia law apparently will need to be changed. (more…)
… but you can’t see them! (Image credit: scwgl.org.uk)
by Walter Smith
Jim Bacon recently posted an article urging Governor-elect Youngkin to take full advantage of his higher-ed Board of Visitors appointments if he wishes to remain true to the education reform momentum that played a big part in his election. Bacon’s bits (pun intentional!) on the Boards as political plums with a go-along-to-get-along chumminess seemed dead on to me. In truth, academia is a different world. A far different world.
I came out of the corporate world. I worked as counsel in an NYSE company and a private equity company for large insurance brokerages. Governance in the academic world is something I intend to address in a complete, and fair, manner later, after gathering a great deal more info. In the meantime, permit me to share one example of how governance works — or doesn’t work — in academia.
After the 2017 Unite the Right riot in Charlottesville, the University of Virginia took many actions in response. One result was the Racial Equity Task Force report. Another was the formation of the Deans Working Group, headed by Risa Goluboff of the law school. Goluboff made four proposals to the Board in March of 2018, all of which were approved.*
One of those approvals allocated $80,000 to a “university-wide campus climate survey.” This survey, paid for with public money, has never been released. Why? Given the BoV approval, does it not belong to the public? (more…)
Colleges and universities have long been prone to clashes between strong-willed presidents and prominent alumni. Over the years there have been numerous well-publicized episodes of donors retracting their benefactions after some run-in with the forces of political correctness. But as “wokeness” becomes the prevailing ideology on many college campuses, and as many alumni have decided they’re mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore, these episodes are occurring with ever-greater frequency.
One such incident occurred at the Virginia Military Institute in connection with Governor Ralph Northam’s recent speech at the Institute. On Nov. 14, an alumnus sent the following email(bold face in the original) to Superintendent Cedric Wins and other figures in the VMI leadership:
Good evening. I am a 198- [date redacted] VMI graduate. Two requests, please:
Please immediately cancel Ralph Northam’s speech at VMI Monday, 15 November. He’s a disgrace and a woke buffoon. Don’t subject the Corps of Cadets to his lunacy.
If you won’t accommodate request number one above, then please make his talk optional and not mandatory for the Corps of Cadets. (more…)
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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