I can’t believe this needs to be said, but Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin, in announcing that he will abolish state-wide mask and vaccine mandates but allow private schools and school boards to decide if they want to continue with masking, is KEEPING promises.
Not breaking them.
Let me remind the sore-loser Democrats and far-right Republicans who are trolling Youngkin on social media that many of us voted to end to one-man rule in Richmond.
We don’t want a dictatorship of the left or the right.
We were appalled by Ralph Northam’s eagerness to crush civil liberties and substitute his judgement — flawed as it’s always been, remember that blackface episode? — for that of local government. He closed our beaches to “sitting” for months, ordered us home by midnight because his parents always told him “nothing good happens after midnight,” and demanded that school districts like Chesapeake and the Diocese of Richmond mask students, even though they’d voted to make masks optional. (more…)
Virginia school districts desperately need to find ways to improve public education for poor minority children.
The lowest performing schools are concentrated in urban areas, but, as I have shown here, are present in even America’s richest county, Loudoun.
Charter management organizations (CMOs), non-profits who operate two or more charter schools, focus on educating those very students. The best, like New York’s Success Academy, have produced spectacular results with the very kids whom many Virginia schools are failing. But they will not locate in Virginia right now due to our laws. They would not be able to operate here in the manner that has made them successful.
This article will show what is necessary for Virginia to position itself to compete for their services for the kids we most often fail to educate.
The headcount in Virginia’s public schools has leveled off in the 2021-22 school year after dropping by 45,000 students during the height of the COVID-19 epidemic last year. Statewide, public schools enrolled 1,251,970 students this fall, a loss of a statistically negligible 786 students.
That loss represents a tiny fraction of the student-age population, but the new numbers do raise the question of whether those 45,000 students lost the previous year will ever come back. Have their families permanently opted for private school or home schooling, or do other factors explain the shift?
The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) has published the updated enrollment numbers on its “Build-A-Table” database with no comment or fanfare. The past two years have been a tumultuous time for public schools, which have contended with remote learning, mask mandates and, in some districts, polarizing controversies over policies derived from Critical Race Theory. Parental dissatisfaction with public school policies was a major factor in Republic Glenn Youngkin’s election as governor earlier this month.
A breakdown of enrollment by subgroups tracked by VDOE shows that the number of White students continues to decline. The enrollment of White students is 7,000 lower — or 1% — less than last year. That follows a drop of more than 26,000 the previous year. (more…)
First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.
The Governor of Connecticut has abandoned his efforts to enroll that state in the Transportation and Climate Initiative, an interstate compact which would impose a cap, tax and ration scheme on gasoline and diesel fuel.
Virginia remains a part of the planning group that developed the compact, which has now been under consideration for more than a decade but not implemented anywhere. In late 2020, Connecticut was one of four jurisdictions pledging to go forward in 2021, while Virginia remained on the sidelines.
As in Virginia, Connecticut’s participation in the compact required legislative blessing, which Governor Ned Lamont was unable to secure during 2021, even in a legislature controlled by his own party. In light of that failure, and the lack of any other signs of movement toward an agreement, Lamont announced Tuesday he would not try again in 2022. He was quoted in the Hartford Courant:
“Look, I couldn’t get that through when gas prices were at a historic low, so I think the legislature has been pretty clear that it’s going to be a pretty tough rock to push when gas prices are so high, so no,’’ Lamont said Tuesday, acknowledging that the cost of motor fuel was likely to rise under the initiative, known as TCI.
At a later appearance in East Hartford, Lamont said that gasoline prices had reached a seven-year high and there was not enough support in the legislature in 2022 — a year when both Lamont and the entire legislature are up for reelection.
The Rhode Island legislature also passed on the issue in 2021 despite its governor’s efforts. Only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia are poised to join TCI once enough states make it viable, and in Massachusetts opponents have put the issue in front of the voters in a 2022 referendum question. (more…)
In their eagerness to flex their authoritarian muscles, Virginia Beach Public School officials made fools of themselves this week.
On Tuesday evening, Human Resources fired off a stern email to all workers informing them that December 6th would be Show-Us-Your-Papers Day. By that date every school employee will be required to complete a “VBCPS Employee Vaccination Status Questionnaire” showing proof that they were vaccinated against COVID.
Unvaxxed employees will be forced to submit to a weekly test.
There is no mention of what happens to employees who refuse to cooperate. That will be interesting, given the huge staffing shortages. Stay tuned.
The reason for the urgency?
“On Nov. 5, 2021, the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued an emergency temporary standard requiring all employers with 100 or more employees to mandate vaccination or provide proof of a weekly negative test. This mandate is currently under review in the federal court system therefore, the start date for compliance is unclear. (more…)
Virginia’s new collective bargaining law is forcing local government officials to deal with a controversial issue fraught with potential errors and legal risks.
If the 2021 election showed anything, it was that Virginia voters felt the Commonwealth was going in the wrong direction. The sweep of Republicans for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and the House of Delegates sent a clear message: Voters wanted change.
Local governments should take heed, especially on controversial issues such as public sector collective bargaining. Elected officials should carefully consider not just voter sentiment, but what new executive authority means for interpretation and implementation of recent laws.
One law, passed in 2020 by a Democratic governor, House and Senate, was a radical change to decades-old precedent. The new law gave local elected officials the ability to pass ordinances allowing government unions to have a monopoly and represent all public employees (even those that do not want representation) and to bargain on almost any issue. However, now there may be stricter scrutiny on the interplay between these ordinance and state laws, not to mention the U.S. Constitution. (more…)
I wrote a column the other day that exposed gaping fissures in learning among subgroups of children in Loudoun County Public Schools.
I asked readers to check the SOL data especially at Frederick Douglass Elementary, Leesburg Elementary, Sully Elementary, Sugarland Elementary, Sterling Middle and Park View High.
This article will offer the data for enrollment and chronic absenteeism in those six schools. I will use the same year, 2018-19, that featured the SOL scores in that article.
They are tough cases, but they have to succeed. (more…)
In my past couple of posts about the Virginia Military Institute, I observed that VMI Superintendent Cedric T. Wins and the Board of Visitors have caved into the demands of the Northam administration for transforming the racial climate of the military academy — not just by updating traditions and iconography relating to the Confederacy but hiring a director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, a sign of obeisance to woke orthodoxy. At times I may have conveying the impression that Wins is in the same side of the culture wars as Governor Ralph Northam and Washington Post reporter Ian Shapira, who have done more than anyone to push the VMI-as-racist-hellhole narrative.
We won’t know the degree to which VMI has adopted the premises of wokism until Wins has had time to to carry out his “One Corps – One VMI” action plan. Wins’ vision for VMI expresses a desire to balance “diversity and inclusion” with, in its words, honor as a way of life, the forging of leaders with character, and building an ethic of competing and winning.
One should not read too much into VMI’s acceptance of Governor Ralph Northam’s request to deliver a speech to the cadets Monday night. The Governor is Virginia’s commander in chief, and to have rejected the request would have been highly irregular for anyone who believes in respecting the chain of command. Meanwhile, it is abundantly clear that VMI regards Washington Post reporter Shapira as a hostile actor. Earlier this week VMI took the step of publishing a transcript of a recent Shapira interview — along with some pointed commentary. (more…)
I wrote yesterday of the epic failures of many Loudoun County Public Schools to educate their Black and Hispanic children.
Fortunately, there are proven solutions available.
They were not invented here, but rather New York City by the most successful charter management organization in America. That organization offers educator instruction in those solutions online free of charge.
Loudoun County Public Schools can take advantage and learn from them. I recommend they do so without delay. (more…)
As a Virginia Military Institute graduate and former [resident of the Honor Court, I find the remarks made by the Governor of Virginia Monday night before the Corps of Cadets appalling. I do not mention him by name intentionally because I believe that he has placed “personal gain above personal honor.”
On full display was a pandering politician, instead of a principled leader. He spoke of his “pride” and “love” for VMI, yet his October 19, 2020, letter to the VMI Board of Visitors started with: “We write to express our deep concerns about the clear and appalling culture of ongoing structural racism at the Virginia Military Institute.”
As VMI graduates, we are called upon to “defend” and “vindicate,” not “throw the Institute under the bus.” (more…)
For once, Virginia’s Virginia’s $8 billion-a-year surface transportation system (roads, highways, bridges, mass transit) is not in crisis. The system is in pretty good shape, and it is well financed, concludes a new Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) report.
Recent tax increases bringing in more than $800 million a year ensure that Virginia will have the resources in the near- to mid-term future to make needed improvements. But longer term, the evolution of Virginia’s automobile fleet from gasoline-combustion engines to hybrid and electric vehicles will undermine a transportation-funding system which generates 29% of its revenue from taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel.
The solution is moving to a Highway User Fee (HUF) — first a flat fee, and then a Mileage Based User Fee (MBUF) based upon the number of in-state vehicle miles driven, the report says. But to build public acceptance for a mileage-based fee Virginia should act now to address privacy concerns and evaluate the cost of administering the fee, JLARC says.
As the commonwealth begins implementing the user fees, Virginians will be hearing more about HUFs and MBUFs in the very future. Only two other states have established permanent MBUF programs, and they have only a few thousand participants. Virginia’s program is more ambitious. As the JLARC study says, “Virginia’s MBUF is being modeled on the Oregon and Utah programs but will likely begin as a much larger program.” JLARC expects at least 2.6 million Virginians (38% of vehicle owners) will be charged user fees in the next two years. (more…)
Two days after Old Dominion University issued a tepid word salad supporting assistant professor Allyn Walker, who’s attempting to normalize pedophilia, the president of the university, Brian O. Hemphill, placed Walker on administrative leave.
Looks like the brass at ODU heard loud and clear from the parents, donors and students — you know, normal people — who are outraged that an assistant professor in the department of sociology and criminal justice is urging society to dignify pedophilia by referring to these freaks as “minor-attracted people” or MAPs.
This is the person — who uses they/them as pronouns – who’s been in the news for the past few days:
This is the ninth in a series of articles about Virginia’s Standard of Learning assessments.
by Matt Hurt
A measure that has gained some credibility among psychologists is the Intelligence Quotient (IQ). IQ scores tell us nothing about someone’s intrinsic worth as a human being or their rights to equal justice under the law. On the other hand, most folks would agree that IQ does measure something real. Not every human being is capable of becoming a brain surgeon.
Whatever your opinions about the validity and usefulness of the IQ metric, it is important when thinking about educational policy in Virginia to understand that it does not measure the same thing as the state’s Standards of Learning (SOLs). SOLs are “criterion referenced” tests — that is, they measure how well students have mastered skills and content taught in schools, not their capacity to learn.
There is no question that academically gifted students find it easier to master the skills assessed by the SOL tests than less gifted students do. Yet it has been demonstrated repeatedly that less academically capable students still can acquire the skills they need to be classified as proficient and advance to the next grade level.(more…)
If your kids are Asian or white and economically advantaged, Loudoun County Public Schools are worth a try.
Otherwise, forget it.
At my age I am seldom surprised. The failures of Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) to educate so many of their children in the wealthiest county in America have easily cleared that bar.
The Constitution of Virginia famously demands:
“The General Assembly … shall seek to ensure that an educational program of high quality is established and continually maintained.”
In Loudoun, the struggles between the school system — the school board, the superintendent and the school administration — and parents have spawned national headlines. Those have focused on COVID responses and social engineering by the schools.
The spectacular failures of the Loudoun County Public Schools seen in the academic scores of its students other than economically secure Asian and white kids is a bigger scandal.
Far too many young lives have been cut short of their promise by denial of not only an “educational system of high quality”, but even an adequate one.
A year after denouncing the “clear and appalling culture of ongoing structural racism” at his alma mater the Virginia Military Institute, Governor Ralph Northam extended an olive branch of sorts. Delivering a speech last night to VMI’s 1,700 cadets, he offered praise of the Institute while also justifying measures he took to transform it in line with his vision of diversity and inclusion.
“We have a strong and thriving Virginia — a Commonwealth that opens its arms to people from around the world. The diversity that we’ve embraced in Virginia makes us stronger,” Northam said. “You will be out in this world, and no matter where you go — the military, or to a private sector job — you are going to encounter a wide variety of people, of all faiths and backgrounds.”
Implicit in those remarks is that VMI was a racist institution until the installation of new leadership in the past year. While Northam tactfully did not call VMI racist in his speech, he did allude to the flying of the Confederate flag, the playing of “Dixie,” and the glorification of the Lost Cause 44 years ago when he was a cadet.
Since then, Northam said, he has come to understand “what a large and diverse world we live in” and he has learned the importance of “diversity, being inclusive, being welcoming, and treating people fairly and with dignity.”
It is not immediately evident from the text of the speech what Northam was hoping to accomplish. My take is that Northam has residual feelings of loyalty to the Institute, which he credited with giving him a “world-class” education, and that he was trying to make peace with a community that he angered with his sweeping denunciations and heavy-handed tactics. Without waiting for the results of the investigation last year, he forced the resignation of the previous superintendent, J.H. Binford Peay III. He also installed a Board of Visitors willing to accelerate the removal of Confederate statues and iconography from the “post,” as the campus is known, and enact a progressive “diversity” agenda, such as hiring a chief diversity officer. (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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