Bacon's Rebellion

  • The Epic Fail of Loudoun Schools

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Two headlines from today’s news clippings:

    From Loudoun Now: Test Data Show COVID-era Learning Loss in Loudoun

    From the Washington Times: Teachers to ask court to halt Loudoun County school’s pronoun policy

    Could there be a link between the two? I will argue that there is: that the obsession with “social justice” issues has distracted Loudoun school leadership from its primary job of, you know, actually teaching children.

    By way of background, Loudoun has the highest median household income ($134,000) in the United States. Its citizens are the 6th best educated in the U.S., as measured by the percentage of adults with a B.A. education level (58.7%). The Loudoun County school budget is about $1.2 billion, or $13,700 per student compared to the state average of $11,600. By traditional metrics of per-pupil spending and socioeconomic status, Loudoun students should be stellar achievers.

    But they’re not. (more…)

  • The Wonderful World of Bacon

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    James A. Bacon

    Hat tip: John Butcher

  • Northam to Address VMI

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    “Northam heads to hostile terrain — VMI — to speak to 1,700 cadets.” That’s the headline on the Washington Post’s latest update on the hardball politics of racism and anti-racism at the Virginia Military Institute.

    The headline is a stretch, even if you believe, as the Washington Post has insisted, the military academy is a hotbed of racism, sexism, and “fierce resistance to change” (arguably untrue) and where “many students and alumni” are furious at Governor Ralph Northam for slandering the institution (arguably very true).

    But “hostile terrain?” The governor will not be walking into the lion’s den. The truth of the matter is that the new VMI leadership is in sync with Northam’s campaign to rid the military academy of  allegedly “systemic” racism and sexism. The Board of Visitors and Superintendent Cedric Wins have acceded to Northam’s agenda of purging Confederate-era symbols and embracing “anti-racism.” A telling sign of the new direction is the creation of a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion bureaucracy, which, if DEI initiatives at other universities are any indication, will highlight racial slights and grievances and instruct cadets on the proper way to think about race.

    Northam, an alumnus, asked to give the speech, which is scheduled for Monday night in VMI’s basketball arena. According to the correspondence I’m seeing from unhappy VI alumni, cadet attendance at Northam’s speech will be mandatory, but the event “will not be open to the public.” In other words, alumni not invited. It goes without saying that the cadets will be expected to behave with decorum. There won’t be any “Let’s Go Brandon” chants. No turning of backs on the governor. Northam is guaranteed a full house and an accommodating audience. (more…)

  • Loudoun Schools Fail Their Most Vulnerable Kids

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Kids and their parents don’t ask much of their schools. Just a quality education in a safe and moral environment. Even at ages before the children fully realize what the words education and moral mean.

    The kids themselves have no choice but to take what the school system puts in front of them and do the best they can with it.

    Loudoun is the richest county in the United States. Number two is not even close.

    Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) have helped white and Asian kids from economically comfortable homes. In fact, the Asian kids are such terrific academic achievers and grace Loudoun County schools in such large numbers that their successes mask rot underneath.

    But educating the economically disadvantaged as a macro group and Black kids, Hispanics, students with disabilities and English learners as sub-cohorts of that group are the true test of a school system.

    LCPS has largely failed those kids. The LCPS administration is responsible and must be held accountable. (more…)

  • Marik Sues Sentara Over COVID-19 Treatment Ban

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    James A. Bacon

    Paul Marik

    by James A. Bacon

    Paul Marik, director of Sentara Norfolk General’s ICU, has sued the hospital to reverse a ban on a treatment protocol he uses to treat critically ill patients. That protocol includes the administration of ivermectin and fluvoxamine.

    In the lawsuit Marik claimed that the Sentara restrictions may have contributed to the deaths of four of his patients. “It’s the physician who determines what’s the best treatment for the patient, not nameless bureaucrats sitting in an office,” Marik said, according to WTKR-TV. “I had to stand by idly watching [my patients] die because I was not allowed to do what I’m meant to do.”

    “I think it’s criminal. It’s immoral, and it’s illegal,” he added. “Can you understand the toll that that takes that I have young patients — young patients in the 30s and 40s, who I had to watch die — while the hospital prevented me from giving them the treatment I thought was in their best interest?”

    Sentara contends that the use of ivermectin, an inexpensive and widely available anti-parasitic drug, has not been proven effective in randomized, double-blind clinical trials, the scientific gold standard. Furthermore, the hospital contended that Marik based his claim to have cut mortality rates in half, published in the Journal of Intensive Care Medicine, upon inaccurate information. The journal has since retracted the article.

    The controversy highlights a fundamental question: who decides — and how they decide — what COVID-19 treatments are permissible. (more…)

  • What Dominion is Hiding in its Wind Application

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    Steve Haner

    The cover page that declares we the ratepayers cannot see how Dominion Energy Virginia has calculated the levelized cost of energy for its $10 billion offshore wind project. The SCC should break this seal and open this document.

    by Steve Haner

    When an applicant at the State Corporation Commission claims certain information is proprietary, or extraordinarily sensitive, a reader not privy to the full document can at least get an idea what is missing.

    What is missing from the application Dominion Energy Virginia recently filed at the SCC, a document so dense and complex it was broken into eleven volumes, with 61 separate documents (here)? (That is not counting the tables of contents.) Here are some of the topics masked from view that turned up in a cursory review (in the order they appear in the documents): (more…)

  • The Intellectual Laziness of the Mainstream Media

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    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    How much longer will the mainstream media get away with pretending that it’s conservatives who are racist and never liberals?

    Perhaps you noticed. As they tried to explain away the breathtaking Republican sweep of Virginia in last week’s elections, pundits and journalists alike couldn’t stop yapping about dog whistles and white supremacy.

    It was so easy and required no real thinking.

    But it wasn’t Republicans prancing around in blackface in Virginia as recently as the 1980s. It wasn’t Republicans running a former blackfacer for attorney general. And it wasn’t a Republican who used an offensive racial term as recently as, well, yesterday.

    Nope. That was Joe Biden. (more…)

  • Redistricting: Partisan Fighting Continues

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Virginia Supreme Court Building

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    The diabolical person who came up with the framework for the state constitutional amendment establishing a redistricting commission was not content with designing it so that it would fail due to partisan wrangling. He also injected partisan politics into the phase in which the state Supreme Court must come up with the plans.

    If the commission cannot agree to plans to be submitted, the task falls to the Supreme Court. State law requires the Court to choose two special masters to assist it in developing the plans, one each from lists of three submitted by the leaders of each of the two political parties in the General Assembly. Among other requirements, the persons appointed by the Court shall have the “requisite qualifications and experience to serve as a special master and shall have no conflicts of interest.” The Republican list includes the following: (more…)

  • Burning Flags OK, Burning Smut Bad

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    James A. Bacon

    BLM/Antifa domestic terrorists in Portland, Oregon burning Bibles and American flags during the August 2020 riots. source: Twitter/Flopping Aces

    Just because “33 Snowfish” gets printed doesn’t make it literature… but we can know that only if we contrast smut against actual literature.

    by Shaun Kenney

    “Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.”
    “Thus, where men burn books, in the end they will also burn men.”
         — Heinrich Heine, Almansor: A Tragedy (1823)

    Since we are all clutching pearls at the idea of burning books quite suddenly, let’s take a moment to remind ourselves when progressive Democrats are entirely complacent about the actual practice of book burning — yes?

    For instance? When progressive rioters in August 2020 engaged in BLM and Antifa’s favorite pastime — only instead of burning out small businesses they instead burned Bibles in Portland, Oregon — the Democrats initially denied that it happened… until video evidence verified that the BLM/Antifa rioters actually did burn Bibles.

    Even Snopes rated the claim true, despite the legacy media and the perpetually offended Democratic Party offering barely a single word of objection. One has to wonder whether they would have been as blasé about the whole thing if it was a Holy Quran or The Vagina Monologues or even a copy of The Turner Diaries.
    I digress.

    Of course, just days after parents threw the Democratic Party out of their high church of Virginia state government, they have found a new bogeyman — where the Spotsylvania County School Board has issued an ultimatum to its school superintendent to conduct a survey of objectionable books. (more…)

  • In Praise of Two Great Public Servants

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    James A. Bacon

    Stephen Moret

    by James A. Bacon

    Virginia has been blessed to have had many superb public servants over the years. They may not be remembered in the history books, which have a bias toward elected politicians, but we are reminded of the indispensable contributions of at least two of them in today’s news clippings. One is leaving to pursue his passion in workforce development. Another already left, but is returning part-time to help Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin bone up on fiscal and transportation issues.

    Stephen Moret, president of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, made his most visible marks by spearheading the recruitment of the Amazon  HQ2 project to Arlington and restoring Virginia to the top of CNBC’s “Top States for Business” rankings. But he also has done yeoman’s work reinvigorating the once-moribund VEDP and building bridges between economic developers and educators. Central to Moret’s approach has been integrating economic development with workforce development.

    He will leave Virginia to become CEO of Strada Education Network, a nonprofit with a mission of promoting upward mobility through education. The focus is on helping individuals, according to Strada’s website, “who face the most barriers to postsecondary education and training.” Growing up as the son of a single mother in Mississippi, he can relate to the challenges of people facing economic insecurity, he tells the Richmond Times Dispatch’s Michael Martz. Read Martz’ profile here. (more…)

  • Educational Assessments: Too Much of a Good Thing?

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    James A. Bacon

    This is the seventh in a series about Virginia’s Standards of Learning educational assessments.

    by Matt Hurt

    Widespread shutdowns of Virginia’s public schools during the COVID-19 epidemic last year resulted in a significant loss of instructional hours. To make up for lost ground, teachers need to spend as much time as possible with their students. Unfortunately, a new measure enacted with the best of intentions will take students and teachers out of the classroom for two more rounds of assessments, one in the fall and one in the winter.

    While the extra tests might be suitable for some school districts, local officials should be allowed to decide whether the assessments best meet the needs of their students.

    In 2017 the Virginia Board of Education implemented new criteria for the Standards of Accreditation, which determine if schools are performing up to snuff. Students who failed their SOL tests but demonstrated sufficient “growth” from the previous year counted the same for accreditation purposes as a student who passed his or her SOLs in the accreditation calculation. Under the growth system, students who failed a 3rd grade SOL test would be given four years to catch up and reach proficiency by the 7th grade — as long as they demonstrated progress toward that goal each year. (more…)

  • The Invisible Side of the Student Loan Crisis: Debt Collection

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    James A. Bacon

    Virginia State University. Photo credit: VPM News

    by James A. Bacon

    VPM News tells the story of Joshua Bowser, a Virginia State University dropout who was living at home in New Jersey with his parents and working two jobs. Unbeknownst to the young man, he owed the Commonwealth somewhere between $6,900 and $10,700 (the paperwork gave different figures) for unpaid tuition and fees.

    In April Bowser was summoned to a court hearing in Chesterfield County by Virginia’s Attorney’s General’s office, which, among its many responsibilities, is in charge of collecting debts owed state agencies.

    Bowser had enrolled as an out-of-state student at VSU and spent two semester there. He says the experience was a positive one, but he had to drop out because his parents could no longer afford to keep helping him pay for school. Despite a Pell grant and federal loans covering the cost of tuition, he still had to pay more than $1,500 in university fees, more than $1,900 for a meal plan, and $3,300 for on-campus housing in the fall 2012 semester alone. “It’s expensive,” Bowser said. “That’s the whole reason why I left.”

    This story is illustrates so many things that are wrong with our higher ed system today. (more…)

  • Mandated Administrative Bloat Will Destroy Small Public Schools

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    I am a big fan of small schools.

    Studies and common sense both indicate the benefits for the kids and staff can outweigh any disadvantages.

    But small public schools are being driven out of business by costs in some parts of Virginia. Much of the cost disadvantage in those small schools is driven by administrative bloat forced by a combination of state laws and regulations and school division mandates.

    Some of the latter-day “must haves” of management and specialist staffing for schools have demonstrated value in improved outcomes for the kids, some have not. In general, the state mandates the positions that matter, local school often districts require additional ones that don’t.

    The fixed cost of management and administration must be absorbed no matter the size of the school, driving up per student costs in smaller schools. Many are being driven out of existence by costs they are not permitted to control.

    I am going to offer here for comparison two schools, both elementary schools, one in Loudoun County and the other in Wise County. (more…)

  • “Working People” Resist

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    James A. Bacon

    @rhondaleehughesgriffith

    ♬ original sound – Rhonda Lee Hughes Gr

    I don’t know who Rhonda Lee Hughes Griffin is, or where she’s from. And my aim here is not to comment on the validity of her views about COVID-19 vaccinations. Rather, I point to this 24-second TikTok video as a crystallization of the new class divide in our country. It’s not rich versus poor, or even Black versus White. It’s between those who perceive themselves as “working people” and those who don’t. (more…)

  • The Ten-Year Tab for Economic Development Incentives: $3 Billion

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    James A. Bacon

    Source: “Economic Development Incentives 2021: Spending and Performance”

    by James A. Bacon

    Virginia spent $3 billion on economic incentive programs during the decade of the 2010s (between FY 2011 to FY 2020), equivalent to 1.5% of the total General Fund budget. Although there is considerable variability from year to year, incentives grew roughly twice as rapidly as the rest of the total budget, concludes the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) in a new report.

    About 70% of incentive “spending” was comprised of tax credits and exemptions, and the lion’s share of those went to data centers.

    The numbers are likely to increase in the next few years as the massive incentives to Amazon, which located its East Coast headquarters in Arlington, start kicking in. (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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