Bacon's Rebellion

  • Will VMPI Eliminate Accelerated Math Courses or Not?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Over the weekend, the Virginia Department of Education overhauled its web page devoted to the proposed Virginia Mathematics Pathway Initiative (VMPI), which has caused an uproar among parents who fear that the new curriculum would eliminate accelerated mathematics classes for high-achieving students.

    The old page can be found on the Wayback Machine here. The updated page can be found here.

    The new page contains the following statement not found in the original:

    The implementation of VMPI would still allow for student acceleration in mathematics content according to ability and achievement. It does not dictate how and when students take specific courses. Those decisions remain with students and school divisions based on individualized learning needs.

    Yet the Northam administration has repeatedly justified the curriculum overhaul on the grounds of “equity,” or the reduction of educational-achievement disparities between different racial/ethnic groups. The new website still points to “additional resources” such as, “Mathematics Education through the Lens of Social Justice,” and “Closing the Opportunity Gap: A Call for Detracking Mathematics.”

    If a foundational premise of the new math curriculum is to do away with tracking, but Team Northam says it will maintain “student acceleration … according to ability and achievement,” how is that going to work? (more…)

  • Research the Huge Differences in SOL Math Scores Among Black Children

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    Virginia’s VMPI model

    by James C. Sherlock

    The problem Virginia Department of Education Virginia Mathematics Pathways Initiative (VMPI) and associated equity changes are designed to solve is low math proficiency among black students.  

    That math performance issue must be addressed beginning in kindergarten and before. At the end of the 3rd grade, even under Virginia’s new standards, every child is supposed to know how to multiply and to read. Both in math and reading, a child’s proficiency at the end of the third grade has proven in study after study to provide a key indicator of his or her academic performance going forward.  

    The top 20 Fairfax County elementary schools ranked (by me using state data) by black student 2028-19 math SOL pass rate achieved a pass rate within that demographic of 96.5. In the bottom 20 schools in that same county, the mean black student pass rate was 52.5. See link to spreadsheet.

    Those schools offer an excellent opportunity to examine whether VMPI and other equity changes proposed or adopted by VDOE will address those enormous differences in black student math education outcomes. (more…)

  • The Day-Late-and-a-Dollar-Short Administration

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Image pulled from the VEC website.

    by James A. Bacon

    So much dysfunction…. at so many levels.

    The federal government has been throwing trillions of dollars into COVID-19 relief. Many billions have flowed into Virginia. Despite this unprecedented peace-time spending, thousands of Virginians are being evicted from their homes, and thousands more are lining up at food pantries and soup kitchens. Why? Because government agencies can’t get the relief money to them in a timely fashion.

    Look, I understand. Times of crisis require time to adapt, whether you’re a government agency or a private company. There’s no magic wand to wave to make massive economic dislocations painlessly disappear. But we can legitimately compare the performance of Virginia to other states. And by the basic criteria of handing out unemployment insurance payments to people who have lost their jobs, the Commonwealth appears to be doing a colossally poor job.

    “Virginia continues to rank last in the country in key performance metrics tracked by the U.S. Department of Labor,” reports The Virginia Mercury. “The federal data shows the situation has only gotten worse as the pandemic continued, even as businesses have begun reopening and new claims have dropped.” (more…)

  • Newspapers: Words Still Matter

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    After 42 years in newspapers, having dedicated my adult life to that once-proud industry, I now read papers with a sense of dread. All too often that turns to disgust.

    Rarely do I stumble on a newspaper piece that delights anymore.

    The reasons are many, and you’ve heard them all before: Newspapers, which once were flush with money, are circling the drain. Staffing is down sharply, senior writers and editors have been pushed out the door and the journalists left behind are overworked and often inexperienced.

    Beyond that, there has been a seismic shift in the world of news. Where once reporters were expected to strive for objectivity, they are now allowed to sprinkle commentary into headlines and stories.

    Hand me any newspaper and I’ll find you an example in under five minutes. (more…)

  • No Child Left Ahead

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Pamela Fox

    The Virginia Department of Education is planning a radical change to mathematics education in grades K-12, deceptively packaged as just a means of offering additional math classes to high schoolers. Dubbed the Virginia Mathematics Pathways Initiative (VMPI), the plan is actually a stealthy attempt to lower standards and eliminate all advanced math tracking prior to 11th grade, thereby putting Virginia’s brightest students at a competitive disadvantage for college admissions and postsecondary STEM majors.

    Reference materials on the VMPI webpage reveal the initiative’s true motivations, stating “the current mathematics education system is unjust and grounded in a legacy of institutional discrimination based on race, ethnicity, class, and gender,” and demanding acknowledgment of “the roles power, privilege, and oppression play in the current unjust system of mathematics education.”

    These positions are echoed in VMPI’s online forums, where spokespeople explain their plans to eliminate Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2 classes, and to end accelerated math classes “to address inequities.”

    How did we get here and can anything be done to stop this train wreck before it happens? (more…)

  • Calculus and Jury Duty

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Joe Fitzgerald

    Calculus is like jury duty. Everyone agrees that it’s essential, and any sensible human being will try to get out of it if they can. But panicked right-wingers are currently cluttering the internet with claims that a change in high school calculus teaching is the latest threat to Western Civilization.

    I write from experience. I’ve been called for jury duty twice and taken three calculus courses, plus numerical analysis and differential equation classes with a calculus prerequisite. I don’t remember a lot of the calculus, and I was rejected both times for jury duty. Maybe because I would have been sending reporters to cover whatever trial I was chosen for. Regardless, they paid me $40.25 both times: $40 for a 20-minute “day” of jury duty, and two bits for a mile or less of travel expenses, another way of saying I walked to the courthouse.

    Calculus may make less sense than that, particularly for those who don’t necessarily care whether the derivative of a function of a single variable at a chosen input value, when it exists, is the slope of the tangent line to the graph of the function at that point.

    Of course it is. (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Sunday Memes

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Jeanine’s Memes courtesy of The Bull Elephant.

  • VDOE and the New “Math Path” — Healthy Skepticism and Professionalism Would Be Appreciated

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) describes the proposed Virginia Mathematics Pathways Initiative (VMPI) as follows:

    “The Virginia Mathematics Pathways Initiative (VMPI) is a joint initiative among the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE), the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) and the Virginia Community College System (VCCS).  The Initiative supports the Profile of a Virginia Graduate by redefining mathematics pathways for students in the Commonwealth to address the knowledge, skills, experiences, and attributes that students must attain to be successful in college and/or the workforce and to be “life ready.””

    Everyone wishes such things to be true. The new proposal to overhaul the teaching of math to them, however, requires more both more caution and more professionalism than is indicated by the VDOE. (more…)

  • UVa’s Crying Game

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    UVa law school library — trauma site

    by Jock Yell0tt

    “When Dean Goluboff took the stage to respond, she immediately started crying and was largely incoherent to the audience for much of the first part of her response … ”

    Risa Gobuloff, Esq., is Dean of the University of Virginia Law School.

    Dean Gobuloff’s crying spate occurred at a Town Hall meeting on Thursday, April 19, 2018, called by the school’s Minority Rights Coalition to discuss the previous day’s emergency.[1]

    The emergency was: a man sat in the law library reading up on the law.

    Why were law students not warned about this by e-mail alerts?

    One “crying, mad, frustrated” student felt “alienated.”

    “Today is my 25th birthday,” said another.  “Yesterday my heart was in my stomach, tears streaming.” (more…)

  • How Not to Build a Big Tent

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Still working on that big tent

    by James A. Bacon

    American Jews belonging to the Reform and Conservative movements within Judaism back Democrats in overwhelming numbers. Ultra-Orthodox Jews skew strongly Republican. But there is a swing vote within U.S. Judaism: Modern Orthodox Jews. While a slim majority identify as Democrat, liberal or progressive, 37% describe themselves as Republican, conservative, or libertarian, according to Jacob Magid with The Times of Israel.

    America’s 300,000 Modern Orthodox Jews comprise a swing vote. “You can’t assume a shul is completely Democrat or completely Republican,” Magid quotes  Maharat Ruth Balinksy of the Ohev Shalom Modern Orthodox synagogue in Washington as saying. “It speaks to the general identity of Modern Orthodoxy, whose members find themselves in both the religious and secular worlds.”

    It is incomprehensible to me that the Republican Party leaders setting up the rules for the May 8 nominating convention spurned a pleas by four rabbis to let Orthodox Jews, Seventh Day Adventists and others who observe the Saturday Sabbath vote absentee. (more…)

  • Oh, To Work for the Legislature

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Col. Steven Pike, Chief, Virginia Capitol Police. Photo Credit: Richmond Times-Dispatch

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    I learned a long time ago that one can come across some juicy nuggets by perusing the amendments to the budget bill. One such nugget I ran across today confirmed something else I have known for a long time: It is nice to work for the General Assembly; legislators take care of their own.

    This was confirmed by a budget amendment that gives the chief of the Capitol Police a 22% salary increase for FY 2022. Next fiscal year, the chief will be making $200,000 per year. Last year, for the sake of comparison, the chief of police in Richmond’s salary was reported to be $185,000.

    That got me to thinking about comparing the salaries of the heads of legislative agencies with their counterparts in the executive branch:

    Draw your own conclusions.

  • First Came “New Math.” Now Comes the “Math Path.”

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    The Northam administration is working on what arguably is the biggest overhaul of the mathematics curriculum since the 19th century. The Virginia Mathematics Pathway Initiative (VMPI) would replace the classic progression of Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2 courses with classes that teach “essential” concepts. All students would take the same courses through the 10th grade but would be able to select courses in the 11th and 12th grades suitable to their post-graduation ambitions.

    Proponents of the overhaul say it would promote educational “equity” — a code word for equal educational outcomes between racial and ethnic groups. But a movement has taken root among Northern Virginia parents who contend that by eliminating all accelerated math classes through 10th grade, the new “pathway” would hold back higher-achieving students.

    The VMPI, which is in the advanced phases of development, is part of a larger equity-driven reengineering of public school curricula in Virginia, including the potential consolidation of “standard” and “advanced” high school diplomas.

    Officials with the Virginia Department of Education, who are driving the process forward, cloak the changes with arcane bureaucratic language which is largely impenetrable to the public. Try reading this description on the VDOE website or, for a real treat, listen to this description delivered by Leslie Sale, director of the Office of Policy, to a bureaucratic entity called the Special Committee to Review the Standards of Accreditation. (Sale begins at 1:21:38 into the meeting.) (more…)

  • Virginia Board of Education Marches Virginia’s Children into the Abyss

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    Does he even know? Does he care?

    by James C. Sherlock

    The Governor, limited to a single term, appoints the Virginia Board of Education.

    It recently has demonstrated that it is the most powerful of state boards by crafting the most extreme progressive overhaul of a state education system, ever, anywhere.

    • Change the entire concept of the missions and functions of the public school system. 9-0 in favor.
    • Turn public schools into public services organizations for entire communities? 9-0 in favor.
    • Lower educational performance standards? 9-0 in favor.
    • Quotas? 9-0 in favor on October 15, 2020
    • Merit? 9-0 against.
    • “Too many” Asian American students in magnet schools? 9-0 to quota them out.
    • “Social-emotional learning?” 9-0 in favor
    • Attribute poor academic outcomes for some black children to systemic racism in the school system? 9-0 yes.
    • Absenteeism a problem worth addressing in Virginia schools? 9-0 no.
    • Forced critical race theory re-education of school employees? 9-0 in favor.
    • Critical race theory overhaul of the curriculum and course materials? 9-0 in favor.
    • Critical race theory education for newborns? Can’t start too early. 9-0
    • Critical Race theory in evaluation of teachers?  9-0 in favor.
    • Declare an excess of 30,000 white teachers in the Board of Education Strategic Plan? 9-0 in favor.
    • Coax kindergarteners to declare their true transgender selves and keep it from their parents? 9-0 in favor.

    (more…)

  • State Anthem Controversies: Maryland, My Maryland

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    James Ryder Randall, author of “Maryland, My Maryland”

    by James Wyatt Whitehead V

    Tensions had reached a boiling point in the city of Baltimore on April 19, 1861.  160 years ago, a mob of pro-Southern sympathizers attacked the 6th Massachusetts Infantry as the unit was making its way by rail to Washington, D.C. There had been trouble the day before when regiments of Pennsylvania militia had passed through the city.  Insults, bricks, and stones were hurled by several hundred “National Volunteers” of the pro-southern persuasion. Still the city police had managed to keep the situation under control.  A decidedly Democratic and southern sympathizing city was ripe for violence in the wake of Fort Sumter and Abraham Lincoln’s call for volunteers to restore the Union.

    When the 6th Massachusetts Infantry reached the Camden Station in Baltimore, it would be necessary to pull the rail cars by horse ten blocks down Pratt Street to the President Street Station. There was no direct rail connection due to different rail gauges of the period. Commanding Colonel Edward Jones issued instructions to his troops as the locomotive chugged into Camden Station: (more…)

  • Coming: Public Schools as Family Services Agencies

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    I have just reviewed the Return to School Planning Equity Audit published by the VDOE – Office of Equity & Community Engagement #EdEquityVA .  

    I confess amazement.  

    I simply had no idea how far the missions and functions of Virginia public schools have been stretched.  The Equity Audit shows that public schools are suffering from very rapid and severe mission creep.  

    The Virginia Department of Education is very quickly working to turn the public school system into an integrated family social services organization.  No word on the reaction of the nine state agencies already tasked with such services.

    Yet I find no evidence that anyone has identified the authorization for such a transition, the cost of the new missions, the conflict with the missions of other state agencies or whether the resources are available to accomplish the directives.  (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.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

About

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.

Fund the Rebellion

Shake up the status quo! Your contributions will be used to pay for faster download speeds and grow readership. Make a one-time donation by credit card or contribute a small sum monthly.

Can’t wait until tomorrow

For your Bacon’s Rebellion fix?

Enter your email address to receive immediate notifications of new posts by email.

SUBSCRIBE

Search Bacon’s Rebellion

Categories

Archives

The Jefferson Council

Protecting Thomas Jefferson’s Legacy at the University of Virginia

Forgot Your Password?

Shoot me an email and I’ll generate a new password for you.

Latest