Bacon's Rebellion

  • Virginia Has a Talent Pipeline Problem, Not a Systemic Racism Problem

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Among Virginia’s 57,000 classified state employees, black workers are under-represented in leadership positions, writes the Richmond Times-Dispatch today.

    “Inequity had a 401-year head start here. It’s easy to say we’re not moving quickly enough, and I agree,” said Chief Diversity Officer Janice Underwood in an interview with the  RTD. “Racism has been institutionalized, and we now have to do that with diversity and inclusion.”

    Underwood is the prime mover behind the ONE Virginia plan that will put Diversity, Equity & Inclusion initiatives into place across state government. The RTD describes how the Northam administration hopes to “institutionalize” DE&I plans with the force of law so they have staying power even after Underwood and her mentor Governor Ralph Northam are gone.

    Sadly, Underwood totally misdiagnoses the problem. Blacks are not under-represented in state government leadership positions because of “structural racism” as conventionally understood, they are under-represented because insufficient numbers have the educational credentials needed to rise in state government. That is the underlying problem, and ONE Virginia’s DE&I initiatives won’t change that. (more…)

  • How “Independent” Are the VMI-Racism Investigators?

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    On Oct. 18, Governor Ralph Northam and senior Democratic members of the General Assembly wrote a letter to the Virginia Military Institute Board of Visitors expressing deep concerns about “appalling” allegations of racism at the military academy. The letter proceeded to repeat charges previously aired in the Roanoke Times and Washington Post and announced plans to hire an “independent” and “non-partisan” investigator to conduct a review and report preliminary results by year-end.

    By Nov. 1, the administration had mobilized to issue a Request for Proposal. That responsibility was nominally given to the state agency in charge of overseeing Virginia’s higher education system, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV). But senior officials of the Northam administration were intimately involved in drafting and editing the politically sensitive document, which detailed exactly what the winning vendor was supposed to investigate and how to do it.

    On Nov. 17, the administration announced an intent to award the contract to the Washington, D.C., office of a national law firm, Barnes & Thornburg. A competing vendor, CAI, filed a protest, which delayed granting of the final award, and then filed a lawsuit. Documents revealed in the lawsuit exhibits and Freedom of Information Act requests call into into question how “independent” and “non-partisan” the inquiry is. Indeed, a close look at the administration’s objectives and actions suggests that the investigation findings — an “interim” report is due to be released this week — are to some degree fore-ordained. (more…)

  • Analysis of State Use of Federal COVID Funds

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Design credit: Atlantic Cape Community College

    By Dick Hall-Sizemore

    (Note:  All of the data presented in this post is based on the author’s analysis of raw expenditure data from the state’s accounting system (CARDINAL) for FY 2020 and FY 2021 through 2/22/2021.)

    As of February 22, state agencies had spent or disbursed $11.9 billion in federal COVID funds.

    Two major categories of expenditures accounted for about 86 percent of that total.  The Virginia Employment Commission had paid out $8.8 billion in unemployment claims.  Secondly, in accordance with federal law, the state had transferred $1.4 billion to local governments.  The remaining $1.7 billion was spent directly by state agencies or disbursed by them as grants to local or regional government agencies or to private entities. (more…)

  • Port Development a Double-Edged Sword

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    James A. Bacon

    Norfolk container yard. Credit: Virginian-Pilot

    by James A. Bacon

    An enduring question on this blog is what accounts for the lagging economic performance of the Hampton Roads metropolitan statistical area. Growth in Gross Domestic Product since 2001 has been roughly half that of Virginia’s, while growth in real personal income since 2010 has lagged by 30%. We have explored various explanations on this blog from the necessity of adapting to increased flooding to a cap on natural gas supplies, from restrictions on water usage to excess reliance on the military as an economic foundation.

    Ironically, an important reason for the region’s slow growth may be the success of one of its key industries, its ports. Since the introduction of cargo containers, ports have required more land. As ports expand, argues a new paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, they literally “drive up land rents and crowd out other economic activity.” (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

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    James A. Bacon

  • Jeanine’s Memes

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    James A. Bacon

    Jeanine’s Sunday Memes, the Bull Elephant

     

  • Virginia GOP–The Party that Couldn’t Shoot Straight

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    By Dick Hall-Sizemore

    The conservatives on this blog have been spending a great deal of time lamenting what the Democratic majority and progressives are doing to the state’s universities, public schools, and life in general. However, there has been very little mention of the Commonwealth’s other major political party.  Frankly, I do not blame them for doing everything they can to distract attention away from the Republicans. That party cannot agree even on how to select its candidates for the upcoming gubernatorial election.

    First, there was the usual fight in the State Central Committee over whether to have a convention or a primary. As in prior years, the proponents for a convention won out. There was one major problem with that decision, however. There is a pandemic and a large convention would violate the prohibition of large gatherings. Of course, the party could probably ignore that Governor’s executive order and go ahead with a mass convention. I doubt if the police would try to shut them down. But, doing that would be a public relations disaster. (more…)

  • Exploitation and Privilege at VCU

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    James A. Bacon

    VCU adjuncts protesting for fair pay. Credit: VPM News

    by James A. Bacon

    Bacon’s Rebellion has devoted considerable digital ink over the years to explaining how Virginia’s higher-ed institutions exploit its students through unconscionably high tuition and fees. But it is useful to remind ourselves that colleges and universities are rigidly hierarchical and exploit the knowledge workers at the bottom of that hierarchy as well.

    Adjunct professors at Virginia Commonwealth University protested outside the office of President Michael Rao the other day, demanding better pay and benefits. Currently, an adjunct with a full teaching load makes about $20,000 a year, or about $1,000 per credit. They’re asking for $3,000 per credit.

    “We want a raise to our base pay, which is currently low enough that an adjunct can work full-time and be below the poverty line,” said Rose Szabo, a member of VCU Adjuncts Organizing for Fair Pay in an interview with Virginia Public Media. Full-time-equivalent adjunct faculty don’t even get health benefits. (more…)

  • Ah, the Good Ol’ Days When a College Education Cost $235 a Year

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    James A. Bacon

    Responding to my frequent diatribes against the rising cost of college attendance, reader Carter Peaseley sent me this clipping from an old Richmond College advertisement in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, dating back to 1906. The tuition was $100 for a full year of study, and living expenses were $15 a month. Total cost of a year’s attendance (nine months of living expenses): $235.

    Compare that to the cost of attendance at the University of Richmond today: $52,610 this year.

    Admittedly, a dollar isn’t worth what it used to be. Indeed, if we use the Consumer Price Index calculator, we see that $235 in 1913 (which is as far back as the calculator goes) is the equivalent of about $6,300 today. So, to be fair, the inflation-adjusted cost of a college education at UR has increased only eight-fold over the past century, not 200-fold. (more…)

  • Social-Emotional Learning — We Are All Aboard for the Ride

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    sherlockj

    James Lane
    Superintendent of Public Instruction

    by James C. Sherlock

    A new educational theory has been implemented while most were not looking.  

    The educational-industrial complex is all-in on Social Emotional Learning (SEL). Behold the circle of life of that complex:  

    1. Many education schools have for a very long time been producing “studies” under government grants awarded by ed school grads that prove that SEL will solve, well, everything – including the poor outcomes of everything they researched and credited with magical powers before SEL. This is called “academic inquiry” by actual educational institutions with fewer closed loop interests and higher standards.
    2. The same education schools teach it.
    3. Virginia education policymakers and graduates of the education schools, have fully embraced it. 
    4. Lots of ed school graduates working as consultants are available to spend all those newly minted hundreds of billions of “COVID” dollars sent to the schools. 
    5. There are lots of new jobs in the schools for SEL staffers, ed school grads all.  
    6. And all of that will last until the ed schools come up with a new silver bullet theory to fix the problems created by SEL. This is done by renaming and expanding it.
    7. Go to number 1, set the money cycle on re-wash and press start.

    SEL of course, being a full-service silver bullet, requires its own bureaucracies, teacher reeducation, teacher mentors called “coaches”, curricula, classroom time, lesson plans, “data” that need to be viewed through an “equity lens” and of course money, lots of it.  (more…)

  • VUU Gambles on Recruiting Hispanic Students

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    James A. Bacon

    VUU President Hakim j. Lucas

    by James A. Bacon

    Although the appeal of Virginia’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) has been limited mainly to African-Americans, Richmond-based Virginia Union University, founded in 1865 to educate former slaves, is making a major push to recruit Hispanic students.

    VUU President Hakim J. Lucas wants the student body to be 25% Hispanic within three years, reports the Richmond Free Press. If it is successful, it would become the first HBCU in the country to earn a federal designation as an “Hispanic-serving institution.” It would be the second such institution in Virginia, following Marymount University in Arlington.

    HBCUs face an existential threat from other colleges and universities which are intensifying efforts to recruit minority students, often offering financial aid that less affluent HBCUs are hard-pressed to compete with. But Lucas thinks Virginia Union can make inroads with Hispanics because of their commonality with African-Americans as oppressed minorities. Reports the Free Press: (more…)

  • COVID Vaccination Report

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    The vaccination pace is picking up.  My wife and I had our first round of shots last Sunday at CVS.  Ironically, my daughter in Northern Virginia scheduled them for us. She had been checking the CVS website and saw that they were scheduling for two days in Richmond. (I had checked the day before and nothing in the state was available.)

    Furthermore, I just got a call from Henrico County about scheduling our shots for tomorrow. This was a week or so after I registered on the main state website.

  • The Great Unlearning

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    The full dimensions of the COVID-related school closing disaster are coming into sharper view as Virginia school districts compile and report data from the 2020-21 school year.

    Failing grades are up nearly 500% from last year at some schools in the Lynchburg area, The News & Advance has found through the Freedom of Information Act. Meanwhile, neighboring Campbell County Public Schools saw a 283% increase in Fs in the first quarter compared to the same quarter the previous school year. Amherst County Public Schools experienced a 72% increase in Fs.

    Comparable numbers are being reported from Northern Virginia. Sixth-graders in Arlington County schools have shown an average GPA decline of 6%. The number of students failing at least one class increased 118%, according to ARL Now.

    What the newspaper articles don’t report is that failing grades are soaring despite the fact that teachers are under unprecedented pressure to not fail students. Many school districts have issued directives to give students second and third chances to hand in late homework assignments. If a student receives an F, it may be an indication that they haven’t done any of the work and that they have interacted minimally with the teacher. Many students turn off their video and audio, there is no sanction for doing so, and teachers frequently don’t know if they are following the class or not. (more…)

  • A Radical Proposal: Abolish Virtual Classes

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    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Since “following the science” is in vogue, there should be no debate now that ALL schools should be open for in-person classes.

    Every damn one of them. Five days a week.

    The science is clear and has been since last spring: COVID poses very little risk to children. And infected children rarely infect adults.

    Parochial and private schools have been in-person five days a week since August in most places with very few problems.

    There is no need to rehash the cornucopia of problems facing public school children, from mental illness to suicides to simply disconnecting from school altogether.

    Yet this week in Portsmouth — a city with what the newspaper euphemistically calls “underperforming” schools — three members of the school board voted to keep kids out of class through the end of the year. (more…)

  • A Hill for Children to Die On

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    sherlockj

    Virginia Education Secretary Qarni

    by James C. Sherlock

    I was asked by Dick Sizemore:

    “As for social emotional learning (SEL), what specifically in that statement do you disagree with?”

    A serious question from a serious man. The answer is quoted from Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL):

    Find the definition of the “process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes.”

    A process is a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end.

    The SEL “process” is defined by CASEL as: (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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