Bacon's Rebellion

  • School Superintendents Are Accountable for Special Ed Compliance

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock – Updated 23 Dec. with division-by-subject table of bad SOL results for students with disabilities.

    Old School House Photo by Steve McKinzie

    I just finished reading the December 14 JLARC Report. “K–12 Special Education in Virginia 2020.”

    The report is highly critical of public school special education in Virginia, but it misses the mark on its findings as well as its recommendations.  

    The major problem with the findings is that the report does not specify which school districts do a good job in special education and which districts do a poor job.  

    The major problem with the recommendations is that the bulk of them recommend new regulations by the Virginia Board of Education (VBOE) and additional oversight by the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE). The current regulations, especially federal regulations that come with the federal money for special education, are quite specific. And not uniformly followed.

    As big a critic as I have been of VBOE and VDOE — they need to do better — but the biggest culprits are the superintendents of Virginia’s school districts. Those men and women are highly educated and experienced in the requirements of their jobs and highly paid to execute them.  (more…)

  • Money Don’t Buy You Learning

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    James A. Bacon

    by John Butcher

    It’s December. The Generous Assembly is about to return and the demands for more education funding (see Executive Summary at p.4) resound throughout the Commonwealth.

    The data would suggest that these demands are misplaced.

    VDOE won’t post the 2020 expenditure data until sometime this spring and there were no 2020 SOLs, so we’ll use the 2019 expenditure and SOL data. The expenditure numbers below are the those for “day school operation” (the sum of Administration, Instruction, Attendance and Health Services, Pupil Transportation, and O&M spending). Student counts are the year-end average daily membership.

    One wrinkle: Statewide, “economically disadvantaged” (here, “ED”) students underperform their more affluent peers (“Not ED”) by some 17 to 22 points, depending on the subject. Thus the division average pass rates depend both on student performance and the relative numbers of ED and Not ED students. We’ll avoid that issue here by looking at the rates for both groups.

    Here, then, are the division average reading pass rates for the two groups plotted v. the division day school expenditure per student: (more…)

  • VDH Outbreak Reporting Won’t Save Lives, Inspectors Will

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    James A. Bacon

    by Carol J. Bova

    Back in June, I asked “Where Are the Other 52 Nursing Homes with Outbreaks?” because that was the number missing from the Long Term Care Facility Task Force dashboard. The Task Force explained it wasn’t involved with group homes and residential behavioral health facilities and, therefore, did not include them in their dashboard — even though those facilities are included in the numbers for the VDH Long Term Outbreaks report.

    The new outbreak information dashboard the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) created to comply with HB 5048 of the 2020 General Assembly Special Session Number One will include those groups in the weekly report, VDH announced on its blog December 18. (Summer camps and K-12 Schools will  be listed also.)

    The dashboard will include confirmed COVID-19 outbreaks that occurred in medical care facilities, residential or day programs licensed by Virginia Department of Health (VDH), Department of Social Services (DSS), or Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS), summer camps, and kindergarten (K)-12th grade schools.

    Transparency is always good, but a new report will not address the need for inspectors whose work could actually reduce the incidence and death rates. (more…)

  • Commission Applicants Too White, Too Male, Too Rich

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    James A. Bacon

    Source: Virginia Public Access Project

    by James A. Bacon

    You can count on progressives and the media to make every issue under the sun about race — and for Bacon’s Rebellion to call them on the carpet for it. Here’s the latest example. It turns out that, in the minds of some, too many of the people volunteering to serve on Virginia’s Redistricting Commission are… you guessed it… white.

    Of the 214 people who have applied so far, with a week to go, only 25 are black, seven Hispanic, three Asian, six multiracial, and two American Indian, according to a count made by the Virginia Public Access Project. By my reckoning, that means about 82% of the applicants for the eight citizens positions in the commission are white. Three quarters are male.

    Some are not happy with this disproportionate display of civic participation, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

    “I’m not the one to say I told you so but when it comes to the redistricting commission, @PriceForDel95 tried to tell y’all,” tweeted Del. Lashrecse Aird, D-Patersburg. “Old. Rich. White. Men. But that seems to be part of the Virginia way.”

    Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, D-Chesterfield, said she is “really concerned about the lack of diversity in the VPAP data,” especially by the lack of Asian representation. (more…)

  • Bacon Bits: What Happens In Fairfax Should Stay in Fairfax

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    James A. Bacon

    Get out of jail free. Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve T. Descano formally announced Monday that his office will no longer seek cash bail, claiming that it exacerbates inequalities between rich and poor, reports The Washington Post. Poor people find it harder to post bail and end up languishing behind bars until trial. Sometimes they lose jobs, housing, and child custody rights as a result. Says Descano: “It creates a two-tiered system of justice — one for the rich and one for everyone else. It exacerbates existing racial inequalities.” In cases when defendants might pose a risk to the community, his office will continue to recommend no bond.

    I’m not saying Descano is wrong. Perhaps the practice of requiring bail does contribute to mass incarceration, and perhaps it does do more harm than good. One should always question government practices, and the criminal justice system is no exception. I’d like to see the numbers, though. The WaPo provides none, and I have zero faith in the WaPo to present data that runs against its social-justice narrative.

    Even better… Don’t put people in jail in the first place. As it happens, Descano does provide some numbers in an op-ed published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Virginia’s state prison population has grown by 235% since 1983, he writes. Despite constituting 20% of the state population, black Virginians account for 53% of the prison population. To combat what he describes as “racial and socioeconomic inequities rife within Virginia’s criminal justice system,” he says, his office recently announced that it will no longer rely upon mandatory minimum sentences in plea deals. Fairfax County prosecutors should seek alternatives to incarceration wherever possible. He’d like to extend those practice statewide through legislation. (more…)

  • The Nonsensical Narrative of an Impending White Minority

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    James A. Bacon

    Mark-Paul Gosselaar (left) and Alexis Bledel.

    by James A. Bacon

    America’s media and cultural elites are increasingly obsessed with race and ethnicity, viewing every public policy issue through a racial prism. But the American people aren’t cooperating. In their real-world behavior, race and ethnicity are becoming less important. The distinction between “whites” and “Hispanics,” never clear to begin with, is steadily eroding. Meanwhile, the increase of intermarriage between all racial/ethnic groups has given rise to a category of people, numbering in the millions, who identify as members of two (sometimes more) races.

    Those are the thoughts that come to mind as I read Hamilton Lombard’s latest contribution to the StatChat blog about the misleading narrative of a disappearing white majority.

    As Lombard writes, media headlines have touted a population tipping point in which the “white” majority of Americans will be overtaken numerically by minorities of other races and ethnicities. This narrative, I would add, has fed the fears of white supremacists who vow they will not be “replaced” as well as the aspirations of leftist politicians who believe they can ride minority grievances to power. (more…)

  • Virginia and Other States Pass on Carbon Tax Pact

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    Steve Haner

    by Steve Haner

    The organizers of the Transportation and Climate Initiative announced Monday that only four of the twelve jurisdictions involved have agreed to move forward and implement the carbon tax on motor fuels, and Virginia is not one of them.  Not yet.

    The 2021 Virginia General Assembly could consider legislation to join the interstate compact in 2022, but the memorandum of understanding as it stands now only includes Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, which are contiguous, and the District of Columbia.

    New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Pennsylvania were conspicuously absent along with Virginia.  One surprise that emerged, however, is that North Carolina is now part of the planning group.  The states that didn’t sign anything yet issued a statement of “next steps” that leaves the door open for the future.  Even those that did sign pushed the implementation back one year to 2023, reducing the need to act now.

    The Governor Ralph Northam Administration has been silent so far on its plans or reasoning.  His apparent decision to at least delay a year on acting is prudent but leaves the issue alive for debate among 2021 candidates for statewide or legislative offices.  (more…)

  • Mitigating COVID-Related Learning Losses – Conflicted Advice Gets an Airing in the Richmond Times-Dispatch

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    sherlockj

    Old School House Photo by Steve McKinzie

    by James C. Sherlock

    Any attention given to learning losses is welcome, but some are more welcome than others.

    Data published in an op-ed by Kristen Amundson in the Richmond Times-Dispatch give preliminary evidence of the destruction of K-12 learning that has been going on since last March.

    “A new poll from Christopher Newport University found that 75% of Virginia parents are worried their children are falling behind in school because of disruptions caused by COVID-19. More than half (53%) are “very worried.”

    They’re right.

    Nine months after the pandemic led to school closures, we have data on how well students are learning. The answer: Not well.

    This past month, Fairfax County Public Schools reported an 83% increase in the number of middle and high school students receiving an “F” in two or more classes. Unsurprisingly, students with disabilities, English learners and economically disadvantaged students did even worse, with jumps of more than 350%.

    The nonprofit testing organization NWEA reported in November that students’ math scores dropped five to 10 percentage points from this past year. While reading scores roughly held constant, even students who are making some progress show smaller gains than in the past, “resulting in more students falling behind relative to their prior standing,” NWEA says.

    Her data are illustrative. I think even those predictions will prove optimistic under SOL testing.

    (more…)

  • Bacon Bits: Politicians Behaving Badly

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    James A. Bacon

    Amanda Chase anti-vaxxer. Republican gubernatorial candidate Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield, has famously refused to wear face masks. Now, if a report from the liberal/left The Daily Beast can be believed, she will refuse to to get vaccinated. She would “absolutely not” get a shot because “many of the vaccines are actually manufactured in China,” she told a reporter. Aside from the fact that her information about the China connection is inaccurate, I wonder if Chase is experiencing any cognitive dissonance from the fact that she’s on the same side as leftist anti-vaxxers who spurn the COVID-19 vaccine because it was approved by the administration of her hero Donald Trump. Look, from a philosophical standpoint, I’m primed to be sympathetic to any politician who embraces small-government conservatism and individual liberties. But public policy positions need to be grounded in accurate facts and real data.

    Hey, at least he’s acting out his values! A Fauquier County man who ran for Prince William County seats in Congress and the House of Delegates as a self-described “red pill libertarian” was arrested in Denver last week for allegedly coaxing a 12-year-old girl to send him pornographic images and sneak away from home to join him on a flight back to Virginia, reports the Prince William Times. Nathan Daniel Larson faces felony charges for kidnaping, child abduction, soliciting child pornography from a minor and meeting a child for the intention of sex. Larson previously was convicted of threatening to kill President George George Bush. As a convicted felon, he was barred from seeking state office in Virginia until Governor Terry McAuliffe restored voting rights to thousands of felons in 2016. According to Wikipedia, he admitted to raping his ex-spouse… who was transgender and committed suicide after the birth of their daughter. He advocates positions from the legalization of marijuana and child pornography to “benevolent white supremacy.” Seriously, dude, if anything, if your life history proves anything, it is the degeneracy of the white race.

    Watch those social media posts! Robert Erhhart, a former King William County board of supervisor member and now a candidate for county treasurer, has gotten himself in hot water over his social media posts. The Tidewater Review cites a profanity-laden post referring to the county’s 2020 budget process. The newspaper also pointed out “homophobic” posts such as one in which he said of the Women’s National Basketball Association, “Who the hell goes to watch the WNBA anyway? I guess it’s a bunch of lesbians going to watch.” Ehrhart says that his personal views toward gays would not affect his conduct in elected office. Moral of the story: If you want to run for public office, be very careful what you say online. It will come back to haunt you.

  • Prioritize Vaccine by Age, Not Race

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Carol J. Bova

    The last thing the government needs to do is polarize citizens by prioritizing COVID-19 vaccination for favored races and ethnicities. Statements like those of Harald Schmidt, assistant professor in the University of Pennsylvania Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, amount to reverse racism.

    “Older populations are whiter,” said Schmidt, as quoted in the New York Times. “Society is structured in a way that enables them to live longer. Instead of giving additional health benefits to those who already had more of them, we can start to level the playing field a bit.”

    Those who decide who gets the vaccine should not consider race or ethnicity. Health departments should target those who, by virtue of their occupations and age, are the most vulnerable to catching and spreading the virus. Where possible, because there won’t be enough vaccines to do everything right away, priority should be given to those who, by virtue of their age and co-existing conditions, are most vulnerable to dying from it. Insofar as African Americans and Hispanics disproportionately work in exposed occupations or suffer from medical risk factors, they will be more likely to qualify for a vaccine — but not because of their race and ethnicity.

    (more…)

  • Tufts Study Projects Major TCI Carbon Taxes

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    Abandoned Gas
    An abandoned gasoline station in North Carolina that failed after that state raised its fuel taxes substantially higher than Virginia’s.

    By Steve Haner

    Monday the organizers of the Transportation and Climate Initiative, a carbon tax and rationing regime for Virginia motor fuels, will be announcing details of the underlying interstate compact, according to media reports.

    The media in Virginia has been disinterested in the issue, but the debate is raging in New England. The Boston Globe set the stage with a story last week. While 12 states and the District of Columbia have been involved in the planning, there remains some suspense over which states will press forward. New Hampshire is already out, and some other governors have expressed concerns.  (more…)

  • Healthcare Spending Drives Growth in Virginia Budget over Last 10 Years

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    On December 16, the Director of the Virginia Department of Planning and Budget provided a briefing for the Joint Meeting of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee, the House Appropriations Committee, and the House Finance Committee.  

    The subject was the Governor’s proposed amendments to the 2020-2022 Biennial Budget. The Governor submitted the revised budget discussed in that briefing and it was introduced as matching bills by the chairpersons of the Senate and House appropriations committees on December 16.

    There is plenty of information of interest in there.  (more…)

  • How UVa Is Addressing the Online Challenge

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    James A. Bacon

    Alex Hernandez, dean of the School of Continuing and Professional Studies at the University of Virginia.

    by James A. Bacon

    Eight years ago the forced resignation of University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan embroiled Virginia’s flagship university in a controversy that played out nationally. Rector Helen E. Dragas saw an “existential threat to the greatness of UVa” from demographic, financial and technological forces reshaping the higher-education landscape. The most controversial of these was the emergence of online learning. Sullivan, Dragas said, had not moved aggressively enough to incorporate online learning into UVa’s strategic planning. In the turmoil that followed, Sullivan carried the day. She was reinstated as president and remained until replaced by Jim Ryan in 2018.

    But the challenge of online learning did not go away. While change has not come as rapidly as some predicted, online learning has steadily gained higher-ed market share in the years since. Following Sullivan’s philosophy of incremental change, UVa remained committed to the traditional model of classroom teaching but experimented with online learning on the margins. Then, boom, along came the COVID-19 epidemic. Suddenly, every university in the country, including UVa, was compelled to convert in-person classes to an online format.

    COVID has shifted the conversation dramatically.

    “Today every student is learning online. Every faculty member is teaching online. Every parent has an online student.” Alex Hernandez, dean of the School of Continuing and Professional Studies (SCPS), told the Board of Visitors at its December meeting a week ago.  “In a post-COVID-19 world,” he asked, “can we just go back to normal?” (more…)

  • Year-Round School in Virginia until COVID Learning Losses are Made Up

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock – revised 20 December 2020

    This essay will recommend that each school board implement what the title suggests. The concept is far from fanciful. COVID-related learning losses are extreme.  Summer learning losses are also a big factor on traditional school calendars.  Year-round schools are acknowledged to improve student learning, and Virginia is on board with year-round schedules.

    It is up to each school board to decide. There is no slack in the schedule to decide. Each needs to make a decision in January for the decision to gain funding support by the Governor and General Assembly.

    Year-round public school is not an experiment

    From Public School Review:

    “Data from the National Association of Year-Round Education  shows that schools in 46 states and the District of Columbia have adopted a year-round format and that nearly 3 million K-12 students in the U.S. attend a year-round school. While this figure represents only about 4 percent of all K-12 students in the U.S., it is significantly higher than it was 30 years ago, when less than 400,000 U.S. students attended school year-round.

    The point is that a school board in Virginia may not know how to make the transition but there are school boards, and their consultants, who have done it successfully. (more…)

  • Biting the Hand

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Princess Blanding
    Photo credit: Joe Mahoney, Richmond Times-Dispatch

    By Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Earlier this week, the governor had a ceremonial signing for the Marcus David Peters bill. This is the legislation that establishes a system to alert authorities of someone in a mental health crisis in order that mental health professionals can respond rather than just police. It is named after a young Richmond man who was experiencing a mental health crisis when he was shot and killed while attacking a policeman.

    At the signing ceremony was Princess Blanding, Peters’ sister. She had been the most active and vocal supporter and advocate for such legislation. If you thought she expressed her gratitude to the Governor and the legislature for enacting the far-reaching legislation, you would be wrong.

    In her remarks at the ceremony, addressing the Governor and legislators associated with the bill, she said, “Please take a moment to pat yourselves on the back for doing exactly what this racist, corrupt, and broken, I also add, system expected you to do: make the Marcus Alert bill a watered down, ineffective bill that will continue to ensure that having a mental health crisis results in a death sentence.”  (The video of her remarks is here.) (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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