Bacon's Rebellion

  • Unless Targeted, Extra Math Funds Will Be Wasted

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    Chris Braunlich

    by Chris Braunlich,

    Writing in the blog Bacon’s Rebellion, Arlington parent and self-described “Obama Democrat” Todd Truitt has come out swinging against a Virginia budget amendment to spend $12 million extra “to improve student performance in mathematics.”

    His argument?  Without Governor’s amendments, these extra funds won’t help math outcomes and will probably hurt.

    Mr. Truitt’s main point is that it offers school divisions “blank checks totaling almost $10.2 million … to continue promoting the math-ed equivalent of whole language/balanced literacy.”  That’s a lot of money that runs the risk of following millions more tossed down a rabbit hole of faddish math pedagogy over the last nine years opposing, for example, memorizing the “times tables.”.

    But as noted in 2023 by the late Rick Nelson, who served as a Visiting Fellow at the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, “University of Virginia cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham explains that math is about more than fact memorization. but as a foundation, because of the brain’s structure, for all the basic arithmetic facts (such as 8 + 7 and 42/6), answers must be “not calculated but simply retrieved from memory.”.

    Yet, as former teachers union president Nelson documents, in 2016 Virginia moved away from the practice of practicing math facts.  The result was that, by 2024, Virginia ranked 46th in Math recovery from the effects of not teaching math facts and from school shutdowns during Covid.

    (more…)

  • Blame the Nurses — or the Nursing-Home Profiteers?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Jim Wright

    Image credit: Bing Image Creator

    So, who’s the real culprit?

    Eighteen nurses were recently arrested at Colonial Heights Nursing Home, charged with elder abuse and falsification of records. Surely, there was wrongdoing here, but does the blame belong to 18 nurses only?

    In my experience as a nursing-home medical director, I’ve learned that sometimes the first “culprit” you identify is really not the culprit at all. If you want to get to the root of a problem, you have to keep asking the question “why?” Why did 18 nurses falsify records?

    When nurses give bad care, it’s not necessarily because they’re bad people, but very often because they become demoralized and jaded in a setting where they simply do not have enough staff.

    Colonial Heights is known to staff at levels far below what is considered safe. A government study performed in 2001 found that once a facility’s nursing-aid presence drops below about 2.5 hours per patient per day, residents experience an increase in disease and harm. Colonial Heights supplied nurse’s aides for only one hour and 38 minutes per resident per day. Registered- nurse presence should be 33 minutes per patient per day. Colonial Heights supplied only 18.

    So, let’s keep asking: Why would Virginia allow nursing homes to operate with staffing levels that have been shown to harm residents?

    (more…)

  • Virginia’s Nursing Homes and the Courts

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    sherlockj

    Virginia’s Nursing Homes and the Courts

    by James C. Sherlock

    Readers have stuck with me for a long time as I have reported on the dire state of many of Virginia’s nursing homes.  

    Recently the employees of one of the worst have been charged with abuse and neglect in the death of a patient. Her suffering was what can only be called medieval.

    Virginia political corruption. I have focused heretofore almost entirely on the failures of state and federal regulators and videotaped corruption in the Virginia General Assembly.

    The nursing homes, like the hospitals and other interests, get influence in the General Assembly the old-fashioned way. They buy it.  

    Virginia is one of only five states with no limit on campaign donations.  

    The state regulator, the Virginia Department of Health, has been sabotaged by bipartisan majorities in that Assembly for decades.  

    • The General Assembly this year passed a bill to deny the Health Commissioner authority to levy penalties. They left her with the authority to grant state licenses to nursing homes but not to revoke them for cause. I must admit the bill showed imagination. I have never heard of such an arrangement in any other state or situation other than this attempt to shield Virginia healthcare facilities from regulatory oversight. I have recommended the Governor veto it
    • The VDH inspection staff for licensing of healthcare facilities and services is the Office of Licensure and Certification (OLC). It also serves under contract to the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to survey Virginia hospitals, nursing homes and home health agencies to ensure compliance with federal regulations. That staff has purposely been starved of funding by the General Assembly for nearly five decades. It has less than half of the highly experienced people necessary to do its job.

    The feds. CMS refuses to use their vast data troves on nursing homes for enforcement of regulations. It instead has based its system of federal sanctions on the results of what are expected to be highly specified and detailed annual health surveys of each facility by the state regulator staffs who look for violations of federal regulations. But CMS takes that to an absurd level. For but one example:

    (more…)

  • Regulate It, Make It Unaffordable, Subsidize It

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    Luxury daycare… great if you can afford it. Image credit: Bing Image Creator

    by James A. Bacon

    “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” So said former President Ronald Reagan in one of his pithier takedowns of government intervention in the economy.

    I don’t believe that daycare providers were ever singled out for taxation, but here in Virginia, they certainly have been regulated. Now the cost of daycare is burdensome to many parents of young children. Unsurprisingly, the General Assembly wants to subsidize it.

    The legislature passed a bill setting aside $25 million for a pilot project to reimburse businesses that contribute to the childcare costs of their employees, reports WRIC. The bill, supported by groups as diverse as the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation and the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, awaits action by Governer Glenn Youngkin.

    Let us posit for the moment that the cost of daycare is a very real social problem. I know because I hear about it from my daughter and son-in-law, both working professionals, who pay burdensome sums for their two children. I can’t imagine how difficult life is for households that lack their means. So, let me be clear, I do not minimize the dimensions of the challenge facing young parents today.

    But I’ve lived long enough to see how programs like this proposed $25 million subsidy evolves. The program starts small, as a pilot project. Then it becomes institutionalized. Once the principle has been established that daycare is a “right,” subsidized childcare expands incrementally to encompass more and more families until a $25 million pilot project becomes an entrenched $250 million entitlement.

    (more…)

  • Dominion’s IRP Becoming Moot as Federal Rules Pivot

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    Rendering of Chesterfield project from Dominion’s public website.

    by Steve Haner

    The expanded use of natural gas as a fuel for electricity is the key debate in Dominion Energy Virginia’s integrated resource plan pending before the State Corporation Commission. Not waiting for the decision in that case to come later this year, the utility has now filed an application to start building the first of those gas plants.  

    Dominion’s Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center would include four small gas turbines designed to run only when needed to meet peak demand, both for Dominion or for other utilities in the PJM Interconnection region. Dominion had previously announced it would start its gas expansion with that project, to be built near a retired coal plant along the James River on ground already zoned for the use.    

    The entire integrated resource plan, (IRP), prepared before the November election, now rests on several false premises and should likely be scrapped entirely. If the recent changes in federal energy policy are then met with a change in direction for the state, Dominion could then proceed with the far more cost-efficient choice of a full baseload combined cycle gas plant in Chesterfield, instead of the smaller gas turbines being proposed now.  

    The integrated resource plan and the Chesterfield plant application both hinge on the question of whether additional natural gas generation is required to maintain reliability. Protecting system reliability is the only loophole in Virginia’s 2020 Clean Economy Act (VCEA), which otherwise prohibits new hydrocarbon plants and demands the existing facilities all close.  

    You can watch the paper record on the integrated resource case build here, with a hearing set for next month, or read Dominion’s full application for the Chesterfield plant here. The company and opponents have already lined up experts with impressive credentials testifying that natural gas is either needed or not needed to maintain reliability. The three SCC judges will have to choose whom to believe.  

    (more…)

  • Breaking – Colonial Heights Rehab and Nursing Center Closed to New Admissions

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    sherlockj

    Breaking – Colonial Heights Rehab and Nursing Center Closed to New Admissions

    by James C. Sherlock

    This is the best nursing home news in this space in a long time. A phone call to the facility today confirmed that the infamous Colonial Heights Rehab and Nursing Center is closed to new applicants.

    This reporter is not sure of the driving force behind this specific action, but that facility has made headlines for a series of arrests and indictments of staff.  

    It also was absolutely hammered by a 340-page complaint inspection report from the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) Office of Licensure and Certification (OLC) dated January 3rd that was recently released. It was incredibly thorough — the best I have ever read.  The author of that report clearly felt strongly about what he or she wrote.

    That report detailed 105 violations of federal regulations in a survey of the records of only 33 of 186 residents. Sampling is the normal process for a very good reason — the time it takes understaffed inspector teams to thoroughly review and investigate patient records. But it begs the question of violations in the cases of the other 153 residents.

    We offer both the report of the results of that inspection and a compilation of them into an attached spreadsheet. It makes for scary, riveting reading. I recommend starting with the spreadsheet and going to the actual report for additional detail.  

    I sincerely hope that the new patient shutdown was directed by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid services based upon that January 3rd report. But it should not have taken nearly that long.

    As previously described here, the Governor submitted a bill to the General Assembly that would have let VDH take the action directly and in a more timely manner to deny new admissions, but a corrupt General Assembly negated it with a substitute that utterly frustrated its purpose. I have recommended that the Governor veto the substitute.

    We all retain concern for the remaining patients. The facility was at 95% occupancy when the latest inspection commenced.

    But all of that said, it is time for celebration. Thanks to local and state governments for getting us to this point.

    The author has asked VDH for comment and will ask the Virginia Association of Health Plans to do so as well.

    This is a continuing story. It will be updated as new information is available.

  • Is DEI Done? Not Yet.

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    “DEI is done at the University of Virginia,” said Governor Glenn Youngkin in a Saturday interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingram.

    “This is a big day for the University of Virginia,” the governor said a day after the UVA Board of Visitors voted unanimously to abolish the university’s office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and end practices that discriminate on the basis of race. “It also, I think, makes a huge statement for the rest of universities across the nation.”

    The UVA decision indisputably represents a milestone in the battle to create a color-blind society in Virginia, but it is an exaggeration to say that DEI is “done.” DEI advocates have been stunned by recent events, but they have not converted. They haven’t even submitted.

    Youngkin expects Virginia’s other public universities to follow UVA’s lead. We won’t know if they will until their boards convene. The threat of losing federal funding combined with Youngkin-appointed majorities could be sufficient to get UVA-like resolutions passed. But responsibility for carrying out the resolutions will fall upon leaders who constructed or maintained the DEI systems in the first place. They will have plenty of support from staff, faculty, students, sympathetic media, and Democratic legislators.

    (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

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    James A. Bacon

    From The Bull Elephant

  • How to Spend $10 Million for Worse Results

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Todd Truitt

    The Virginia joint conference committee budget report contains an additional $12 million intended to bring much needed improvement to Virginia K-12 math education.

    The budget language is purported to be a first step to repeat the great improvements that the Virginia Literacy Act is making with evidence-based instructional methods. However, the wording does nothing of the kind. The budget provides blank checks totaling almost $10.2 million to school districts to continue promoting the math-ed equivalent of whole language/balanced literacy.

    These non-evidence-based math instructional methods have led to flat National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math scores for decades. Activities based on math “reform” ideology — predominant in K-12 math ed for the past 30+ years — still lacks any evidence basis.

    As I detail below, the Virginia K-12 math ed establishment has been fervently promoting non-evidence-based instructional methods to Virginia school districts and teachers. Virginia had the worst NAEP math recovery in the nation. Conversely, Alabama had the best NAEP math recovery in the country after enacting legislation promoting evidence-based instructional methods.

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  • Statement of Maj. Gen. Cedric T. Wins ’85

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    James A. Bacon

    Virginia Military Institute Superintendent Cedric T. Wins, whose contract the Board of Visitors declined to renew, published a statement March 6 in defense of his tenure. Given all the commentary we have published that was critical of Wins, I thought it appropriate to share his perspective. — JAB

    I am extremely proud of what my team accomplished over the past four years. We worked tirelessly to restore VMI’s reputation as one of the nation’s top-rated institutions. As a result, I am disappointed by the Board of Visitors’ decision not to renew my contract as superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute. This decision was not based on my performance or the tangible progress we achieved. It is the result of a partisan choice that abandons the values of honor, integrity, and excellence upon which VMI was built.

    When I assumed this role amid a worldwide pandemic, intense public scrutiny, and an enrollment crisis, I pledged to protect and modernize VMI while preserving its unique method of education and right traditions. We achieved extraordinary results over the past four years:

    • Securing and Modernizing Resources: We increased state funding by 50% and secured over $321 million to upgrade our facilities.
    • Strengthening Academic and Financial Foundations: We reversed a 10-year decline in admissions, boosted Pell Grant enrollment with a $3.8 million grant, and maintained budget surpluses when most people expected deficits.
    • Taking Care of People: We fought for the resources to implement salary adjustments that addressed compression and competitive factors for the VMI workforce.
    • Enhancing Cadet Life and Leadership: We launched the Call to Duty scholarship program — awarding $2.4 million to 172 cadets — and reinforced our class and regimental systems, including the historical appointment of our first female regimental commander in 25 years.
    • Upholding Tradition with Modern Excellence: Under my leadership, VMI earned a five-star ranking from Money Magazine — the only senior military college to receive this honor — and our athletic teams achieved milestones, including our first conference championship since 1977.
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  • Wins. VMI. And a Pronounced Exit

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    Shown the door, Gen. Wins Vents

    by Gordon C. Morse

    General Cedric Wins at VMI

    When it comes to angry exits, you really cannot beat Woody Allen’s close in the 1976 film, “The Front.”

    Ordered to testify before a congressional committee of some sort, Allen’s character faces a demand to cough up the names of communists among his friends and colleagues. The committee wished to keep America “just as pure as we can possibly make it.”

    Allen holds his head in his hands. He’s in agony. How can this be happening?

    Suddenly, Allen smiles to himself and stands up at the witness table. He firmly denies the committee’s authority to do what it’s doing and “furthermore” invites the members to have sex with themselves.

    It’s more crudely expressed than that, which only makes it better. Everyone’s dream moment.

    The next scene finds Allen kissing his girl good-bye at the train station, handcuffed to a U.S. Marshall.

    Exits can be entertaining. “Exit, pursued by a bear” is Shakespeare’s stage direction in “The Winter’s Tale.”

    The other day, while saying a few things about VMI, I brought up Gene Nichol’s 2008 exit from the William & Mary presidency. Denied a contract renewal, Nichol gave contemporaneous expression to his displeasure but waited until 2023 to fully clear his throat.

    In his introduction to “Lessons From North Carolina,” Nichol declared that North Cackalacky was his “place” and “not Virginia, whose fawning embrace of its past, stifling and self-deluding classism and noblesse oblige which turns out to carry neither nobility nor obligation but only pretense and privilege, is the opposite of uplifting.”

    (more…)

  • UVA Board Dissolves DEI Office

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    The University of Virginia Board of Visitors passed a resolution today dissolving the university’s Office of Equity, Inclusion, and Community Partnerships and ordering a review of university programs and policies to ensure that they conform with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Trump administration guidance.

    By way of explanation, the resolution referred to President Donald Trump’s Executive Order titled, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” as well as a “dear colleague” letter citing specific federal civil rights statutes.

    The university review of practices will include “admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies and all other aspects or student, academic and campus life.”

    Additionally, the resolution makes it clear that circumventing the law by employing proxies for race would not be tolerated.

    (more…)

  • The Social Cost of Free Lunch

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    by

    Steve Haner

    By Derrick Max

    After failing to pass legislation last year that would have made breakfast and lunch free for all public school students regardless of income (at a staggering cost of $201.5 million), state Senator Danika Roem, D-Manassas,) pared down that bill to focus solely on funding a universal free school breakfast program this session. Fortunately, the pared-down bill also failed in the final days of the General Assembly.  

    Still alive, and on the way to the Governor’s desk, is Senator Roem’s bill to have student unpaid school lunch debts forgiven (and paid for by local school systems, aka, local taxpayers). This bill, while less objectionable than the others, is a camel’s nose under the tent to broader school meal programs and should be vetoed by Governor Youngkin.  

    To be clear, Senator Roem is right on the importance of food for improved health and academics. The failed bills, however, replace important parental roles, increase “food deserts,” and contribute to government dependence. The school-debt bill creates a moral hazard that will undermine existing lunch programs and divert funds from educational purposes.

    The daily ritual of packing a school lunch, a mundane and inexpensive task, holds a wealth of benefits for both children and parents. While the convenience of a school’s hot lunch program is undeniable, the non-dietary benefits of a packed lunch are both great and rarely discussed.  

    (more…)

  • UVA Board Members Call for Tuition Freeze

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Members of the University of Virginia Board of Visitors expressed strong reservations about the tuition increases approved in December and asked for a special meeting with administrators to dig deeper into the university’s finances.

    No formal action was taken, but Chief Operating Officer J.J. Davis told Bacon’s Rebellion during a break after the finance committee meeting, “That would be great.” She has held budgetary working sessions with board members in previous years, and she indicated that there would be no problem scheduling another such session in the April-May time frame.

    During the finance committee meeting, Davis outlined what she saw as major uncertainties and challenges facing UVA’s administrators as they approached a June deadline for presenting a final budget to the board for approval. The Trump administration has already announced restrictions on university overhead allowed for research grants, potentially cutting research revenues by tens of millions of dollars. She also cited questions about other federal cost-cutting initiatives as well as the “broader economic environment.” Additionally, UVA has to pay a 3% pay raise for employees authorized by the General Assembly and resolve the question of how to handle another budget buster: NCAA directives regarding the compensation of student athletes. “There are more economic headwinds than tailwinds,” she said.

    But board members weren’t particularly interested in hearing about outside forces impinging on UVA. Several expressed dissatisfaction with the high-altitude picture they’ve been getting about the University budget, and said they want a closer look at the numbers.

    (more…)

  • Mystery: Why Would Jewish UVA Students Feel Their Religion Is Not respected?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Deputy Provost Brie Gertler posed quite the conundrum to the University of Virginia Board of Visitors this afternoon: Ninety-two percent of UVA Jewish students felt valued as individuals in 2024, according to a poll by Student Experience in the Research University (SERU). But only 52% agreed that students sharing their religious beliefs were respected on Grounds. Indeed, the percentage of Jewish students feeling the love toward Judaism had declined sharply since the previous survey in 2022.

    A similar gap existed for Muslim students, but it was much smaller. Seventy-five percent of Muslim students at UVA felt valued as individuals while only 66% perceived that Muslim students were getting respect. The percentage feeling positive vibes about their religion also declined from the previous year, though only half as much as it did for Jewish students.

    The good news, which Gertler emphasized in her presentation, is that the percentage of Jews and Muslims feeling valued and respected was slightly higher at UVA than at four peer universities (University of Berkeley, University of Michigan, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and University of Texas-Austin).

    But she was at a loss to explain how Jewish students at UVA could rate their individual experience so highly while feeling so down about the way their religion was perceived.

    What, oh, what could be going on? Was it something in the way the survey questions were worded? Or, given the fact that only a fifth or so UVA students participated in the SERU survey, could there have been some kind of self-selection bias? Or, given the inherent variability in small sample sizes — only 99 Jewish students and 90 Muslims taking part in the survey — were the numbers randomly skewed?

    No one seemed to have an answer. Let me throw this out there: Could the dizzying drop in positive vibes have been tied to the fact that the survey took place in March-April 2024, only a half year after Hamas launched its surprise terror attack on Israel? And the fact that Hamas and Israel still were locked in a war? And that pro-Palestinian groups at UVA were holding marches, demonstrations, and die-ins and accusing Israel of genocide? And that many people were blurring pro-Israel “Zionists” with Jews generally? And that dozens of UVA faculty had signed letters in support of the Palestinians? And that the student body had voted to demand UVA divest its endowment of Israeli assets and cut ties with Israeli scholars? And that antisemitic slurs were on the rise? And that many Jewish students felt so cowed that they hid signs of their ethnic identity such as stars of David?

    (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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