Beach College Weekend Was a Dud: The Good News & The Bad.

Posted on April 30, 2024 by | 6 comments

by Kerry Dougherty 

Talk about spinning until you’re dizzy, get a load of the local coverage of last weekend’s taxpayer-subsidized Audacity Oceanfront Concerts:

Describing the anemic “crowds” as “smaller-than-expected” The Virginian-Pilot added “That’s not to say those who attended didn’t have a good time.”

Oh please.

We, the taxpayers, gave the organizers of this dud $750,000 to bring the show to the oceanfront, plus an untold number of “in-kind-city services” in return for an advertising campaign showcasing Virginia Beach.

Judging from the virtually empty resort area last weekend even that p.r. offensive fell flat.

The organizers blamed the weather for the poor turnout, but there wasn’t a drop of rain, just chilly late April temperatures.

What happened was actually good news: it appears that Beach College Weekend, an annual headache for the Resort City, may have moved on. Continue reading →

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Posted in Economic development, Media

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A Creative New Way to Use Children as Human Shields

Posted on April 29, 2024 by | 15 comments

Stu Smith, producer of StuStuStudios, captured this video yesterday from the Virginia Tech encampment. University police were threatening to shut down the event for violating various university rules and protocols, and the pro-Palestinian demonstrators trotted out this precocious young militant to lead the mindless chanting.

“I’m not leaving,” sing-sang the tyke into a loudspeaker.

“We’re not leaving!” responded the crowd.

Undeterred by the pint-sized protester, Virginia Tech police shut down the event anyway, arresting 82 in the process, according to numbers released by the university. Fifty-three were students, according to the statement. It’s not clear if any were faculty. But it is a reasonable supposition that the vast majority of the 29 others were outside agitators.

Which raises warning flags for Virginia Commonwealth University, where protesters have set up a “liberation zone” and issued demands to the administration, and the University of Virginia, where pro-Palestinians have announced their intention to set up a liberation zone Wednesday, the day before exams. President Rao and President Ryan: how many outside agitators are heading for your campus? Continue reading →

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Posted in Culture wars

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Give Me this Kind of Accountability

Posted on April 29, 2024 by | 8 comments

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

Frequently, some commenters on this blog complain about politicians not being accountable and hold up the private sector as a model for accountability.  (For purposes of this discussion, we will ignore the fact that politicians have to go before the voters periodically and get reelected.)

Here is a recent example of accountability in the private sector, as reported in The New York Times. Over the last year the stock of Paramount has fallen 48 percent. The CEO did not pursue a possible deal that would have been lucrative for Paramount. The owner of a controlling share of the company is reported to feel that the CEO has not moved with enough urgency to get Paramount on firmer footing. She was unhappy with a long-range plan he had prepared and gave approval to three other senior executives to address the board of directors and express their misgivings about the direction of the company.

Today, Paramount announced that the CEO was stepping down effective immediately. In other words, he was fired.

But there is no need to shed any tears for him. He won’t need to file for unemployment benefits. Reportedly, “he is entitled to a severance package of $50.6 million, with $31 million of that in the form of cash for the two years after his employment is terminated.” Yep, that is some accountability.

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Posted in Business and Economy

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Virginia Tech Cleans up Encampment. UVA Faces Similar Test.

Posted on April 29, 2024 by | 52 comments

by James A. Bacon

Virginia Tech arrested two dozen or more students Sunday night while dispersing an “encampment” similar to other anti-Israeli protests spreading around the country, according to media reports.

The gathering of several hundred people on the lawn of the Graduate Life Center was “not a registered event consistent with university policy,” Tech officials stated in explaining its actions.

“Given these actions by protesters, the university recognized that the situation had the increasing potential to become unsafe,” the university statement said. First, protesters were asked to disperse voluntarily. Then university police approached those who did not comply, warned them that they would be charged with trespassing, and asked them again to leave. At 10:15 p.m., police gave protesters five minutes to disperse. Those who remained were subject to arrest.

Tech President Timothy Sands deserves kudos for handling a difficult situation in a firm but restrained manner.

University of Virginia President Jim Ryan likely will face a similar test. Left-wing groups at UVA have announced a May Day event Tuesday (April 30, the day before May Day) on the Lawn to show commitment to “Palestinian Liberation.” Continue reading →

52 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Education (higher ed)

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Souped Up on the Mountain

Posted on April 28, 2024 by | 18 comments

En route from visiting my grandson in college in Kentucky, I stopped at Breaks Interstate Park.   I will save a discussion of the park for another post, but, in the meantime, this vehicle was parked at one of the overlooks.  I immediately thought that WayneS, one of the active BR participants, would appreciate it.

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Whoops.

Posted on April 28, 2024 by | Leave a comment

I accidentally published a working draft of a profile I’m writing about John Reid, host of the WRVA radio talk show. It was far from ready for publication. I have taken it offline until I can finish. My apologies. — JAB

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Jeanine’s Memes

Posted on April 28, 2024 by | 48 comments

From The Bull Elephant

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Bacon Meme of the Week

Posted on April 27, 2024 by | 2 comments

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Posted in Bacon and Pigs

A Rejoinder on the TJ “Fall”

Posted on April 26, 2024 by | 39 comments

Before folks got carried away with sarcasm and “I told you so,” it would have been best to examine a few facts regarding the ranking by U.S. News and World Report of the Thomas Jefferson School for Science and Technology (TJ):

  • The ranking fell to fifth last year. The data for that ranking pre-dated the change in the admission process for TJ;
  • The changes in the admissions process were adopted in 2020 and were first effective for the class entering in the fall of 2021. Those students would be juniors this year.

Next, it is worthwhile to examine the criteria used by U.S. News:

  • College readiness (30 percent)– proportion of a school’s 12th graders who took and earned a qualifying score on Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) exams in the 2021-2022 academic year;
  • College curriculum breadth (10 percent)—percentage of a school’s 2021-2022 12th graders who took, and the percentage who earned qualifying scores on, multiple AP or IB exams;
  • State assessment proficiency (20 percent)–standardized tests measuring student proficiency in subjects related to mathematics, reading and science. Data was “based on 2021-2022 state assessment data” (Emphasis added);
  • State assessment performance (20 percent)—This score is calculated based on the total assessment scores compared with what U.S. News predicted for a school with its demographic characteristics in its state. As the magazine explains, “In all 50 states, there is a very significant statistical relationship between the proportion of a student body that is Black, Hispanic and/or from a low-income household – defined as being eligible for free or subsidized school lunch – and a school’s results on state assessments. Schools performing best on this ranking indicator are those whose assessment scores far exceeded U.S. News’ modeled expectations.”  This year’s score is based on 2021-2022 data;
  • Underserved student performance (10 percent)—“This is a measure assessing learning outcomes only among Black, Hispanic and low-income students.” As with the others, it is based on 201-2022 data;
  • Graduation rate (10 percent)—Percentage of students who entered in the 2018-2019 school year who graduated in 2022.

Continue reading →

39 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Education (K-12)

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Greedy Cities and Speeding Ticket Chicanery

Posted on April 25, 2024 by | 146 comments

by Kerry Dougherty 

Hire more traffic cops. At the very least hire Virginia companies to fleece Virginia drivers.

That’s the advice I have for Chesapeake and Suffolk, where instead of sending cops with radar guns out to catch speeders, they’ve hired out-of-state vendors with cameras.

Worse, according to attorney and former Del. Tim Anderson, who’s filed suit to stop the practice, the cities allow the vendors – did I mention they were out-of-state? – to impersonate cities when collecting fines.

Anderson says the cameras are cropping up all over the commonwealth. He’s handling two local cases pro bono and is seeking reimbursement for all drivers who were ticketed illegally by the vendors pretending to be city officials. If these cases are successful – and it seems clear the cities are violating the state law – he plans to sue in other jurisdictions to halt the process. Continue reading →

146 Comments

Posted in Crime, Corrections and Law Enforcement

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TJ High School Falls From 1st to 14th Place

Posted on April 25, 2024 by | 27 comments

Score a big victory for “equity.” The Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, ranked the top high school in the country by U.S. News & World Report two years ago, has fallen to 14th place, tweets the Coalition for TJ.

TJ had been the center of an admissions controversy after progressives, who found it scandalous that 70% of the school’s students were of Asian ethnic origin, rejiggered its admissions criteria to make it more demographically diverse. The revised policy, which did succeed in increasing the admission of Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics, survived legal challenges that went as far as the U.S. Supreme Court.

But not to worry. By selecting only the highest-achieving kids, TJ had been perpetuating gross inequality with other high schools. Insofar as its standards have been modified and its rankings have tumbled, the inequality gap with peer schools has diminished. Some observers expect TJ’s rankings will fall and the gap to shrink even further as older students admitted under the ancien regime graduate and are replaced by students admitted under the new, more equitable standards. Continue reading →

27 Comments

Posted in DEI, Education (K-12)

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Freebees Aren’t Free

Posted on April 24, 2024 by | 13 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

I can’t be the only Virginia Beach taxpayer sick of watching my real estate taxes climb every year while the city council wastes money on pricey gimmicks like “free” Tesla rides for residents and visitors to the city.

For two years we’ve picked up the tab for a small fleet of Teslas to be summoned to haul swells and drunks around the oceanfront.

The first year, the misnamed “Freebee” program cost taxpayers $500,000. Last year the project cost $1.3 million. According to city officials, 52% of riders who were too cheap to call a cab or Uber were visitors, while 48% were locals suffering from the same freeloading mentality.

Notice a pattern?

Thankfully, City Manager Patrick Duhaney left this free-market-tampering boondoggle out of this year’s proposed city budget, although some of the Beach’s tax-and-spend knuckleheads are lobbying to put it back. Continue reading →

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Posted in Business and Economy, Government Finance, Politics, Transportation

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Extensive Plagiarism Alleged for UVA PhD Dissertation

Posted on April 23, 2024 by | 52 comments

by James A. Bacon

Natalie J. Perry, who now leads a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion program at UCLA, plagiarized long passages in her PhD dissertation at UVA, allege Luke Rosiak and Christopher F. Rufo in The Daily Wire.

In describing the plagiarism in Perry’s dissertation, “Faculty Perceptions of Diversity at a Highly Selective Research-Intensive University,” Rosiak and Rufo write:

An analysis of the paper found it ridden with the worst sort of plagiarism, reproducing large swaths of text directly from several other authors, without citations. The scale of the plagiarism suggests that Perry lacks both ethics and competence and raises questions about academic programs that push DEI.

Perry’s dissertation lifted passages from ten other papers. In key portions of her text, she copied almost every paragraph from other sources without attribution. She fails even to mention at least four of the ten plagiarized papers anywhere in her dissertation.

The article says Perry earned her PhD in 2014. Her official biography states that she holds a degree in “higher education” from UVA. The School of Education and Human Development website indicates that the school offers a PhD in Higher Education.

“A legitimate academic field never would have found this dissertation plausible,” Rosiak and Rufo write. Speaking of UVA, Harvard, and UCLA Medical School, they add, “These institutions have dramatically lowered expectations for favored groups and pushed a cohort of ‘scholars’ through the system without enforcing basic standards of academic integrity.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Education (higher ed)

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Some Rural Localities Hit With Big Jump in Local Composite Index

Posted on April 23, 2024 by | 34 comments

Credit: Cardinal News

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

For all those readers who complain that Northern Virginia gets screwed by state funding formulas, Dwight Yancey of Cardinal News has provided an eye-opening rejoinder. Many rural counties have been hit disproportionately hard by the new calculations for the local composite index used to determine the local share of the costs of basic aid for schools.

The main driver in these increases has been significant increases in the total value of real estate in those counties. Many of them have become havens for folks leaving urban areas for the rural countryside, either for their primary or secondary homes. In Franklin County, burgeoning property values around Smith Mountain Lake have driven up the county’s total real property values 39 percent over the past two years, although almost half the students live in poverty. In Nelson County, the situation is much the same with properties in Wintergreen and spillover from Albemarle County driving up the county’s total property values. In Charles City County, where 64 percent of the students live in official poverty, folks buying up riverfront property have driven up the total property values by 24 percent.

The result of these changes is that the state now considers Charles City County as having a greater ability to pay for its schools that Northern Virginia localities, including Loudoun County, the wealthiest locality in the state and one of the wealthiest in the nation. In fact, 22 localities are rated as having a greater ability to pay than Loudoun and most of them are rural.

Yancey provides nice maps to illustrate his analysis.

At some point, the state—governor and legislature—will have to quit delaying and tackle the hard job of revising how the state funds local schools.

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Posted in Education (K-12)

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The Budget Do-Over: A Game of Chicken?

Posted on April 22, 2024 by | 19 comments

by Jock Yellott 

Speaking off-the-cuff at a Charlottesville/Albemarle Bar Association lunch on April 18, 2024, Senator Creigh Deeds offered some pointed remarks about Governor Youngkin.

The Governor and the General Assembly had just the day before agreed to scrap the budget and the Governor’s proposed amendments and start over from scratch in May, averting a crisis. 

Youngkin’s more than 200 proposed budget amendments are evidence of a CEO mentality, Deeds observed. Compared to other governors the Senator has worked with, this one seems disengaged from the political process.  

Senator Deeds told his lawyer colleagues he anticipates that in May the General Assembly will vote essentially the same budget.  

Consider the implications of that.

To me as an outsider it had looked like the politicos starting over in a spirit of cooperation, this time with more realistic expectations. I was not alone in this: Steve Haner hoped they’ll “finally sit down like adults and negotiate the budget.”

Maybe we were naïve. Continue reading →

19 Comments

Posted in General Assembly, Government Finance, Politics

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