Author Archives: Bob Rayner

VMI Eschews Standards of Excellence, Devalues Diploma

Posted on March 27, 2024 | 52 comments

by Joseph D. Elie

As an alumnus living in Florida, I have a dearth of information about what is happening at the Virginia Military Institute on a day-to-day basis.

I see the superficial social media postings from the public relations department, the Superintendent, and the Commandant; but I crave the scuttlebutt that tells the truer story.

The recent editorial, “Class of 25: The Elephant in the Room,” in The Cadet was very enlightening, provided much-needed insight and served, in effect, as a detailed report on the Institute.

The editorial also revealed why the administration didn’t want a student newspaper committing acts of journalism – as it validated my own suspicion that Breakout and the entire Rat Line itself have been rendered much less difficult.

From this year’s Breakout videos, the Rats seemed to merely be going through the motions when compared with videos from past Breakouts. The energy, enthusiasm, and the spirit were gone.

The Cadet editorial outlines how VMI’s core standards have been made less rigorous for the sake of maintaining the enrollment retention rate, particularly with regard to the nature and rigor of the Rat Line.

The Rat Line energizes the entire Corps of Cadets. It is an annual rite of passage that the upper classes have historically zealously preserved.

The Rat Line was once extremely difficult to complete and doing so resulted in justifiable pride and a tremendous boost of self-confidence.

Continue reading →

52 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Education (higher ed)

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The Letter

Posted on March 26, 2024 | 14 comments

by Joe Fitzgerald 

“Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane.”

Depending on your age, you may think of this as the opening to the Box Tops biggest and most iconic hit. If you don’t follow pop music, you may think any song that begins with “gimme” might be from a news story about a county school board chair.

The line of course kicks off the 1967 hit, “The Letter.” Those two words are being bandied about now in reference to a document the Rockingham County School Board (RCSB) says people can’t be allowed to see.

The Letter was apparently written to the RCSB from the law firm that represented it beginning when LBJ was president and ending last week. “To the RCSB” is the certain part. It may have been from the firm, or from one attorney in the firm.

I have not seen The Letter. I have not talked to anyone who has seen The Letter.

But a lot of people seem to know what is in The Letter. If it was written to the five people on the county board, and each one of them had a single conversation about it, and each of the people spoke to . . . etc. More people have heard about what was in The Letter than have actually seen it. But the degrees of separation mean the knowledge of what’s in The Letter has been paraphrased more than once.

The single thing from The Letter that everybody seems to know is that The Letter and not the county School Board’s secret actions ended the firm’s relationship with the county board. Everybody knowing it does not make it true, but if it is not true, the School Board should perhaps show it was not fired as a client. The board could show that by releasing The Letter. Continue reading →

14 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), Government Transparency, Leadership

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The Cost of Not Voting

Posted on March 25, 2024 | 15 comments

by Joe Fitzgerald 

If I were a more articulate man, I could explain what sorry shape the governments of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County are in right now.

Rational people have little doubt about the county. The biggest government expense, the school system, is currently being run by people who do not know what they are doing. That’s one possibility anyway. The other is that they’re causing randomly divisive chaos on purpose.

In the city the schools are being run well, but the city council approves housing as if it were free. The schools will be overcrowded soon enough. Five years? Ten? We can’t afford to build another one.

Relationships are being destroyed. The city flirts with leaving the Chamber of Commerce. The county board casually damages the shared technical center. Massanutten Pique would describe their behavior. Continue reading →

15 Comments

Posted in Elections, Politics

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Marriage Promotes ‘White Supremacy,’ George Mason Professor Says

Posted on March 18, 2024 | 116 comments

by Jerome Woehrle

“Marriage fundamentalism” promotes “white supremacy,” according to a professor at Virginia’s largest university.

“Marriage fundamentalism, like structural racism, is a key structuring element of White heteropatriarchal supremacy,” wrote George Mason University Professor Bethany Letiecq in the Journal of Marriage and Family. “Marriage fundamentalism can be understood as an ideological and cultural phenomenon, where adherents espouse the superiority of the two-parent married family.”

Letiecq, an official of the American Association of University Professors, says she employs “critical family theorizing … to delineate an overarching orientation to structural oppression and unequal power relations that advantages [white heteropatriarchal nuclear families] and marginalizes others as a function of marriage fundamentalism.”

Letiecq says the government has coerced “its citizens to enter into an institution built upon White heteropatriarchal supremacy.” Letiecq says marriage as an institution has allowed white heterosexual couples “to gain access to benefits, rights, and protections.”

She lives with her partner and their children in what she describes as “a committed heterosexual union outside the institution of marriage.” Letiecq claims that only White heterosexual couples reap the social and financial benefits of marriage subsidized by the government while minority Americans do not gain any such benefits.
Continue reading →

116 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Education (higher ed)

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San Francisco’s “Algebra for None” Policy and How Virginia Avoided a Similar Fate

Posted on March 12, 2024 | 28 comments

by Todd Truitt 

On March 5, 84% of San Francisco voters  voted in favor of a referendum for San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) to bring back Algebra for 8th graders, overturning their prior ill-fated math reform (a “no middle schooler let ahead” math policy). What does this vote have to do with Virginia?

The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) had initially proposed a similar policy for Virginia as part of its Virginia Math Pathways Initiative (VMPI) in 2021. As noted below, VMPI cited Stanford Education Professor Jo Boaler and resources primarily using SFUSD’s misrepresented preliminary data as “empirical evidence” for VMPI’s similar initial proposal. 

San Francisco’s “Algebra for None” Policy and Its Immediate Effects

SFUSD revised its math program in 2014 based on the ideas of Boaler, requiring heterogeneous math classes and restricting Algebra until 9th grade. By 2018, Boaler and SFUSD were claiming success based upon SFUSD’s preliminary data (subsequently exposed as having been misrepresented).

At the same time, a flood of middle class and well-off families pursued workarounds, thereby creating opportunity gaps with less advantaged kids. As a result, the City of San Francisco (not SFUSD) began funding workarounds for less advantaged kids. Meanwhile, SFUSD’s math head used the tired trope that those who opposed the inequity of its “Algebra for None” policy were only affluent parents fighting for their own children to get ahead. Continue reading →

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Posted in Culture wars, Education (K-12)

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Another City Hall Fiasco in RVA

Posted on March 11, 2024 | 22 comments

by Jon Baliles

City Hall suffered another self-inflicted artillery wound last week when within a span of four days they were sued for allegedly violating state Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) laws, pledged a stout defense against the claims, and then announced they would be changing the way City Hall handles FOIA requests.

Translated, the city will pivot back towards the old FOIA system they replaced just last year with their new “centralized” system that has been so successful it has led to numerous violations (or just ignoring) FOIA requests, multiple media stories detailing the failures, and several lawsuits that had to be filed in order to get information that should be easily available.

Call it Meals Tax Fiasco, Part Deux. Continue reading →

22 Comments

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Anti-Trump, Anti-Biden Votes in Super Tuesday Primaries:  Will They Sway the November Election?

Posted on March 7, 2024 | 153 comments

by Ken Reid

Depending on what media you watch and read, the Super Tuesday primary results are the death knell for either presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump or for incumbent Democrat Joe Biden, who is likely to be renominated, too. 

Both candidates had sizable votes against them in their respective primaries. I am not a pundit like Larry Sabato at UVA, but I am a Republican and Nikki Haley voter in Fairfax County (which she won), and just looking at polling data and ballot results, I am of the mind that the “defection” rate among “no more Trumpers” will be higher than defections of far leftists and anti-Zionists from Biden.   

As a result, Trump stands to lose electoral votes he got in 2020, like North Carolina, unless he can make up for the loss of “Haley voters” among African Americans and Latinos, who (according to polls) seem to be persuadable. Biden may get some Haley voters, but the Green Party and other left-leaning third party candidates could depress his electoral vote tally.

In the Virginia Democratic Primary, 7.8% voted for author/lecturer Marianne Williamson and 3.5% voted for Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, who withdrew from the race after Super Tuesday’s results.    

This means 11.3% of Virginia Democrat voters voted against Biden – and I believe that’s largely from Muslims and far Leftists who oppose the administration’s support for Israel in its war with Hamas, and perhaps some concerned with the president’s cognitive abilities.

But the anti-Biden vote in Virginia pales to what Trump might lose this fall with Haley voters who defect, particularly as Trump’s criminal trials move forward. Continue reading →

153 Comments

Posted in Elections, Politics

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Electric Cars Are Harder on the Environment than Gas-Powered Ones

Posted on March 6, 2024 | 95 comments

by Hans Bader

“Electric vehicles release more toxic particles into the atmosphere and are worse for the environment than their gas-powered counterparts,” according to a study, reports the New York Post:

The study, published by emissions data firm Emission Analytics … found that brakes and tires on EVs release 1,850 times more particle pollution compared to modern tailpipes, which have “efficient” exhaust filters, bringing gas-powered vehicles’ emissions to new lows. Today, most vehicle-related pollution comes from tire wear. As heavy cars drive on light-duty tires — most often made with synthetic rubber made from crude oil and other fillers and additives — they deteriorate and release harmful chemicals into the air…. Because EVs are on average 30% heavier, brakes and tires on the battery-powered cars wear out faster than on standard cars.

Emission Analytics found that tire wear emissions on half a metric tonne of battery weight in an EV are more than 400 times as great as direct exhaust particulate emissions. For reference, half a metric tonne is equivalent to roughly 1,100 pounds. The most popular EV in the US, Tesla’s Model Y, boasts a lithium-ion battery that weighs in at a hefty 1,836 pounds. Another sought-after electric model, Ford’s F-150 Lightning pickup truck, also has an approximately 1,800-pound battery….

The study throws doubt on the practicality of the Biden administration’s EV mandates, which tout electric cars as “zero-emissions vehicles” in a quest to force two-thirds of new cars in America to be all-electric by the year 2032. California lawmakers have similarly referred to EVs as producing “zero emissions” because they don’t have tailpipes, per the [Wall Street] Journal, which added that the label is “deceptive.”

Electric cars still use tires made from petroleum that create particle pollution as they wear….“you have this downside of EVs that increases particle pollution. Air pollution is about what we breathe and the health effects…Tires are made up of a lot of nasty chemicals,” said Emissions Analytics chief Nick Molden.

Increased exposure to these toxins “can increase the risk of health problems like heart disease, asthma, and low birth weight,” according to the New York Department of Health…“A lot of it [chemicals] goes into the soil and water, affecting animals and fish. And we then go and eat the animals and fish, so we are ingesting tire pollution,” Molden added….Even so, California’s air agency used a model that assumes electric and gas vehicles have the same amount of tire wear when analyzing the effects of the ban [on gas-powered vehicles].

Continue reading →

95 Comments

Posted in Environment, Regulations and Government Oversight

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Added Pay Won’t Make Teachers Want to Stay in Bad Teaching Environments

Posted on March 6, 2024 | 33 comments

by Nancy Almasi

Abby Zwerner, the Newport News teacher shot by a 6-year-old student a year ago, doubts she will ever return to teaching. In addition to her lingering injuries and psychological trauma, Zwerner is suing the Newport News School District for ignoring multiple warnings that the student had a gun and was prone to violence. The local school board tried to block the suit from going forward, arguing that the teacher was only entitled to worker’s compensation. A judge disagreed, and the suit is moving forward.

While this is an extreme example, teachers across the Commonwealth and the country have been quitting in droves. Sadly, the lingering effects from the pandemic have only made matters worse. USA Today reported that teachers have joined the “Great Resignation,” as student behavior has become their number-one complaint.

One former teacher noted that emotional outbursts from students have become commonplace. She also noted that she was forced to cover for other teachers due to staff shortages — limiting her ability to connect with her students and eating into her planning time. She ended up quitting in the middle of the school year – a catastrophe for her students and fellow teachers. “It got so bad,” she said, ‘’I was very overwhelmed and stressed. I was anxious and tired all the time.” Continue reading →

33 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), Government Finance

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Which Side Are You On?

Posted on March 6, 2024 | 32 comments

by Joe Fitzgerald 

Dartmouth’s basketball team voted this week to unionize. It’s a shame Harrisonburg’s police officers can’t.

The basketball players will join the SEIU, Service Employees International Union, a kind of super union for people who don’t qualify for other unions. SEIU strongly supports health care and a higher minimum wage, making it a strong supporter of Democratic candidates.

The five Democrats on Harrisonburg’s City Council say police can’t even talk to them about collective bargaining. It would be too expensive. This from a council that approved the pig-in-a-poke, bait-and-switch Bluestone Town Center and is spending money to make the city more homeless-friendly. Priorities, I suppose. Continue reading →

32 Comments

Posted in Crime, Corrections and Law Enforcement, Labor and Workforce

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RVA HISTORY: Schools Are for Learning

Posted on March 4, 2024 | 3 comments

by Jon Baliles

The effort to save the old Richmond Community Hospital (RCH) from Virginia Union’s wrecking ball raises an interesting debate about recognizing history, remembering history, and benefitting by learning from history. Especially when one program is established that then becomes part of a bigger effort and very especially when it is used to overcome something as insidious as segregation. It is also an example of why saving monuments to black history is so important instead of sacrificing them for a revenue stream from 200 apartments.

This story, in a roundabout way, ties in with the opportunity Virginia Union has to create and model a historic preservation program like the successful program at Tuskegee University in Alabama — which is the only Historically Black College and University (HBCU) to have such a program. Doing something like that at VUU centered around the RCH as a starting point and building block could have an incalculable impact for generations of students to come.

The architecture program created at Tuskegee in 1893 (which led to the historic preservation program) was so lasting and impactful it quickly became a main contributor in educating almost 700,000 black children across the south for decades in what were known as The Rosenwald Schools. Continue reading →

3 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Education (K-12), Virginia history

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We Need More Teachers!

Posted on March 4, 2024 | 37 comments

by Matt Hurt

Chris Braunlich (Bait and Switch: Reform Reverts to Mo’ Money) brought up many good points about some bills that propose to increase teacher salaries. However, it seems necessary to add some additional context to help flesh out this conversation/debate. It appears that many don’t fully understand the gravity of the situation.

On paper, the teacher vacancy rates seems to have stabilized from 2023 to 2024 rather than increasing as they had in years prior. The data below were obtained from the Staffing and Vacancy Report Build-A-Table on the VDOE website, the dataset for which only dates back to 2022.

Continue reading →

37 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12)

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A True Community Hospital

Posted on March 3, 2024 | 20 comments

by Jon Baliles

Virginia Union University announced recently that it would utilize several parcels it owns just north of the main campus to build a new $40 million development with up to 200 apartments (some market and some lower income) and possibly some homes and commercial space for students or the public, which would create a revenue stream for the school and shared profits with the New York developer.

But the development project would come with the cost of demolishing the old Richmond Community Hospital (RCH), first opened in Jackson Ward in 1902 at the dawn of Jim Crow by black physicians to treat Richmonders who were not allowed to be treated in white hospitals. The building that now sits on VUU property on Overbrook Road was purchased and opened in 1932.

Eric Kolenich wrote in the Times-Dispatch that “across the street was a neighborhood of prominent black residents, called Frederick Douglass Court, that later was home to civil rights attorney and federal judge Spotswood Robinson.” The hospital moved to Church Hill in 1980 and the building has been vacant ever since. A VUU spokesperson said the school determined there was no way to save the building. But the local preservation nonprofit Historic Richmond weighed in and has suggested that because of its historical significance, it could be incorporated into a larger project and still produce revenue for the university.

Michael Paul Williams wrote an excellent piece noting that “We live in a city chock-full of adaptive reuses, including of the former Westhampton School building by Bon Secours. Shouldn’t we be as passionate about preserving our  bricks-and-mortar black history while it’s still above ground?”

That is why a group of Richmonders dedicated to preserving the derelict structure have organized to try and save the building. They are asking VUU to incorporate the structure into its plans. VUU needs the revenue stream that the project would bring, but the group and others believe there are ways to do it and preserve the building and its history. Continue reading →

20 Comments

Posted in Education (higher ed), Virginia history

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Youngkin and Confederate Heritage

Posted on March 3, 2024 | 128 comments

by Donald Smith

Does the Virginia GOP want the help and support of the Confederate heritage community? We should get a pretty good indicator this week.

Three bills just passed by the General Assembly will soon land on Governor Youngkin’s desk, if they haven’t already. They will remove the tax exemptions of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Stonewall Jackson Memorial House in Lexington, and stop further issuance of the General Robert E. Lee and Sons of Confederate Veterans license plates (but not recall existing ones). The governor will have only seven days to sign, veto, or let them become law without his signature.

That is plenty of time. Plenty of time for him to do the right thing, and veto them. Continue reading →

128 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, General Assembly, Virginia history

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RVA Meals Tax: Practically Poetic Injustice

Posted on March 1, 2024 | 4 comments

by Jon Baliles

As noted, two weeks ago City Council approved the change to city code to make sure the city’s Finance Department only applies meals tax payments to the month for which the invoice is submitted. So, no more of the shady practice that had been applying a portion of say, May’s tax payment, to an outstanding balance from April’s bill. The reason that’s a bad idea is that the city could put any account in arrears but the business owner never knew because the city had a practice of not informing the business they were in arrears, which led to the crazy snowballing of interest and penalties that resulted in bills of $37,000, $50,000, and $68,000.

Samuel Veney, the owner of Philly Vegan, who was told by the city he owed $37,000 in penalties and interest, was eloquent and forceful at the City Council podium on February 12th. He implored Council not only to listen, but to hear what he way saying — he wanted to make sure they heard how he was missing time with his children and spending too much time dealing with the city’s screw-ups instead of working at his business. Said Veney:

What we are saying to y’all right now is to take the opportunity to make change happen. It shouldn’t have gotten this far and now that it has you actually have the opportunity to actually make change happen in a better way for our city. Continue reading →

4 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Economic development, Taxes

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