Author Archives: Robin Beres

Alumni Free Speech Alliance Affiliate at William & Mary

Posted on June 5, 2023 | 44 comments

by Robert Kaplan, Karla K. Bruno, and John S. Buckley

The cross removed from Wren Chapel in 2006. “Marshall-Wythe” deleted from the name of the law school during the past decade. Recently, urine thrown by a student protestor at other students promoting pro-life views on abortion and an ACLU spokesperson speaking on campus about free speech shouted down by Black Lives Matters advocates. Alas, even the venerable College of William and Mary in historic Williamsburg, Virginia, is not new to, or immune from, anti-free speech and inquiry, political correctness, and historical “presentism” that has come to characterize higher education throughout America.

It’s time for William and Mary alumni to get more involved. With a tip of a hat to The Jefferson Council at the University of Virginia — an independent association of recent vintage of Charlottesville alumni — alums at W&M are now organizing to keep a more vigilant eye on left-wing indoctrination and assorted bullying tactics that appear to be at play among faculty, administration, and students.

Our intention is to affiliate with the rapidly growing national Alumni Free Speech Alliance (AFSA), a consortium of independent alumni organizations at major universities across the United States, formed to advocate for free intellectual inquiry in the halls of higher education. It so happens that the Commonwealth of Virginia has of late the greatest concentration of AFSA affiliates in the U.S. with organizations at the University of Virginia, Washington and Lee, Virginia Military Institute, and James Madison University, with William and Mary on its way. Continue reading →

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Posted in Culture wars, Education (higher ed)

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What the Minutes Say About Public Education in Virginia

Posted on June 5, 2023 | 20 comments

by James Wyatt Whitehead, V

School may be out for the summer, but the report card for the Commonwealth’s public schools is headed for the inbox. It is hoped that progress can be measured and built upon.

School boards face a siege of ailments not likely to be cured overnight. The challenges range from pandemic-era learning loss to chronic absenteeism, falling test scores, teacher retention, bus driver shortages, expanding achievement gaps, crumbling and aged schools, declining student conduct, and a concerned public that desires better outcomes from the billions of dollars spent on schools.

Politicians and education experts have spilled gallons of ink outlining reforms that will correct the failures of public education in Virginia and move our students in the promising direction of success and achievement. Yet none of the reforms have examined an immediate solution that is in plain sight and could be implemented for August 2023; time.

Since there are no caped crusaders who will save the day for the coming school year, school boards, superintendents, principals, teachers, and students are going to have to use the one thing that they do have. The Code of Virginia stipulates 180 instructional days or 990 hours of instructional time. Five-and-a-half hours or 59,400 minutes must occur each day and educators should waste none of this precious commodity. A typical high school class must have 140 hours or 8,400 minutes of instructional time to qualify for a standard credit for graduation. High school credits are measured by seat time thanks to the Carnegie Unit. But this measurement was conceived in 1906 and does not measure knowledge learned. Every school board in Virginia must ask the superintendent if that time was delivered to every teacher.
Continue reading →

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Posted in Education (K-12), Uncategorized, Virginia Law

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Deflating Degree Inflation

Posted on June 3, 2023 | 30 comments

by Robin Beres

In May 2021, The Harvard Business Review featured a column by Michael Hansen, CEO of Cengage Learning titled, “The U.S. Education System Isn’t Giving Students What Employers Need.”

Hansen argued that today’s education system is not equipping students “with the skills and capabilities to prepare for a career where they can obtain financial stability.”

It’s no secret the pandemic drastically upended the American workforce. After millions of workers lost their jobs and were sent home, they began to appreciate the value of downtime and a stress-free lifestyle. So much so that many of those newly-unemployed were reluctant to return to the nine-to-five grind.

Businesses, anxious to be up and running again, have been desperate to get warm bodies back on their payrolls and in the office. Many CEOs have come to realize that degree-inflation — requiring an often-unnecessary bachelor’s degree for entry- and mid-level positions — has been a barrier to bringing on good, hard-working men and women.

These types of jobs can include well-paying positions such as regional managers, supervisors, support specialists, administrative workers, and countless others. While a kid right out of high school may not have the skills necessary for many of these jobs, someone who has worked in the field for five or 10 years or more usually has picked up the qualifications necessary to do the work well.

Last week, Gov. Glenn Youngkin joined six other state governors in a trend that began last year when he announced that the Old Dominion will no longer require college degrees for nearly 90 percent of state government jobs. It will also no longer give higher preference to degree holders. Every year, Virginia state agencies advertise more than 20,000 job openings. Continue reading →

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Posted in Business and Economy, Education (higher ed), Government workers and pensions, Labor and Workforce, Uncategorized

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Virginia Democrats Have New Tourism Twist

Posted on May 31, 2023 | 13 comments

by Olivia Gans Turner

Recently North Carolina passed a bill to prevent abortions after 12 weeks. This new law may save many lives in North Carolina, but most abortions actually happen earlier, in the first weeks of pregnancy.

Now Virginia Democrats are announcing their intention to make Virginia a destination state for abortions. In the upcoming 2023 elections they must hold the Senate and gain the House of Delegates in order to turn Virginia into a place where unlimited abortions are available and paid for with our taxes.

It is tragic that the Democrats in Virginia are prepared to make Virginia a destination state for abortions-on-demand through all nine months of pregnancy. It is infuriating that they have opposed every rational bill that has come out of the House of Delegates during the past two General Assembly sessions. They have even announced their desire to enshrine a permanent, unrestricted “Right to Abortion” into the Virginia Constitution.

In polling done earlier this year by McLaughlin and Associates, 70 percent of respondents stated that abortion should only be legal under very limited circumstances, including the life of the mother or rape and incest, with reporting. Less than 5 percent of abortions are done in the U.S. for those reasons. Another 60 percent oppose using tax dollars to fund abortions.

Pro-life Republicans are committed to passing reasonable laws on abortion, including the bill to protect unborn babies who can feel pain and a bill to provide medical care to babies who survive an abortion. Radical pro-abortion members of the Virginia Senate, led by Sen Louise Lucas, blocked every rational pro-life bill that came out of the House of Delegates.

Virginia Democrats are way out of step with most Virginians and are only committed to the abortion groups that fund so many of them. Abortion with no limits does not help women and it kills their babies. It is not good medicine or real health care. Tragically, it is big business in Virginia now.

It is up to Virginia voters to stop this dangerous agenda.

Olivia Gans Turner directs American Victims of Abortion (AVA), an outreach project of the National Right to Life Committee. This column was originally posted in The Republican Standard. It is reprinted here with permission.

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Posted in Abortion, Feminism, Women's Rights, Culture wars, General Assembly, Politics, Uncategorized, Virginia Law

Judge Orders LCPS to Turn Over Investigation into the Assaults and Rape at Two County Schools

Posted on May 31, 2023 | 9 comments

by Jeanine Martin

Loudoun County Circuit Court Judge James P. Fischer has ordered Loudoun County Public Schools to turn over its internal investigation into the assaults and rape that occurred in 2021 at two Loudoun County high schools.

The school system had argued that it was privileged information that they need not share with the public. Judge Fischer disagreed and ordered the report to be turned over to the public within 7 days.

From WTOP.com:

The ruling is a win for Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, who has been fighting to expose how he says the school district mishandled the incidents.

The judge agreed with prosecutors from the Miyares’ office that the internal report on the 2021 sexual assaults and rape on school grounds was not protected under attorney-client privilege — noting that then-Superintendent Scott Ziegler gave the perception that any findings from the independent investigation were for the public’s benefit.

In a statement, Miyares’ spokeswoman Victoria LaCivita said in part, “We appreciate the courts time and attention to this matter.”

More on the story here.

This piece was originally appeared in The Bull Elephant and is reprinted with permission.

9 Comments

Posted in Children and Families, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections and Law Enforcement, Discipline and Disorder, Education (K-12), Government Transparency, Uncategorized

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FIVE QUESTIONS: Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares

Posted on May 30, 2023 | 3 comments

by Shaun Kenney

Last week, TRS was able to sit down and talk with Virginia’s Attorney General Jason Miyares (R-VA) about the challenges he is facing from opioid and fentanyl abuse to the FBI Richmond’s targeting of Catholics in the public square.

Miyares — a longstanding conservative in the tradition of Ronald Reagan and a leading thinker in his own right — shares his convictions, his hope for civility over violence, and some discussion on what he rightly calls the American Miracle.

So it seems as if some congratulations are in order. Russian President Vladimir Putin has put you on the Russian sanctions list. What did you do to earn such an esteemed award?

Yeah, I keep making lists!

I keep visiting with the Uigurs in Northern Virginia. I find it interesting but not surprising because we have such a different worldview. I detest autocracy and tyranny in all forms. When Putin said that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the single greatest catastrophe of the 20th century, I view that as Ronald Reagan’s greatest victory.

Yet the reality of any autocratic regime is that ideology trumps the individual. C.S. Lewis said that of all the tyrannies in the world, the tyrannies that are for your benefit are the worst in the world. Solzhenitsyn writes about this in the Gulag Archipelago.
Continue reading →

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Posted in Children and Families, Crime, Corrections and Law Enforcement, Culture wars, Education (K-12), Elections, Governance, Immigration, Leadership, Uncategorized

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Dollars and Scholars

Posted on May 29, 2023 | 55 comments

by John Butcher

Table 15 in the 2022 Superintendent’s Annual Report includes the division expenditures per student for operations. Let’s juxtapose those data with the 2022 division Standards of Learning (SOL) pass rates. But first: Economically Disadvantaged (ED) students (those eligible for Free/Reduced Meals, receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families [TANF], eligible for Medicaid, or identified as either Migrant or experiencing homelessness) pass the SOLs at rates about 20 percent lower than their more affluent peers (not ED). Thus, division SOL averages are affected by the relative percentages of ED and Not ED students in the division. The (very nice) SOL database provides data for both groups so we can look directly at the divisions’ performance.

To start, here are the 2022 SOL reading pass rates graphed vs. the per student expenditures.

There’s no room to label that crowd of data points. I have settled for labels on some of the high performers and three not-high performers. The aqua points are the state averages. Richmond is the gold points.

As you can see, some of the high-expenditure divisions do very well while some do not. And a number of low expenditure divisions do just as well as the best high expenditure ones. Falls Church leads the pack for the Not ED rate but is just above the state average as to its ED number. Continue reading →

55 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), Uncategorized

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Arlington National Cemetery

Posted on May 27, 2023 | 12 comments

U.S. Army photo by Elizabeth Fraser / Arlington National Cemetery

by Robin Beres

Virginia is brimming with famous and consequential landmarks and tourist sites. From the Historic Triangle to St. John’s Church in Richmond, to great beaches, mountains, and countless old plantation homes, vineyards, and breweries, there is a lot to see and do in the commonwealth. It’s little wonder that Virginia is ranked No. 6 in most visited states in the U.S. according to the World Atlas.

While there is much to see in Virginia that is upbeat and fun, there are also solemn and sobering experiences to take in as well. Some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War took place in Spotsylvania Court House, the Wilderness, and Chancellorsville. Both Revolutionary War and Civil War victories happened in our beloved state.

It is important that we all take time to appreciate the sacrifices so many Americans serving in uniform have made to ensure our freedoms. That is the very reason we have this Memorial Day weekend.

While by no means a tourist site, Arlington National Cemetery (ANC) is one of the most visited places in Virginia. Located just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The national cemetery is built on the grounds of a plantation that once belonged to Mary Anna Custis Lee, wife of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The family vacated the home shortly after the Civil War began. Continue reading →

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Posted in Virginia history

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Reagan Republican AG Miyares Put on Russia’s List of ‘Banned Americans’

Posted on May 25, 2023 | 12 comments

by Shaun Kenney

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares was included in an elite list of American leaders and political figures as being sanctioned by Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a press release from the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Miyares, who had recently completed visits to Poland and Israel, is the sole Virginia statewide political figure targeted by the Russian government, outpacing both Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia), who serves on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Continue reading →

12 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Culture wars, Democracy and Western Civilization, Uncategorized

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The Song’s Not New Just Because You Haven’t Heard It Before

Posted on May 23, 2023 | 1 comment

by Joe Fitzgerald

When I was a younger man and indulged in that lowdown southern whiskey, I would sometimes sum up the next day by saying, “I don’t remember church bells.”

Astute observers will immediately recognize literary allusions to Little Feat’s “Dixie Chicken,” one of the great rock-and-roll story songs.

Now, 41 years sober, I hear the song differently. It’s the story of someone finding out that an experience may have been unique to him, but wasn’t unique.

Which leads me back, to the surprise of no regular reader, to Bluestone Town Center. BTC is an ill-advised development based on empty promises, misguided good intentions, and governmental obtuseness. Those wishing to know the other side of the story are welcome to Google it.

I was struck during the discussions of the project by how often supporters of the project fell back on baseless accusations of racism and privilege or answered objections that hadn’t been raised. I also noticed things in the city’s deeply flawed housing report that had little to do with building or selling housing.

Come to find out, any discussion of housing faces an underlying set of assumptions. And as any student of left-leaning politics knows, many of those assumptions lead to the expectation that anyone opposing any housing issue must prove their motivations and intentions are not racist, classicist, ageist, or ableist. Continue reading →

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Posted in Economic development, Efficiency in Government, Governance, Housing, Land use & Development

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The Lost Art of a Newspaper Hit Piece

Posted on May 22, 2023 | 24 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Looks like newspapers have lost more than just their senior editors and writers. They’ve also lost the ability to craft a good old-fashioned hit piece.

There was an art to that particular form of journalism. It had to be an expertly crafted story written with so much elegance that the subject sometimes didn’t realize he or she’d been skewered until days later.

Those required writers with skill and knowledge and the ability to deliver words like a perfectly placed stiletto.

What we get instead today are clunky, biased blobs of verbiage.

Oh look. Here’s an example:

On the front page of the local newspaper — on a Sunday — which once was the day to showcase the best staff writing — was a “news” story headlined “How Far Right Does Youngkin Lean?”
Continue reading →

24 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Political Influence, Politics

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Saving a Piece of Virginia History

Posted on May 17, 2023 | 5 comments

by Robin Beres

Chincoteague Island would probably be just another quiet little town on a quiet little barrier island overlooked by beachgoers and tourists if weren’t for a 1946 visit from children’s author Marguerite Henry. The writer arrived intending to pen a book about the wild ponies on nearby Assateague Island and the annual Chincoteague pony penning and auction.

During her stay, Henry met a rancher by the name of Clarence Beebe who invited her to visit his ranch. There she met his grandchildren, Maureen and Paul Beebe. She also met a young filly named Misty who stole her heart. The pony was the daughter of Phantom, one of Assateague’s wild ponies that the Beebe children had worked hard to purchase during a previous auction.

When Henry learned the story of Phantom and Misty, she wrote the book, Misty of Chincoteague. It instantly became a best seller and was recognized by the American Library Association as Newbery Honor Book. In 1961, the book was made into a movie, Misty.
Continue reading →

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Posted in Virginia history

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To Teach Is To Touch the Future

Posted on May 16, 2023 | 11 comments

by Bill Bolling

As most of you know, I left my professional career in the insurance business behind in 2018 to pursue a passion for teaching. For the past five years I’ve had the privilege of teaching young people about politics and government.

I started out guest lecturing at James Madison University, and for the past four years have taught my own classes at George Mason University and Virginia Commonwealth University.

I have great respect for my colleagues who have traditional academic backgrounds, but I really appreciate universities like GMU and VCU who are also willing to give teachers like me, who are more “professors of practice,” an opportunity to share my experience with students in the classroom.

Teaching is hard work, but it’s also extremely important. The greatest reward as a teacher is when you connect with a student and have an impact on their future direction. Toward that end, I thought I would share an email I received this week from one of my students:

Professor Bolling, I’ll be graduating this week and just wanted to write and thank you for all you have done to help advance my educational journey. I took my first class from you totally by accident, and was shocked to find out that my professor was the former Lieutenant Governor of Virginia.

I loved that class. I learned so much, not just from the textbook, but from someone who had actually been there, working in government at the state and local level. Since then I have taken every class you have offered. You quickly became my favorite professor, and I have learned so much from you.

I’ve already been hired to go to work on Capitol Hill, and I can’t wait to get started. I know I will put much of what you taught me into practice, and I promise to do my part to make government work! You taught me a lot, and for that I will always be grateful.

Folks, that’s exactly why teachers do what they do. They don’t do it for the money or the prestige. They get very little of either. They do it to have an impact on the lives of the students they teach.

At least for today, I feel that my journey as a teacher has had an impact. That’s all I ever wanted, and it’s all any teacher can ask for.

Bill Bolling spent 22 years in elected office including eight years as 39th Lieutenant Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. This column was originally published in Bearing Drift and is republished here with permission.

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Posted in Education (higher ed), Uncategorized, Virginia Law

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Virginia Judge Defends Handgun Purchases For 18-20 Year-Olds In New Ruling

Posted on May 15, 2023 | 77 comments

by The Republican Standard staff

In a groundbreaking decision, a federal judge in Virginia has ruled that a ban on handgun sales to individuals between the ages of 18 and 20 is unconstitutional, citing last year’s Supreme Court Bruen decision.

Fox News reports:

In a 71-page ruling issued Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Payne said that since adults under 21 have the right to vote, join the military and serve on a federal jury, there is no reason why federal law should restrict them from buying a firearm. “If the Court were to exclude 18-to-20-year-olds from the Second Amendment’s protection, it would impose limitations on the Second Amendment that do not exist with other constitutional guarantees,” Payne wrote. “Because the statutes and regulations in question are not consistent with our Nation’s history and tradition, they, therefore, cannot stand,” he wrote. … This class action lawsuit was brought by John Corey Fraser, 20, and other plaintiffs who said the Gun Control Act of 1968 and subsequent regulations from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were unconstitutional because they excluded all adults under 21 from “exercising the right to keep and bear arms.” Fraser, 20, had attempted to purchase a Glock 19x handgun from a licensed dealer but was turned away, according to the lawsuit.

The ruling was derided by a number of gun control advocacy groups, including Everytown for Gun Safety which believes that “the federal law prohibiting federally licensed firearms dealers from selling handguns to individuals under the age of 21 is not just an essential tool for preventing gun violence, it is also entirely constitutional.”

It remains to be seen whether the Biden Administration will challenge the ruling.

This article is republished from The Republican Standard with permission.

77 Comments

Posted in Courts and law, Gun rights, Uncategorized, Virginia Law

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Virginia Secedes from National Elections Organization

Posted on May 13, 2023 | 22 comments

by Jim McCarthy

A February 25 article in Bacon’s Rebellion, “Forget Waldo, Where’s ERIC?” by James Wyatt Whitehouse raised questions about the volunteer national election clearing house organization entitled Electronic Information Registration Center, or ERIC. The BR piece highlighted the experience of the Alabama Secretary of State:

On February 15, 2023, Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen paid a visit to the ERIC headquarters in Washington, D.C. It is important to note that Mr. Allen withdrew Alabama from participation in ERIC just a few weeks before his visit. Mr. Allen had this to say about his visit to the Connecticut Avenue headquarters of ERIC, Inc.: ‘I was in DC for a meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of States and, since I was in town, I went to see the ERIC Headquarters. What I found was that there was no ERIC headquarters at that address. There were no employees. There were no servers. There was no ERIC presence of any kind. Instead, I found a virtual office that is rentable by the day. What it was missing was people, servers, and any sign of the ERIC team.’

The absence of existential staff and the existence of a virtual office prompted subsequent questions concerning ERIC’s information security and its utility to member states. As noted, Mr. Allen pulled the trigger on his state’s membership weeks before asking his questions. In 2012, Virginia was a founding member of ERIC under the administration of Governor Bob McDonnell.
Continue reading →

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Posted in Elections, Electoral process, Governance, Government Transparency, Regulations and Government Oversight, Uncategorized

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