Category Archives: Education (K-12)

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

Posted on May 31, 2023 by | 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 Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Discipline and disorder, Education (K-12), Parental Rights, Uncategorized, Virginia Freedom of Information Act

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FIVE QUESTIONS: Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares

Posted on May 30, 2023 by | 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 →

3 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, Education (K-12), Elections, Governance, Immigration, Leadership, Parental Rights, Uncategorized

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Dollars and Scholars

Posted on May 29, 2023 by | 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), Schools and Public Recreation, Uncategorized

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Appeals Court Upholds TJHSST Admissions Policy

Posted on May 29, 2023 by | 45 comments

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

For all the ink that has been used on this blog concerning the “illegal” and “unconstitutional” new admissions policy at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, here is a story that has strangely escaped comment here:  the federal appeals court has upheld the policy.

In a 2-1 decision, the appeals court panel found that the group challenging the new admissions policy as discriminatory toward Asian Americans “cannot satisfy its burden of proving that the Board’s adoption of the race-neutral challenged admissions policy was motivated by an invidious discriminatory intent, whether by way of “racial balancing,” “proxies,” or otherwise.”  Furthermore, the panel ruled that “expanding the array of student backgrounds in the classroom serves, at minimum, as a legitimate interest.”

It is expected that the decision will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.  There is speculation in legal circles that the plaintiffs are “laying the groundwork for a much bigger legal transformation” that could ban any public policy effort to close racial gaps.

 

45 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Courts and law, Culture wars, Education (K-12)

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The Subversive Power of Doughnuts

Posted on May 24, 2023 by | 77 comments

Clever Republicans have found a new tool for destroying our schools.

by Steve Haner

Let me get this straight. An elected member of the General Assembly comes to school buildings to give doughnuts to teachers in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week and the leftist Democrat agitators of the teachers’ union are “triggered”? They whine about her generosity to the gutless school management, which then caves to the weak-minded and bans any future acts of kindness?

In Virginia?

Apparently true, and get this, it wasn’t Fox News telling the story, but Virginia’s new media outlet of record, the lefty online Virginia Mercury. Graham Moomaw reported it, in a fairly straight article yesterday. I waited for someone else to post and comment here, but then recalled our namesake host (this is his kind of story) is otherwise engaged. I won’t mention where but be jealous.

Del. Amanda Batten

Amanda Batten, who worked in the Capitol as a legislative aide before winning the seat when her boss retired, is just nice. I’ve known her for years.  She’s nice. She brought a pile of doughnut boxes to schools in her district, yes with her name on the boxes, and yes, she used campaign dollars to pay for them. Plenty of legislators across the state have made small charitable donations out of those accounts, and that should be allowed. Yes, it is partly a name ID gimmick. So what?

That of course became a focus for Virginia Mercury, what reporters call the hook, the campaign dollar issue. It has to keep up its lefty, Pecksniffian credentials. But the real story is that licensed, educated, professional teachers, presumably adults, actually went into spasms of fear and loathing because a (gasp) Republican legislator entered the building and provided a treat. That is what “triggered” means, right? Perhaps her being a parent made it worse?

From Moomaw’s story: Continue reading →

77 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Education (K-12), Unions

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The Virginia NAACP Has Proven Itself an Obstacle to Improving the Educations of Black Children in Virginia Public Schools

Posted on May 23, 2023 by | 44 comments

Courtesy Northern Virginia Black Chamber of Commerce

by James C. Sherlock

I just read that the NAACP has issued a warning against traveling to Florida.

Which must have come as a surprise to the 3.5 million Black citizens of that state.

It did not surprise the NAACP board of directors chairman Leon W. Russell, who lives in the Tampa area. His defense: “We haven’t told anybody to leave.”

I decided to check the Virginia NAACP agenda for education.

I checked to see what they advocate to change the lives of the tens of thousands of Virginia Black public school students who can neither read nor perform math at grade level. Some of these public schools in inner cities have not provided a basic education to Black students for generations.

Certainly the NAACP must be pushing hard for basic changes. Not just pressing for more funding, but also for measures to ensure that children go to school and giving parents alternatives to schools that have failed them and their children.

Right?

Wrong. Continue reading →

44 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Children and families, Culture wars, DEI, Education (K-12), Entrepreneurialism, Excellence and grace

Hey Norfolk: Do Kids Really Need Classes In Masturbation?

Posted on May 18, 2023 by | 37 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

You might think that a mediocre school system where barely half of all schools are fully accredited would put all of its energy and money into academics.

Oh, Bambi, you have no idea how public schools work, do you?

Norfolk School Board – which oversees a division where just 57.1% of the schools are fully accredited – voted 6-1 last night to begin teaching gender ideology, masturbation, sexual identity, homosexuality, abortion and lesbianism in middle and high schools.

Oh, and there will be a fun condom demonstration for all of the kiddies, too!

Sigh.

The curriculum is called “Get Real: Comprehensive Sex Education That Works” and will be directed at kids in grades 6 through 10. It’s published by Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts so you know it won’t contain a whiff of Judeo-Christian values.

According to WTKR, most of the speakers at last night’s meeting were opposed to the expanded sex ed program:

The vast majority of speakers were critical of the curriculum for Norfolk middle and high school students, and believe the focus should be on other areas in schools.

“Get on the academics! Get off the sex,” one resident said before school board members.

Like so many who have pushed back against having an LGBTQ+ agenda foisted on their children by the government, concerned Norfolk parents were ignored by the wokes on the board. Continue reading →

37 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Education (K-12)

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Increase Teacher Pay in Virginia to Meet Legislated Minimum Standard of National Average Compensation

Posted on May 11, 2023 by | 28 comments

by James C. Sherlock

We have major teacher shortages in Virginia, and we need to address them to ensure not only quantity but quality.

To do that we need to fund our legislated state goals of competitive teacher compensation.

Code of Virginia § 22.1-289.1. Teacher compensation; biennial review required.

It is a goal of the Commonwealth that its public school teachers be compensated at a rate that is competitive in order to attract and keep highly qualified teachers.

As used in this section, “competitive” means, at a minimum, at or above the national average teacher salary.

The Department of Education shall conduct a biennial review of the compensation of teachers and shall consider the Commonwealth’s compensation for teachers relative to the national average teacher salary. The results of these reviews shall be reported to the Governor, the General Assembly, and the Board of Education by June 1 of each odd-numbered year.

That should certainly be the goal, but we need to fund it. Carefully.

Some divisions already meet those minimum standards.

Many can’t afford to do so. Continue reading →

28 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), General Assembly, Governance

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Teachers’ Unions and Virginia Schools

Posted on May 10, 2023 by | 15 comments

Courtesy VEA

by James C. Sherlock

Virginia is a government union state.

Because of the federal workforce in Northern Virginia, Virginia in 2021 had the third highest percentage of any state of government union members as a share of total union members at 64%.

That is a higher percentage than Washington D.C.

Of all employees in Virginia, 22.5% worked for the government in 2021. Virginia is one of only seven states over 20%. D.C. is 29%.

The National Teachers’ Unions. Many Virginia teachers and support personnel belong to local teacher’s associations and unions that are affiliates of the two major national public school teacher’s unions, the National Education Association (NEA, 3 million members) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT, 1.7 million members).

Together they represent one in four union members in the U.S. The leadership of both are hard-core progressives.

Those national numbers of members are provided by the two unions and include retirees. In 2021 together they had about 3.6 million working members.

In the years 2019-21, the National Center for Education Statistics counted three million teachers in public schools and 500,000 in private schools. But the NEA and AFT represent large numbers of other school staff to account for the apparent discrepancy.

The two unions are overtly political and focused on social issues warfare.

In Virginia, the two national unions claim 45,000 members, which, since they both include large numbers of non-teacher staff, means together they represent significantly less than half of Virginia teachers. Continue reading →

15 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Culture wars, Education (K-12), General Assembly, Government workers and pensions, Uncategorized, Unions

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Does Virginia Beach School Board Care About Girls’ Sports?

Posted on May 9, 2023 by | 22 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

If you live in Virginia Beach, I have some questions for you:

Did you sit at home while the Bathrobe Brigade on the School Board fought to keep schools closed, long after we knew kids weren’t at risk from Covid-19?

Did you watch on public access TV as the hysterical hypochondriacs of the School Board battled to keep face diapers on kids long after we knew they were doing absolutely nothing to stop the spread?

Did you sit on your hands when you learned that graphic novels featuring oral gay sex were on the shelves of public schools and the woke majority on the School Board wanted to keep them there?

Well, it’s time to get out of your La-Z-Boy and join the weary parents and grandparents who have been fighting your battles for you.

Get to tonight’s school board meeting at 6 p.m. Join the 87 people who had signed up to speak as of late yesterday, according to board member Vicky Manning.
Continue reading →

22 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Discipline and disorder, Education (K-12), Leadership, Parental Rights, Schools and Public Recreation, Uncategorized

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Virginia Democrats – “Progressive for Who?”

Posted on May 8, 2023 by | 46 comments

Al Sharpton. Courtesy New York Post

by James C. Sherlock

“Progressive for who?”

That question was asked by Al Sharpton directly to a gathering of his supporters at a conference hosted by his National Action Network while flanked by Lori Lightfoot, Eric Adams and two other big city Democratic mayors.

“Anybody that tells you they’re progressive but don’t care about dealing with violent crimes are not.”

“Progressive for who?”

“We gotta stop using progressive as a noun and use it as an adjective.”

“You’re labeled progressive but your action is regressive. I’m woke? You must think I’m asleep.”

He demanded “a national agenda around urban violence, urban crime and accountability.”

“Accountability.” There is no word more anathema to progressives. He could not have hurt them worse.

Watch the video.

That was not the first shot, but one of heavy caliber, in the revolution against progressive destructiveness by the Black people who are among its primary victims. Continue reading →

46 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Civil Rights, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Politics, Race and race relations

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Virginia’s New School Chief: Raise Standards, Fill Teacher Vacancies

Posted on May 1, 2023 by | 20 comments

Lisa Coons. Image taken from Virginia Department of Education YouTube clip.

by James A. Bacon

Dr. Lisa Coons, Virginia’s new superintendent for public instruction, has been on the job for only two weeks, but she has clear priorities for reversing the slide in educational achievement in Virginia’s public schools: raise standards, get chronically absentee kids back into the classroom, and address teacher shortages.

Recruited from her job as chief academic officer for the Tennessee public school system, Coons filled the vacancy created by the resignation of Jillian Balow. She granted Bacon’s Rebellion her first media interview. I started with an open-ended question: What are the greatest challenges facing Virginia public schools today? Her gut response: Recruit more teachers.

“We have to get a high-quality teacher in every classroom in the state,” she said. “Remove the barriers and challenges to processing licenses. Create plenty of pathways to bring people into the [teaching] workforce.”

Raising teacher pay is one obvious strategy for reversing the brain drain from schools. Lawmakers have funded significant pay hikes for Virginia teachers, but the raises have lagged cost-of-living increases. Improving working conditions is another approach. Virginia teachers consistently cite disciplinary issues, unsupportive administrators, and lack of respect from students and parents as morale busters. But those issues are inherently local and not amenable to top-down action from Richmond. Rather, Coons is focusing on changing state-level regulations with the goal of enlarging the pool of teachers. Continue reading →

20 Comments

Posted in Attendance, Discipline and disorder, Education (K-12), teacher education

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Where are Virginia Colleges and Universities Headed with “Test Optional”

Posted on May 1, 2023 by | 29 comments

Harvard University Home Page.  Seriously.

by James C. Sherlock

The left despises standardized tests in schools.

  • Teachers unions have fiercely opposed them for years as measures of accountability in K-12. Because SOLs, SATs and ACTS expose both good and bad educational results and measures of student growth over time;
  • Colleges and universities oppose them because they interfere with diversity, equity and inclusion aspirations.

Thus Virginia colleges and universities, presented with an opportunity by COVID, jumped at the chance to drop the SAT/ACT testing requirement. Now at least some of them are quietly extending that policy.

This from UVA:

We’ve extended our current test-optional practice for two years. If you’re applying for admission for Fall 2024 or Fall 2025, you’ll have the choice of sharing or not sharing results from the SAT and ACT.

Whichever path you choose, we’ll consider your application with care and respect, and you won’t be disadvantaged because of the choice you’ve made.

Two-year extension. Any bets?

UVA, William and Mary, Tech and W&L should consider the difference between what they are marketing — exclusivity based on merit — and that policy.

It will quickly challenge them. Continue reading →

29 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12)

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Washington Post Editorial Board is Pushing Back on Censorious Students. Finally

Posted on April 30, 2023 by | 118 comments

Courtesy Washington Post

by James C. Sherlock

After years of silence, The Washington Post editorialized yesterday that censorship of speech on America’s college campuses had gone too far.

Better late than never.

We welcome them to the fight.

The Post does not note that too many students are arriving on college campuses as already-radicalized warriors of the left, trained, not educated, as such from kindergarten.

It will be a long slog to correct that trend. Perhaps the Post editorial board will one day join that fight as well. But not yet. It does not even acknowledge it is happening.

As for the colleges, the contest for free speech is in the early innings.

They will continually have to fight a battle that cannot be fully won while the left provides fresh troops to every freshman class.

118 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Culture wars, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), First Amendment, Freedom

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School Closures Resulted In Spike In Suicide Attempts Among Kids

Posted on April 27, 2023 by | 13 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

How is it that those of us without fancy degrees from prestigious universities or medical training intuitively KNEW that the Covid-19 lockdowns and school closures would have a profoundly negative effect upon kids?

I watched one of my nieces, who graduated from high school in 2021, spend her junior year at home, isolated from her friends and extended family. A future physician and excellent student, she sat alone, doing class work off of a computer screen. On top of that, her entire social structure was dismantled. There were no sleepovers or parties, no sports, dances or proms. When schools finally reopened she was seated more than 6 feet away from the nearest other student at lunch and if they dared speak to each other, a teacher would scream, “NO talking!”

All for a virus that barely affected kids, as we all knew from the earliest weeks of the pandemic.

I worried about her and her friends. Turns out, she’s OK. Some of her classmates? Not so much.

Last week, UVA Today published a study showing a sharp increase in the number of attempted suicides by children ages 10 to 19 from 2020 on.

The rate of suspected suicide attempts by poisoning among children and adolescents ages 10 to 19 reported to U.S. poison centers increased 30% during 2021 – the COVID-19 pandemic’s first full year – compared with 2019, a new UVA Health study found.

Attempted suicides continue to climb.
Continue reading →

13 Comments

Posted in Blogs and blog administration, Children and families, Education (K-12), Health Care, Individual liberties, Mental illness and substance abuse, Psychology, Schools and Public Recreation, Uncategorized

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