Category Archives: Discipline and disorder

Increasing Teacher Vacancy Rates

Posted on April 17, 2023 by | 16 comments

by Matt Hurt

The teacher vacancy rate in the Commonwealth has become such a problem that the Virginia Department of Education created a database to track this problem. The Staffing and Vacancy Report found on the Education Workforce Data & Reports page of the VDOE website displays unfilled Virginia educator positions at the state, region, division, and school levels as of October of each year.

This data was first published in 2021 and reported that approximately 3% percent of Virginia’s teaching positions were vacant at that time. Historically, few hires are made after the beginning of the school year, as all willing and eligible potential teachers have already been hired by that point. Anecdotally, I am aware of and have heard many more instances of teachers leaving throughout the year, whereas in the past most would wait until summer to leave the profession.

When one compares the October 2021 teacher vacancy rates to the 2022 Standards of Learning (SOL) pass rates at the division level, that seemingly insignificant teacher vacancy rate statistically accounted for 26% of the variability in division SOL pass rates that year. In October 2022, the teacher vacancy rate across Virginia increased 26% percent to almost a 4% teacher vacancy rate. Given this increase, it is reasonable to believe that this problem will more significantly and negatively impact student outcomes this year than last.
Continue reading →

16 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Discipline and disorder, Education (K-12), teacher education, Uncategorized

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Assault and Battery in Schools – Virginia Law and School Division Policies Make “Marks” of Principals

Posted on April 15, 2023 by | 10 comments

by James C. Sherlock

This is addressed directly to Virginia public school principals.

You are compliant with current Virginia law whether you report assault and battery to police or do not.

Bad law makes for bad policy.

Depending upon your school division, your requirements may vary. A lot.

In gambling, and this issue is a big gamble for you, if you don’t know who the mark is, it is you.

The current law on reporting of assault and battery to police reflects a poorly conceived and poorly written attempt by Virginia Democrats in 2020 to break what they called the “school-to-prison pipeline.” They made reporting to police conditional upon on-scene medical and legal findings – by you.

The Board of Education has done nothing to improve the matter. School divisions are all over the spectrum on what to do about reporting. You cannot carry out either the law or many of the school division policies without personal jeopardy. Continue reading →

10 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Civil Rights, Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, Discipline and disorder, Education (K-12), General Assembly, Government workers and pensions, Law enforcement, Scandals, Unions

Hmm. I think I’ll Stick with Google for Now

Posted on April 15, 2023 by | 13 comments


Supposedly, Microsoft is integrating ChatGPT artificial intelligence technology into its search results. I’m not sure how far along the tech giant is in this process, but what I’m seeing so far is not impressive.

Just for yuks, I posed the following query to Microsoft’s Bing search engine: “What is causing the breakdown in discipline in Virginia public schools?”

Here was the answer:

According to a report by Bacon’s Rebellion, the root causes of disproportionate exclusionary discipline in Virginia public schools are bias and schools and their principals and teachers not aligned with progressive thinking¹. A 2020 report by Virginia Commonwealth University and Penn State found that school segregation by race and income was deepening in Virginia and that Central Virginia, including the Richmond metro area, reported “severe school segregation”³. Implicit bias is heavily implicated as a contributing factor when we analyze the causes of racial disproportionality in school discipline⁴. Continue reading →

13 Comments

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

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School Bullying and Victimization Data: Just the Facts

Posted on April 14, 2023 by | 15 comments

by Dr. Kathleen Smith

Earlier this week on Bacon’s Rebellion, James Bacon posted “The Fruit of School Disciplinary ‘Reform.’” Regarding the matter of bullying, I am adding a few additional statistics from the Youth and Juvenile Justice System 2022 National Report from the National Center for Juvenile Justice.

The abstract embedded in the report includes the following:

The report draws on reliable data and relevant research to provide a comprehensive and insightful view of youth victims and offending by youth, and what happens to them when they enter the juvenile justice system.

It offers empirically based answers to frequently asked questions about the nature of youth victimization and offending, and the justice system’s response.
Continue reading →

15 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Discipline and disorder, Education (K-12), Public safety & health, Uncategorized

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Changes to the Virginia Law Requiring Schools to Report Incidents to the Police Makes them Far More Dangerous

Posted on April 12, 2023 by | 43 comments

I wrote originally about the 2020 changes to the school incidents reporting law.

I have removed the content of this column in order to reconcile issues with the current reporting law, including 2022 changes, with the Department of Education.

I will repost it when those issues are resolved.

43 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Civil Rights, Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Discipline and disorder, Education (K-12), General Assembly

Gun Owner Whose Son Shot His Teacher Will Get Her Day In Court

Posted on April 11, 2023 by | 69 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Four words came to mind when news broke yesterday that a Newport News grand jury had indicted the mother of a 6-year-old school shooter: what took so long?

It’s been 13 weeks since a FIRST GRADER brought a handgun to school in his backpack and used it to shoot his teacher in front of his classmates.

It’s been 94 days since the 6-year-old sociopath got his hands on his mother’s gun and took it to school.

During the ensuing three months, prosecutors repeatedly said they weren’t sure the owner of the gun would be charged for the near-murder.

That effectively meant no one would be held criminally responsible for the shooting. It’s widely accepted that a 6-year-old cannot be charged with a crime.

Finally, on April 10, a grand jury indicted the gun owner — the mother of the shooter — and charged her with felony child neglect and a misdemeanor count of recklessly storing a firearm so a child could gain access to it.
Continue reading →

69 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Discipline and disorder, Education - Early Childhood, Gun rights, Weapons in Schools

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The Fruit of School Disciplinary “Reform”?

Posted on April 10, 2023 by | 57 comments

by James A. Bacon

If your son came home saying that a bully had hit and strangled him on the school bus that morning, and if you saw images circulating on social media confirming what he told you, how would you have reacted?

Like Taylor Brock, mom of a 7th grader at Walt Whitman Middle School in Alexandria, you likely would have gone to school authorities, reported the incident, showed them the video, demanded that the school keep her son safe, and call for the expulsion of the bully from school. Like Brock, you also might have posted a video (from which the photo above was taken) on your website and sought justice in the courts.

School authorities suspended the girl but allowed her to return. Brock was assured that her son and girl would not attend the same classes, and the two students were instructed to walk apart in the hallways. Brock was not satisfied. Reports the New York Post:

[Brock] said that when she asked school officials why they merely suspended the girl, they replied, ‘We have protocols we have to follow and execute punishment according to the School’s Code of Conduct.’ Continue reading →

57 Comments

Posted in Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Discipline and disorder

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Virginia Law Enables School Violence – School Board Policies Can Correct It

Posted on February 26, 2023 by | 51 comments

Courtesy NBC 6                                                             6’7” 270 pound student assaults teaching aide

by James C. Sherlock

In 2019, the National Education Association (NEA) published Threatened and Attacked By Students: When Work Hurts, urging lawmakers to address the crisis of unsafe behaviors in schools.

Read about Chesterfield schools in that article.

Unfazed, progressives in 2020 in full control of the General Assembly, led by now-Congresswoman-elect Jennifer McClellan, looked to break what they considered a “school-to-prison pipeline.”

They changed Virginia law to eliminate the requirement for principals to report misdemeanor assault and battery in Virginia schools, on school buses or at school-sponsored events to law enforcement.

Even battery on school staff.

It would seem to me, if I worked in a school, useful to require such violence to be reported to law enforcement.

But maybe that’s just me. Continue reading →

51 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, Discipline and disorder, Education (K-12), General Assembly, Governance, Media, Politics

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Stop Coddling Bad Kids

Posted on February 24, 2023 by | 44 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

I have a new hero. I don’t know her real name but in her Southeast Washington D.C. neighborhood, they just call her “Grandma.”

Last Friday Grandma was on her way to chemo when a 15-year-old punk walked up and ordered her to hand over her car keys.

“I have a gun,” he said.

“Baby, you’d better shoot me because you’re not taking my car,” she shot back.

A struggle ensued — Grandma’s hand was sliced by the keys — but she screamed for help and help arrived. Her grandson and some other neighborhood boys heard the commotion, and ran to her defense.

The would-be car jacker was taken away in an ambulance.

Score one for the good guys. And for Grandma.
Continue reading →

44 Comments

Posted in Attendance, Children and families, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, Discipline and disorder, Education (K-12), Homeschooling, Public safety & health, Uncategorized

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Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Virginia Public Schools – The Epidemic of Risky Behaviors and Experiences in Adolescents

Posted on February 15, 2023 by | 36 comments

Courtesy YouTube

by James C. Sherlock

The 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) Data Summary & Trends Report: 2011–2021 , was released by the CDC on Monday, provides the most recent surveillance data, as well as 10-year trends, on health behaviors and experiences related to adolescent health and well-being among high school students in the United States.

The survey was completed in the Spring of 2021.

The report writes that teen girls are “engulfed in a growing wave of violence and trauma.”

 

Illustrations courtesy of CBS

This survey is brought to you by CDC, the national sponsors of school shutdowns. Who could have imagined?

The survey did not include middle- and grade-school students, but we can assess that such conditions did not spring up full grown in the 9th grade.

Where, exactly, are the feminists? Especially the ed-school feminists? Like Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) cheerleader Professor Catherine Bradshaw at the UVa School of Education and Human Development.

PBIS in place in most schools in Virginia and across the nation in that same 10-year period by design keeps violent and dangerous students in schools.

It is what PBIS is supposed to do. So those students can be socialized.

Or not.

That survey should, but will not, put to rest progressive insistence that out-of-control violence among students and fear in American schools because of violence are figments of conservative imaginations.

It confirms that increasing absenteeism is linked to fear. Which progressives will also continue to deny. Continue reading →

36 Comments

Posted in Attendance, Children and families, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, Discipline and disorder, Education (K-12), Feminism and women's rights, teacher education

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Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Virginia Public Schools – Big Complications and Major Changes

Posted on February 9, 2023 by | 19 comments

Credit JAMA Pediatrics, April 6, 2020

by James C. Sherlock

Rebecca Aman, a member of the Newport News School Board, is frustrated. She told me in an interview that:

Without sufficient discipline and access to clinical mental health services, behavioral intervention does not work to make schools safer and healthier.

She believes that Newport News schools need to improve both discipline and the effectiveness of behavioral interventions.

She is absolutely right.

But school-based mental health services offer different, very complex and rapidly changing challenges.

The profession of psychology has recognized that the one-on-one clinical treatment model is permanently out of reach for the broad communities needing assistance because the supply of qualified professionals cannot now and will never meet the demand.

So the delivery model is in the midst of profound change.

Three key changes being pursued are

  • a far bigger emphasis on prevention, much of it to be delivered by school staff;
  • better diagnosis; and
  • “school based” (their term) group treatments.

Which raises at least three questions:

  • Are the pediatric mental health delivery models changing so much that the schools are “shooting behind the rabbit” in the hunt for more services?
  • What does the profession of psychology mean when it describes massively expanded “school-based” services? The schools and parents better find out.
  • Should schools even be in the hunt for more in-school services? I say no. They are already trying to do too much.

Continue reading →

19 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Culture wars, Discipline and disorder, Education - Early Childhood, Education (K-12), Efficiency in government, Finance (government), General Assembly, Governance, Government Oversight, Health Care, Mental illness and substance abuse, Psychology, Social services

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Mental Health and Virginia Public Schools – Part 1 – Progressives, School Closures and Child Mental Health

Posted on February 7, 2023 by | 28 comments

By James C. Sherlock

Credit JAMA Pediatrics, April 6, 2020

We have arrived today at a situation in which huge percentages of Virginia children and adolescents exhibit mental health problems.

Both sides of the political divide acknowledge the problem.

It’s existence is not up for debate.

Both blame the soaring pediatric mental health issues, a problem before COVID, on COVID school shutdowns that caused children to lose foundational developmental experiences that depend in part on socialization in schools and in part on interpersonal relationships with friends, both of which were profoundly interrupted.

Both sides acknowledge that minorities suffered worse than white kids.

That is where the agreements end.

Conservatives blame the disparate mental health impacts largely on easily observable inappropriate responses to COVID insisted upon by progressives and executed for far too long in progressive-run school divisions — in which minority children are mostly educated in America and in Virginia.

Progressives, by dogma never acknowledging agency in any problem, have actively tried to blame those same disparate impacts on institutional racism.

The facts are on the conservative side.

This article will show what progressives did and the results.  Progressive dogma was the cause of extended school closures.  Both the closures and disparate impacts happened disproportionately in progressive school divisions and progressive states.

So progressives closed the schools, closed them disproportionately on minority kids and now bemoan the outcomes of those closures as artifacts of systemic racism.

It reminds one of the story of the young man who killed his parents and asked the judge for leniency because he was an orphan.

It takes some combination of denial, an assumption that people who hear those claims are idiots, and Olympic-level audacity.

Racism, unless it was progressive racism, had nothing to do with it.

Continue reading →

28 Comments

Posted in Attendance, Children and families, Civil Rights, Culture wars, Demographics, Discipline and disorder, Education (K-12), Governance, Mental illness and substance abuse

Where Is the VEA on School Safety?

Posted on February 6, 2023 by | 71 comments

by James A. Bacon

Greetings from sunny Costa Rica, the well-run Central American nation that bears less resemblance these days to a banana republic than to the United States!

Costa Rica dedicates some 7% of its GDP to education, according to Wikipedia, and its population is 97% literate, which, if you think about it, might be higher than the literacy rate of the U.S. I wonder if Costa Ricans have the same kinds of scandals in their schools that we do in Virginia.

I am prompted to such musing by a recent article in The Virginian-Pilot, which reported allegations that the infamous six-year-old terror of Richneck Elementary School in Newport News who shot his teacher had previously choked another teacher “until she couldn’t breathe.”

It has been amply demonstrated by now that the Newport News public school system had done an atrocious job of keeping its teachers safe. Which raises yet another question, which I have not seen asked anywhere: Where is the Virginia Education Association, the organization that purportedly fights for better  working conditions for teachers? Continue reading →

71 Comments

Posted in Discipline and disorder, Education (K-12), Public employee unions, Uncategorized

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School Discipline – Part 5 – How and When Democrats Broke Virginia Public Schools

Posted on February 4, 2023 by | 74 comments

by James C. Sherlock

We read earlier today that the eminent developmental theorist Urie Bronfenbrenner has written:

The more we study human development, the more it becomes clear the family is the most powerful, most humane and, by far, the most economical way of making human beings human.

That truth, however, does not account for the degree that families have broken down in America in the last 60 years, which is, unfortunately, a lot.  The Pew Research Center reported in 2019 that the U.S. has the world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households.

So we try to impart in school what some children are denied at home: humanity.

The federal government, Virginia government and local school boards have killed a lot of forests with laws, regulations and guidelines (and spent a very large fortune) trying to accomplish that.

I will provide here overwhelming evidence that Ralph Northam and the new Democratic majorities in both houses of the Virginia G.A. in 2020 did catastrophic damage to the schools’ ability to maintain order and thus safety.

The Northam-McAuliffe Board of Education in 2021 finished the job just in time for students to return in progressive-run divisions from as much as a 15-month COVID hiatus from schools.  No conservative-run division was out nearly that long.

So they created a perfect storm based on progressive dogma. At the most vulnerable time in our schools’ history.

They actually discouraged in law the reporting by school principals and teachers to police of cases of assault and battery in schools.

They never considered for a minute the easily foreseeable victims of the changes.

Ask Abby Zwerner about her school’s positive climate. Continue reading →

74 Comments

Posted in Attendance, Children and families, Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, Discipline and disorder, Education - Early Childhood, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), General Assembly, Governance

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School Discipline in Virginia – Part 4 – The False Legend of PBIS Effectiveness

Posted on February 3, 2023 by | 56 comments

Catherine P. Bradshaw
Senior Associate Dean for Research & Faculty Development Professor, UVa School of Education and Human Development

by James C. Sherlock

To discover the origins of the legend that Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is effective, we have to dig into the interlocking government and ed school interest groups that fund and publish “studies” that validate their views.

The goal of the ed schools is always to capture the attention, funding and approval of the federal Department of Education (DOE) of their new bright ideas.

The method is to use DOE’s own seemingly limitless grant money and its bureaucracy’s predisposition to progressive causes to fund studies conducted by progressive “educators” that prove progressive theory.

Where is the anti-trust division of the Justice Department when we need it?

The legend of PBIS effectiveness is perhaps most founded on a famous study conducted in Maryland, the results of which were reported in 2010. The abstract claimed that the schools in the trial experienced significant reductions in student suspensions and office discipline referrals compared to the control group.

That worked until the Department’s Institute for Education Sciences What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) took a look at that study more than a decade later and found that while the study design and execution met scientific standards, it offered:

  • “No Statistically Significant Positive Findings”; and
  • that the evidence for that finding was strong.

Oops.

Many of Virginia’s school divisions have gone down the PBIS rabbit hole and continue to do so at great cost both in time and money and in opportunity costs, i.e. the ability to try interventions actually proven to work.

We’ll trace that 2010 report.

We will find that the study’s leader, now a professor at the University of Virginia’s ed school, is now on the inside of IES, chairing a What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) practice guide on positive behavior support.

Yeah, my take is the same as yours.

The swamp is eternal. Continue reading →

56 Comments

Posted in Attendance, Culture wars, Discipline and disorder, Education - Early Childhood, Education (K-12), teacher education

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