Tag: James A. Bacon
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Antifa Failed to Make Conservative Conference a Ngo Go
by James A. Bacon A conservative media summit featuring journalist Andy Ngo was disrupted by threats of violence by left-wing militants, but the show did go on Saturday. The conference of roughly 50 attendees was scheduled originally to be held at the Commonwealth Club in downtown Richmond. Organizers lined up an alternate venue, but that…
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Charts of the Day: Teacher Vacancies
by James A. Bacon The teacher shortage at Virginia’s public schools is getting worse. School divisions report 4,304 unfilled positions in the 2023-24 school year, according to a recent report by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC). Out of a teacher workforce of about 87,000, the creates an average statewide vacancy rate of…
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Woke Bloat at Virginia Universities
by James A. Bacon Step aside California! Public universities in Virginia have built larger diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) bureaucracies than taxpayer-funded universities in any other state, concludes a new backgrounder by The Heritage Foundation. The DEI bureaucracy at the University of Virginia includes 94 employees listed on its website, says the report. Virginia Tech…
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By the Way, What Is Virginia Tech’s View on Parental Rights?
Virginia Tech’s interim dean of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion has been accused of violating Tech’s email policy by forwarding a message that slammed local conservative school board candidates as “hateful,” according to The Daily Signal. In responding to an email sent to her Tech account blasting the local candidates for their “anti-trans” and “anti-woke” outlook,…
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Alumni Groups File Amicus Brief in Virginia Tech Free Speech Case
by James A. Bacon The Alumni Free Speech Alliance (AFSA) and alumni groups from nine colleges and universities, including The Jefferson Council, submitted an amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday urging the court to hear a case brought by Speech First over the issue of bias reporting practices and procedures at Virginia…
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Factoid of the Day: Speeding in Virginia
Virginia has the third highest rate of fatal crashes in which someone was driving faster than the speed limit or too fast for road conditions, according to personal injury law firm Heninger Garrison Davis in an analysis of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) data. Virginia recorded 906 fatal crashes; speed figured as a factor…
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Want to Save the World? Teach a Kid to Read.
Reading skills among Virginia’s public-school children as measured by Standards of Learning (SOL) test scores are dropping through the floor. Among the remedies that Governor Glenn Youngkin proposes to address the threat of mass illiteracy is requiring under-performing students to receive three to five hours of tutoring per week. Good luck finding the tutors, warns…
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UVa’s Ever-Expanding Bureaucracy: Student Advising Edition
by James A. Bacon University of Virginia old-timers (like myself) remember what it was like to find help in picking courses and deciding majors. We’d latch ourselves onto a professor who took an interest in us, and he or she would walk us through the process. It did require some initiative on our part to…
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Let Me Get This Straight…
by James A. Bacon Wyatt Gordon writes about smart growth issues for the Virginia Mercury and Greater Greater Washington. Sometimes, he’s worth reading. But, then, sometimes, he’s not. As an example of the latter, he recently posted this on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter: So, let me get this straight. If…
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How Many UVa Students Feel Sense of “Belonging”?
by James A. Bacon As the University of Virginia Board of Visitors grapples with contentious issues such as equity, inclusion and racial preferences, it could benefit by knowing how well the policies of the Ryan administration have succeeded or failed in making UVa a more welcoming place for students across “every possible dimension” of diversity,…
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Last Year’s SOL Performance — Meh
by James A. Bacon The Virginia Department of Education is running two weeks late in releasing Standards of Learning (SOL) testing data for the 2022-23 school year. The reason cited by state Superintendent Lisa Coons, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch, is to process retake data and appeals. The SOL results, as they appeared on a Richmond…
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UVa Spending on Staff Surges, Spending on Students Trails
by James A. Bacon Always alert for opportunities to arm the University of Virginia Board of Visitors members with statistics they don’t see in their board presentations, The Jefferson Council presents the table above, compiled from data published by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV). The takeaway: UVa boosted overall E&G (educational &…
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Blue on Blue
Monica Lisle, a long-serving Alexandria police captain, has charged the city’s police chief with denying her a promotion to assistant chief by stacking the deck against her in favor of Black candidates in order to “fill certain unannounced racial quotas.” As Lisle wrote in an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint last year, according to The…