Author: sherlockj
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Why Aren’t Children Learning in Petersburg Public Schools?
by James C. Sherlock Why aren’t Black children, on average, learning in Virginia public schools? You have heard and perhaps internalized all of the excuses. Cue the historical/social/cultural/economic theories. They are all interesting. And exhaustively pursued. And irrelevant. Black children in many Virginia urban public schools are not being taught properly in environments conducive to…
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The Woke Attack Black George Mason Astrophysicist for Disrupting the Narrative
by James C. Sherlock In WokeWorld, research will result in fierce attacks if it does not align with the “narrative.” Even if that research is by George Mason professor and astrophysicist Dr. Hakeem Oluseyi, who is president of the National Society of Black Physicists. The New York Times, in an article by free speech and expression…
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Dead Students, UVa, and the Virginia Freedom of Information Act – Part One – Only One Client
by James C. Sherlock Updated Dec. 18 at 16:30 The deck is stacked against the press, at least in the first step. The University of Virginia, unsurprisingly, considers it not in its interests to release information to the press about the work of its threat assessment team in the case of Christopher Darnell Jones. Mr.…
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Junior ROTC – Important to Students, High Schools, Society and the National Defense
by James C. Sherlock Richmond Senior High School (RSHS) is a 1,200-student grades-10-to-12 school in the Sandhills Region of North Carolina. Its mission, vision and belief statements genuflect at none of the shrines of progressive dogma. Not a single one. Minority enrollment is 57% of the student body (majority Black), which is higher than the…
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Can Threat Assessment Teams Function in Schools Practicing PBIS?
by James C. Sherlock Last I read, Attorney General Miyares’ Loudoun County special grand jury is still empaneled. There is another matter worthy of investigation in the cases of the rapes of two school girls in Loudoun County high schools. That is the matter of the threat assessment teams (TATS) in each school. The special…
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Buta Biberaj’s Hot Potatoes
by James C. Sherlock I admit it. I hope the cases against the two Loudoun County school officials actually go to trial. The indictments for misconduct by school system officials surrounding the rapes of two school girls seem to require it to assign accountability. But left-wing icon Commonwealth’s Attorney Buta Biberaj is in a hard…
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Public Education and the Management of Change
by James C. Sherlock Peter Drucker’s famous five questions should always be asked by and of government. What is the mission? Who is the customer? What does the customer consider valuable? What are the results sought and how are they to be measured? What is the plan, to include both abandonment and innovation? So, in…
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The JLARC Report and Virginia’s Unexecutable School Discipline System
by James C. Sherlock The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) report Pandemic Impact on Public K–12 Education 2022 collected and made available a lot of valuable information. One issue escaped their analysis and recommendations — school discipline. The authors reported student conduct as the number one concern of school teachers, and then failed to address it…
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What Do We Do When Teachers Quit En Masse?
by James C. Sherlock What makes teachers want to teach? The satisfaction that comes from helping children and adolescents learn and grow into productive, mature adults. It is amazingly powerful. What is required for them to choose to teach? Enough money to live comfortably and a safe, supportive working environment. So that is three: teaching…
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Housing Cost Burdens in Virginia – A Survey
by James C. Sherlock With all of the public policy discussion of housing in Virginia, it is useful to examine how burdened Virginians are by the costs of their housing. Based on brand new data from the Bureau of the Census, the average Virginia homeowner is in pretty good shape compared to others in America.…
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Why Not Virtual Instruction for Routinely Disruptive or Potentially Dangerous Students?
by James C. Sherlock So, let’s examine a theoretical. A kid gets thrown out of a high school for a suspected rape. The (ex-) superintendent places him in another high school awaiting trial. He rapes again. What’s wrong with this picture? OK, lots of things. But let’s examine just one solution that can have wider…
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Handling Threats in Schools is Hampered by Progressive Cultures and Lack of Individual Initiative
by James C. Sherlock Virginia’s school threat assessment and mitigation processes are broken, putting entire school communities in danger. The University of Virginia shootings and the rapes at two Loudoun County high schools were each preventable had the focus been on intervention by authorities responsible to do so. It was clearly not. School cultures are…
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Grand Jury Report on Loudoun Schools Raises Threat Assessment Issue – Again
by James C. Sherlock Update Dec. 7 at 7:33: LCPS Superintendent Scott Ziegler was fired yesterday by the school board. That does not begin to resolve the issue of threat assessment. The University of Virginia Threat Assessment Team (TAT), with knowledge of a threat, failed to intervene before tragedy in the case of the student…
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Great Investigative Reporting of a Heartbreaking Story
by James C. Sherlock For a story that will simultaneously make you angry and break your heart, read “Fathering While Black,” by Asra Nomani and Debra Tisler. It is the story of a guardian ad litem (GAL), Karen Keys-Gamarra, who is reported here to have systematically abused her position to pursue a Black father and…
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Student Mental Health Crisis Explained – By The Washington Post
by James C. Sherlock The Washington Post, in a lengthy article, “The crisis of student mental health is much vaster than we realize,” wrote about the mental health crisis facing our school children, especially adolescents. Nationally, adolescent depression and anxiety — already at crisis levels before the pandemic — have surged amid the isolation, disruption…