Author: sherlockj
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A Campaign Finance Reform Lesson – the 2021 Elections for the Virginia House of Delegates
by James C. Sherlock Money in politics matters for a lot of reasons. Most of them are unsupportive of a republican form of government. The majority of the Virginia political class is addicted to unlimited campaign donations, a powerful incumbent protection mechanism. They do not blush when they contend that transparency is all that is…
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The Board of Education Should Investigate “Privilege Bingo” at FCPS
by James C. Sherlock Hard to sweep this under the rug. Pat Herrity of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors yesterday released on his Twitter account this picture of a teaching aid used in a Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) classroom. There is no indication yet of the grades in which “privilege Bingo” is being…
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Are School Grades Misleading Parents?
by James C. Sherlock Virtually all parents pay close attention to their children’s report cards. That is, however, a fruitless exercise if the grades do not reflect actual learning. I spoke the other day to a senior school official who related to me his own story. One of his children, a second grader, brought home…
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Hearing Footsteps in Loudoun County Public Schools Administration
by James C. Sherlock Word has made it to the Loudoun County Public Schools Board that the new Attorney General is coming to investigate. Something about the handling by the administration of rapes in two different schools by the same male student. And not properly reporting the first one. Seems that not only responsible leadership…
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The Road to Hell in Virginia Telemedicine
by James C. Sherlock The road to hell really is paved with good intentions. The current Virginia State Telehealth Plan was published just less than a year ago. The purpose of the Plan is to promote an integrated approach to the introduction and use of telehealth services in the Commonwealth of Virginia. In 2020, the…
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An Unmistakeable Odor of Corruption
by James C. Sherlock The data offered by the Virginia Public Access Project in Money in Politics have long left a perception that privileged access to Virginia elected officials is for sale. Perception matches reality. It is for sale. No one denies that: a republican form of government is based on a rough equality of…
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General Assembly Education Bills of Interest in 2022
by James C. Sherlock I have reviewed the bills on the subject of education filed in this session of the General Assembly. Interesting and important legislation there, no question. As you might expect, most of the high profile legislation was filed in the newly Republican House. I am listing only highlights here. I have not…
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Youngkin’s Reform Goals Threatened by the Board of Education
by James C. Sherlock Jim Bacon yesterday was relatively pessimistic about the prospects of Governor Youngkin and his administration rolling back regulations. The number of regulations not mandated by federal or state law is miniscule. A mandate in law is not the only test of a regulation. The current Virginia Board of Education’s regulations have…
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Loudoun County Public Schools Bravely Faces Its Past
by James C. Sherlock The Loudoun Times-Mirror has run a story headlined, “Report detailing LCPS’ handling of sexual assaults complete; Title IX coordinator replaced.” “Replaced” in this case does not mean the official was fired. The official in question is still chief of staff. The Title IX assignment was kicked down the food chain to…
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Government Attacks on Parental Choice in Virtual K-12 Education in Virginia. Chapter 7: Recommendations
by James C. Sherlock Recommendations. Where to begin? First things first. Day one, as Governor-elect Youngkin likes to say… Stop the continued expansion of Virtual Virginia. We know hardly anything about it, and what we do know is not encouraging. We don’t have Virtual Virginia kids’ SOL scores; We do have parental survey data that have…
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Government Attacks on Parental Choice in Virtual K-12 Education in Virginia. Chapter 6: The State Experiments with the Educations of More than 12,000 Children
by James C. Sherlock If parents asked their local schools for a full-time virtual K-12 (FTVK12) option for this school year, they were presented with only the VDOE option, Virtual Virginia, unless their district runs such a program itself, as a couple of them do. Virtual Virginia is, thus, nearly the only virtual education option offered…
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Government Attacks on Parental Choice in Virtual K-12 Education in Virginia. Chapter 5: Driving Out Commercial Providers
by James C. Sherlock There was plenty of VDOE-computed “capacity” in Richmond Public Schools (RPS) to accommodate out-of-district students for purposes of their being taught by the leading MOP provider. (MOP’s are the privately-run, state-funded “Multidivision Online Providers” of educational services which are a legal option for parents of Virginia school kids.) Then RPS suddenly…
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Government Attacks on Parental Choice in Virtual K-12 Education in Virginia. Chapter 4: Demand and Supply
by James C. Sherlock The demonstrated demand this school year for publicly-funded full-time virtual K-12 (FTVK12) education in Virginia has been about 17,000 kids. That figure does not include the home-schooled kids ineligible for public funding support, discussed below. While that is a big number, it represents less than 1.5% of the 1,251,970 kids …
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Government Attacks K-12 Public Education in Virginia – Chapter 3: The Elusive Costs of the Government Option
by James C. Sherlock The publicly funded competitors to VDOE-run Virtual Virginia provide VDOE-approved curricula and courses delivered by VDOE-certified teachers employed by highly experienced and nationally prominent companies regulated by VDOE. You get the point: VDOE oversees its competitors. And it knows what they are paid by the government. My very rough estimates indicate that a full-time,…
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Government Attacks K-12 Public Education in Virginia – Chapter 2: The Regulatory State
by James C. Sherlock The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) both runs its own virtual school and regulates that school’s competitors. The Virginia way. Mark Zuckerberg can only dream. Virginia’s privately run, state-funded, multidivision online providers (MOPs) constitute the major competitors to VDOE’s own Virtual Virginia, its state-run virtual school. Virginia law positions MOPs as…