Category: Children and Families
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Northam Gets an Earful on Marijuana Legalization Bill
by D.J. Rippert Slow burn. The General Assembly passed marijuana legislation and sent it to the governor to sign. However, almost nobody seems satisfied with the bill as it is written. Now Governor Ralph Northam must decide whether to sign the bill, veto the bill, or ask for the bill to be amended. As he…
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Private Sector Screws Up Vaccine Dispersal
By Peter Galuszka For more than a year, there has been a stream of criticism of government handling of the COVID vaccine. On this blog, there has been a relentless pounding of Gov. Ralph Northam for his role in trying to navigate the pandemic that has so far killed more than 500,000 Americans. This is…
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Holding Richmond Public Schools Accountable — Part I
by James C. Sherlock We have discussed here the failures of the City of Richmond Public Schools (RPS) in educating its economically disadvantaged children, as well as the abysmal performance of Black children in its schools. I intend to help readers understand how it manages to fail repeatedly even with major federal funding as…
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Richmond Schools Discover that the Shutdown Magnifies Mental Illness
by James A. Bacon The downside of the COVID-19 school lockdown has become fully apparent to Richmond Public School officials. Richmond schools are experiencing an “alarming surge” in mental health issues — depression, self-harm, and suicidal ideation — among the district’s 21,000 students in depression, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The impact of social isolation, fear…
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How Big a Problem Is Sexual Victimization of Children in Juvenile Facilities?
by James A. Bacon According to the late 2018 National Survey of Youth in Custody, an estimated 7.1% of youth held in juvenile facilities reported being “sexually victimized” during the previous 12 months. The good news, such as is it, was that the percentage for Virginia youth was somewhat lower: 5.1% (subject to a fairly…
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The Lies in “Hillbilly Elegy”
By Peter Galuszka A 2016 memoir by J.D. Vance, a former Ohio resident, drew praise from conservatives for its laud of self-reliance and disciple and criticism from others for its long string of debunked clichés about people from the Central Appalachians. The book, “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,”…
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The Pick-Your-Expert Game, Virginia Schools Division
by James C. Sherlock A story by Dana Goldstein published in the New York Times on June 30, 2020, illustrates America’s new favorite parlor game: Pick your expert. This essay is hereby entered in the Virginia schools division of the bigger game. Ms. Goldstein wrote: “The American Academy of Pediatrics has a reputation as conservative…
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Black Georgia Professor, UVa Ed School Teachers Conference Keynoter, Trashes Brown v. Board and Offers Return to Segregated Schools
We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina Love (2019) Reviewed by James C. Sherlock Background and Introduction I became interested in reviewing this book when I watched Dr. Bettina Love, as Associate Professor of Education at the University of Georgia, speak at a seminar for…
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Virginia’s Worst Public Schools and Districts for Black Children
by James C. Sherlock I have competed a study of Virginia’s worst-performing schools in the education of black children. The results presented in this essay represent a scandal of the first order and demand explanations, both from the school boards and the Virginia Department of Education. In my next post I will review two books…
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Virginia Needs to Stop Playing Politics with School Reopenings
by DJ Rippert Politics over science. Michael Hartney is a national fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and an assistant professor of political science at Boston College. He and a collaborator have studied school reopening decisions across the United States looking for factors that correlate with the seemingly arbitrary differences in school reopening policies…
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Elmer Gantry In Lynchburg
By Peter Galuszka The resignation of Jerry Falwell Jr. amid a series of scandals may have a strong impact in Virginia where his late father built an extraordinary, ultra-conservative evangelical university in Lynchburg that later became highly politicized lightning rod supporting President Donald Trump. Falwell has been caught up in a number of controversies including…
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Reform K-12 Education to Increase Diversity in Virginia’s Colleges — and in Life
by James C. Sherlock Much is appropriately made of the relative lack of diversity in Virginia’s state-supported colleges and universities. Some trace that exclusively to racial discrimination. My research indicates it may also reflect the educational disadvantages of being poor. Here I will offer a path to begin to fix both. I have researched and written…
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Virginia Educational Reform – Place, Class, Race — Or All Three?
by James C. Sherlock I am an optimist by nature. Optimism wins elections, and optimism can bring about democratic change. Governments at their most basic level are created by people to protect themselves from outsiders and to minimize conflicts within their own ranks. From a condo association to Congress, that is a core role. …
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Systemic Racism? What’s That?
By Peter Galuszka At Bacon’s Rebellion there’s a constant, grating mantra debunking the concept that the U.S. has a serious problem with “Institutional” or “Systemic” Racism. Slavery? Jim Crow? Irrelevant! We’re treated to commentary after commentary that Blacks just need to try harder. They are lazy. They do not support family values. They get too…
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Back to School?
by James C. Sherlock Remote learning leaves behind the poorest children. Please check the map above for a state near you.