Category: Education (K-12)
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Uh, Oh, Fairfax Schools Are Updating Grading Standards
by James A. Bacon Fairfax County Public Schools, the largest school system in Virginia, has updated its grading standards in an effort to make them fairer and more consistent, reports The Washington Post. Among the more prominent features of the new system, students will be allowed to retake tests for full credit. In theory, the…
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The Battle Over African-American History
“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” — George Orwell by James A. Bacon The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) is working on revisions to an advanced-placement course on African-American history, and the forces of wokeness are agitating to preserve the ideological framework they wrote into the course…
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Another Learning Skill Abandoned
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Recently, I was listening to a story on NPR about the cyberattack of a company that provides software to auto dealerships across the country for managing sales and other services. This incident had significantly slowed activity in approximately 15,000 dealerships. Besides contemplating the implications of businesses in all parts of the country…
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Fissures in the Education-Industrial Complex
by James A. Bacon Virginia’s public-school districts are fracturing along the same lines of the culture war as the rest of American society. Four school districts have pulled out of the Virginia School Board Association (VSBA) on the grounds that the training and advocacy supplied by the 118-year-old organization does not reflect their values. The…
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Cell Phone Ban Working in Chesapeake
by James A. Bacon Chesapeake public schools banned cell phones and tablets in school for most of the school day and now report to The Virginian-Pilot that students are less disruptive and paying more attention in class. The rule enacted this year requires devices to be stored in a bag, locker or vehicle during school…
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Why Virginia Democrats Should Support the New School Accountability System
by Todd Truitt In 2021, Republican Glenn Youngkin was able to flip the education issue on Democrats to pull off a victory. In 2025, Democrats need to reclaim the education issue to flip the Governor’s mansion back. One way of doing that is by supporting the new statewide public school accountability system, which furthers core…
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Footloose Aaron Spence. Having Fun On Loudoun County’s Dime
Republished with permission from Kerry: Unemployed and Unedited. by Kerry Dougherty Let’s just admit it. Those of us who thought Aaron Spence was a disaster as Virginia Beach School Superintendent are experiencing a shameless bout of schadenfreude. Yep, we’re enjoying the misfortune of others. Those “others” would be Loudoun County parents and taxpayers. Aaron Spence…
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Shown the Door, Petersen Calls Out COVID Fascists
By Steve Haner Reading Chap Petersen’s biographical “Rebel,” it is pretty easy to understand why a year ago his fellow Democrats threw him out of office in a primary. In fact, the mystery is that he survived as long as he did. The book tells a history that many would like to ignore or actively…
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Factors Impacting Teacher Vacancies
by Matt Hurt Last week Jim Bacon published an article about the fact that our teacher vacancy rate problem is not all about salary, and I agree that other factors also contribute to this problem. Jim also posited that “It’s caused by teachers dropping out of the profession because they think their jobs suck,” and…
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Money Alone Won’t Solve Teacher Shortage
by James A. Bacon Virginia, like other states, is facing a teacher shortage. The debate over how to reverse the thinning of the ranks has been mind-bogglingly superficial. As a consequence, there is little prospect of solving it. The root of the problem is that the Virginia Education Association (VEA) and its ideological allies in…
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Ignoring FOIA?
by Joe Fitzgerald I’ve wondered since college, if not high school, what happens when a public body decides to just ignore the Freedom of Information Act. I don’t know if that’s what the Rockingham County School Board is doing right now, but if they are, the criticism might be just the cost of doing business.…
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Ban Cellphones in Schools? It Can be Done!
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Schools around the country, including in Virginia, are beginning to effectively ban students’ use of cellphones in schools. According to available data, about 75 percent of schools in the country ban the non-academic use of cellphones during school hours. However, in most cases, the ban is enforced sporadically. Teachers are put on…
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A Rejoinder on the TJ “Fall”
Before folks got carried away with sarcasm and “I told you so,” it would have been best to examine a few facts regarding the ranking by U.S. News and World Report of the Thomas Jefferson School for Science and Technology (TJ): The ranking fell to fifth last year. The data for that ranking pre-dated the…
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TJ High School Falls From 1st to 14th Place
Score a big victory for “equity.” The Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, ranked the top high school in the country by U.S. News & World Report two years ago, has fallen to 14th place, tweets the Coalition for TJ. TJ had been the center of an admissions controversy after progressives, who found…
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Some Rural Localities Hit With Big Jump in Local Composite Index
by Dick Hall-Sizemore For all those readers who complain that Northern Virginia gets screwed by state funding formulas, Dwight Yancey of Cardinal News has provided an eye-opening rejoinder. Many rural counties have been hit disproportionately hard by the new calculations for the local composite index used to determine the local share of the costs of…