Category: Education (K-12)
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Judge Orders LCPS to Turn Over Investigation into the Assaults and Rape at Two County Schools
by Jeanine Martin Loudoun County Circuit Court Judge James P. Fischer has ordered Loudoun County Public Schools to turn over its internal investigation into the assaults and rape that occurred in 2021 at two Loudoun County high schools. The school system had argued that it was privileged information that they need not share with the…
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FIVE QUESTIONS: Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares
by Shaun Kenney Last week, TRS was able to sit down and talk with Virginia’s Attorney General Jason Miyares (R-VA) about the challenges he is facing from opioid and fentanyl abuse to the FBI Richmond’s targeting of Catholics in the public square. Miyares — a longstanding conservative in the tradition of Ronald Reagan and a…
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Dollars and Scholars
by John Butcher Table 15 in the 2022 Superintendent’s Annual Report includes the division expenditures per student for operations. Let’s juxtapose those data with the 2022 division Standards of Learning (SOL) pass rates. But first: Economically Disadvantaged (ED) students (those eligible for Free/Reduced Meals, receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families [TANF], eligible for Medicaid, or…
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Appeals Court Upholds TJHSST Admissions Policy
by Dick Hall-Sizemore For all the ink that has been used on this blog concerning the “illegal” and “unconstitutional” new admissions policy at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, here is a story that has strangely escaped comment here: the federal appeals court has upheld the policy. In a 2-1 decision, the…
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The Subversive Power of Doughnuts
by Steve Haner Let me get this straight. An elected member of the General Assembly comes to school buildings to give doughnuts to teachers in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week and the leftist Democrat agitators of the teachers’ union are “triggered”? They whine about her generosity to the gutless school management, which then caves to…
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The Virginia NAACP Has Proven Itself an Obstacle to Improving the Educations of Black Children in Virginia Public Schools
by James C. Sherlock I just read that the NAACP has issued a warning against traveling to Florida. Which must have come as a surprise to the 3.5 million Black citizens of that state. It did not surprise the NAACP board of directors chairman Leon W. Russell, who lives in the Tampa area. His defense:…
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Hey Norfolk: Do Kids Really Need Classes In Masturbation?
by Kerry Dougherty You might think that a mediocre school system where barely half of all schools are fully accredited would put all of its energy and money into academics. Oh, Bambi, you have no idea how public schools work, do you? Norfolk School Board – which oversees a division where just 57.1% of the…
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Increase Teacher Pay in Virginia to Meet Legislated Minimum Standard of National Average Compensation
by James C. Sherlock We have major teacher shortages in Virginia, and we need to address them to ensure not only quantity but quality. To do that we need to fund our legislated state goals of competitive teacher compensation. Code of Virginia § 22.1-289.1. Teacher compensation; biennial review required. It is a goal of the…
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Teachers’ Unions and Virginia Schools
by James C. Sherlock Virginia is a government union state. Because of the federal workforce in Northern Virginia, Virginia in 2021 had the third highest percentage of any state of government union members as a share of total union members at 64%. That is a higher percentage than Washington D.C. Of all employees in Virginia,…
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Does Virginia Beach School Board Care About Girls’ Sports?
by Kerry Dougherty If you live in Virginia Beach, I have some questions for you: Did you sit at home while the Bathrobe Brigade on the School Board fought to keep schools closed, long after we knew kids weren’t at risk from Covid-19? Did you watch on public access TV as the hysterical hypochondriacs of…
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Virginia Democrats – “Progressive for Who?”
by James C. Sherlock “Progressive for who?” That question was asked by Al Sharpton directly to a gathering of his supporters at a conference hosted by his National Action Network while flanked by Lori Lightfoot, Eric Adams and two other big city Democratic mayors. “Anybody that tells you they’re progressive but don’t care about dealing…
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Virginia’s New School Chief: Raise Standards, Fill Teacher Vacancies
by James A. Bacon Dr. Lisa Coons, Virginia’s new superintendent for public instruction, has been on the job for only two weeks, but she has clear priorities for reversing the slide in educational achievement in Virginia’s public schools: raise standards, get chronically absentee kids back into the classroom, and address teacher shortages. Recruited from her…
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Where are Virginia Colleges and Universities Headed with “Test Optional”
by James C. Sherlock The left despises standardized tests in schools. Teachers unions have fiercely opposed them for years as measures of accountability in K-12. Because SOLs, SATs and ACTS expose both good and bad educational results and measures of student growth over time; Colleges and universities oppose them because they interfere with diversity, equity…
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Washington Post Editorial Board is Pushing Back on Censorious Students. Finally
by James C. Sherlock After years of silence, The Washington Post editorialized yesterday that censorship of speech on America’s college campuses had gone too far. Better late than never. We welcome them to the fight. The Post does not note that too many students are arriving on college campuses as already-radicalized warriors of the left,…
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School Closures Resulted In Spike In Suicide Attempts Among Kids
by Kerry Dougherty How is it that those of us without fancy degrees from prestigious universities or medical training intuitively KNEW that the Covid-19 lockdowns and school closures would have a profoundly negative effect upon kids? I watched one of my nieces, who graduated from high school in 2021, spend her junior year at home,…