Category: Education (K-12)
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Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Virginia Public Schools – Telehealth
by James C. Sherlock Among the comments about my last article on this subject, a reader brought up my next topic — use of telemedicine for mental health support in schools. I am a believer in telemedicine to the degree the professions are; and to the degree that such practices are circumscribed by law in…
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Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Virginia Public Schools – Big Complications and Major Changes
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by James C. Sherlock Rebecca Aman, a member of the Newport News School Board, is frustrated. She told me in an interview that: Without sufficient discipline and access to clinical mental health services, behavioral intervention does not work to make schools safer and healthier. She believes that Newport News schools need to improve both discipline…
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Suparna Dutta: Ilhan Omar is ‘Completely Unaware’
by Asra Q. Nomani Awakening in the darkness of the predawn, brave Virginia mother Suparna Dutta spoke out on Fox and Friends First, challenging not only the hegemony of Democratic power over parents in Virginia but also the nation, as she fired back on not only Virginia Democrats who attacked her with the “white supremacist”…
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Woke Army Puts American Hindu Mom in its Crosshairs
Fairfax journalist Asra Q. Normani continues her remarkable reporting on the Virginia Senate’s refusal to endorse Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s nomination of Suparna Dutta to the state Board of Education. Dutta is a brave immigrant mother who has advocated for the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, democracy and meritocracy. Read all about it at Asra…
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Mental Health and Virginia Public Schools – Part 1 – Progressives, School Closures and Child Mental Health
By James C. Sherlock We have arrived today at a situation in which huge percentages of Virginia children and adolescents exhibit mental health problems. Both sides of the political divide acknowledge the problem. It’s existence is not up for debate. Both blame the soaring pediatric mental health issues, a problem before COVID, on COVID school…
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IEPs Are Not a License for Violent Behavior at School
by Kerry Dougherty It may be time to rethink the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which was signed into law in 1990 by then-President George H. W. Bush. If the late president had known that some school officials would use a wrinkle in this law to keep psychopaths in the classroom I wonder if…
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Fairfax SAT Scores Fall 27 Points Since 2018
by Arthur Purves When my wife and I were looking for a home in Fairfax County 50 years ago, we asked the real estate agent how the schools were. “Excellent!” she replied. But today? The Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) Oct. 5, 2022, press release on 2022 SAT scores shows that between 2018 and 2022…
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Where Is the VEA on School Safety?
by James A. Bacon Greetings from sunny Costa Rica, the well-run Central American nation that bears less resemblance these days to a banana republic than to the United States! Costa Rica dedicates some 7% of its GDP to education, according to Wikipedia, and its population is 97% literate, which, if you think about it, might…
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School Discipline – Part 5 – How and When Democrats Broke Virginia Public Schools
by James C. Sherlock We read earlier today that the eminent developmental theorist Urie Bronfenbrenner has written: The more we study human development, the more it becomes clear the family is the most powerful, most humane and, by far, the most economical way of making human beings human. That truth, however, does not account for…
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How Parents Can Take a Proactive Role in Their Child’s Education
by Timothy Rarick In Dr. Seuss’ classic book Horton Hatches the Egg, we are introduced to Mayzie, a lazy bird who is also an expectant mother. She loathes the work and responsibility that come with taking care of her developing baby within the egg. She eventually convinces Horton the elephant to take care of her…
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School Discipline in Virginia – Part 4 – The False Legend of PBIS Effectiveness
by James C. Sherlock To discover the origins of the legend that Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is effective, we have to dig into the interlocking government and ed school interest groups that fund and publish “studies” that validate their views. The goal of the ed schools is always to capture the attention, funding…
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Youngkin Wins Culture-War Skirmish Over History Standards
by James A. Bacon The State Board of Education (SBOE) voted 5 to 3 yesterday to accept the revised history and social science standards for the Standards of Learning, representing a victory for the Youngkin administration in a contentious debate over what Virginia students should be taught in K-12 schools. Various advocacy groups have criticized…
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Educational Expectations
by Matt Hurt Since the Region VII superintendents initiated the Comprehensive Instructional Program in 2014, we have annually identified our top five most successful teachers of our most at-risk students in each SOL-tested course. In their classes, at least 50 percent of students were economically disadvantaged, and they also had a significant number of students…
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School Discipline in Virginia – Part 3 — A Sharp Policy Turn to the Left after 2009
by James C. Sherlock Here is the information from a slide briefing to the Loudon County school board on February 6, 2013. “Experimentally.” The slide itself was actually produced in 2008 by pbis.org. It seems like a bad joke now, but that was how it was presented. Not a word about race there, but there surely…
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School Discipline in Virginia – Part 2 – Positive Options Trumped by a Race Card
by James C. Sherlock I have found both surprise and confusion among some readers when I use the term “valid studies” in discussing the avalanche of doctoral theses and studies produced annually by schools of education. The federal Institute for Educational Sciences established What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) in 2002 to sort the wheat from the…