Category: Education (K-12)
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COVID and the Racial Achievement Gap
by James A. Bacon Two weeks ago, before I so rudely interrupted myself by taking a vacation in North Carolina, I was engaged in an analysis of the latest Standards of Learning (SOL) test scores. As measured by pass rates, Virginia students statewide recovered much, but not all, of the ground they had lost during…
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Challenge Accepted
by James C. Sherlock I posted a column here based upon government data, specifically the chronic absentee rates of Fredericksburg schools in 2020-21. The data, not my reporting of it, have been challenged by multiple colleagues as unreliable. They expressed their belief that the data were such outliers that they must have been transcribed improperly…
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Schools of Education and DOE Regulations–A Closer Look
by Dick Hall-Sizemore I have long been skeptical of Virginia’s teacher licensure requirements in general and of education courses at colleges and universities, in particular. In this vein, I was eagerly anticipating Jim Sherlock’s series of articles on this blog about teacher licensure and those schools of education. I agree with one of his main…
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What Leadership Looks Like – Teacher Shortages, Learning Losses and Gov. Youngkin
by James C. Sherlock Sometimes you just have to let leaders speak for themselves. This is one of those times. Faced with critical teacher shortages and learning losses, I publish here the Governor’s Executive Order 3 and Bridging the Gap: Learning Loss Recovery Plan I don’t just congratulate the governor, but everyone involved, especially including…
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The Kids Are Not All Right
by Kerry Dougherty Remember when they told us students were “resilient”? Remember when they said kids didn’t need to see faces to learn? How about when they claimed remote learning was a fine substitute for in-person classes? Remember when they said those who wanted schools open were selfish, just wanted babysitters for their kids, or…
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Virginia’s Self-Perpetuating Schools of Education
by James C. Sherlock We are in the midst of a series of articles examining Virginia’s system of schools of education. In this one we will look at how the rules for licensure of teachers and other school staff have changed and impacted teacher education. Those answers are found in the laws of Virginia and in the…
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Regulatory Capture of the Board of Education by Virginia’s Schools of Education
By James C. Sherlock Virginia’s schools of education have for years captured Virginia’s oversight of their profession. With that power they have reinvented the entire nature of schools and the professional standards for the education and professional conduct of schoolteachers in the Commonwealth. In the process, they have brought both the schools and schoolteachers to…
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Virginia’s Schools of Education – Part 1 – Overview of the Upcoming Series
I had barely started a draft of a series on Virginia’s schools of education when it was inadvertently released Saturday. We took it down when we discovered the error. by James C. Sherlock People on both sides of the political divide have acknowledged enormous challenges to Virginia’s pre-K-12 public education system. Some of the problems…
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The Richmond Free Press and the Contrast with Other Progressive Outlets
by James C. Sherlock I celebrate the Richmond Free Press (RFP). I discovered that newspaper in a terrific article in Richmond Magazine in 2015. RFP calls itself a progressive newspaper. And it is. Black progressive. I find it sometimes, but not always, mirrors the views of the White progressives who dominate the national press. RFP staff reporters…
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“Stop with the Drama”
by Jon Baliles It’s hard to try and figure out where to begin to explain the special School Board meeting held earlier this week in the wake of the news that Richmond Public Schools’ SOL scores dropped dramatically. The state Department of Education released every district’s scores and in the wake of the pandemic, Richmond…
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Canceling Student Debt Accentuates the Class Divide
by Chris Saxman The big news of the week was President Biden’s announcement that he was canceling a lot of student higher education debt. #IsItLegal? Here are three non-judicial-branch reactions to the Biden plan: The Washington Post Ed Board: The loan-forgiveness decision is even worse. Widely canceling student loan debt is regressive. It takes money…
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About Those SOL Numbers….
Matt Hurt, director of the Comprehensive Instructional Program coalition of rural school districts, provided detailed feedback on a recent post, “School Districts’ COVID Recovery Varied Widely.” His comments contribute significantly to the discussion of the impact of COVID school closures in 2020-21 on Standards of Learning test scores in 2021-22, so, I republish them with…
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Taking Food From Needy Children to Advance the Trans Agenda
by Kerry Dougherty This ought to be the number one campaign issue in the U.S. right now: the Biden administration’s radical plan to starve the National School Lunch program unless states adopt far-left gender identity rules for schools that include allowing biological boys to compete in girls’ sports. This outrageous federal blackmail leaves states struggling…
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A Chance for Petersburg
by James C. Sherlock The Youngkin administration is doing an unalloyed good thing the exact right way. In partnership with two Democrats. The Governor, in an extraordinary joint presentation with his cabinet secretaries and Democratic Mayor Samuel Parham, laid out a plan for broad state help to Petersburg. Standing on the stage with Democratic State Senator…
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School Districts’ COVID Recovery Varied Widely
by James A. Bacon Statewide student performance in the Standards of Learning (SOL) exams regained some ground lost earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic, according to recently published Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) data. But not all school districts were equally resilient. In 2018-19, the year before the disruptive pandemic, 77.6% of Virginia public school students…