Category: Governance
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Government Actors Try to Deflect, Deny and “Move On” from Failures During COVID
by James C. Sherlock The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is in full self-defense mode. CDC and the left backed, indeed insisted, upon social isolation during the pandemic. Now they deflect and deny agency in the consequences. They continue to try to insulate themselves from the catastrophic educational and mental health effects on…
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RVA 5×5: Needed Resources for Human Resources
by Jon Baliles Last week we had a story about a glut of open positions at Richmond’s City Hall and the difficulty in filling them. Lo and behold, the Richmond Free Press this week put out an article about the struggle to fill positions as the department responsible for filling those positions (Human Resources, aka…
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Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Virginia Public Schools – Dangerous Children’s Services Act Changes Proposed
by James C. Sherlock One of the key elements of state and local efforts to support children with behavioral health, educational disabilities, and other challenges is the Children’s Services Act (CSA) (the Act). In education, its primary role has been paying for placement of children and youth with educational disabilities into private special education schools (PSES).…
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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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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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Push to Return Federal Workers to Offices – Monsoon or Squall in Northern Virginia
By James C. Sherlock The federal government has for nearly three years been paying very expensive leases for D.C area office buildings that are virtually empty. COVID emergency. Or was. Now it is a battle between the comfort of federal employees with working from wherever they can get a good network connection vs. actually showing…
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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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RVA 5×5: State of The City – What The People Think
by Jon Baliles There is a little-known part of Richmond’s City Code that requires the City Auditor to produce a “Services, Efforts, and Accomplishments” (SEA) Report by conducting a thorough poll/survey of Richmond residents to see what they think about the level of service and performance and deliverability of City government. In other words, it’s…
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The Box and the Snowball
by Joe Fitzgerald There’s a box, and there’s a snowball. The box is the support of the Bluestone Town Center. It is a well-constructed but beautifully decorated box, built on strong buzzwords. Affordable Housing, and Climate Change, and Dense Development are the shiny wrapping on this gift. The snowball of opposition rolling toward City Hall…
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Miyares Reminds Republicans the Difference a Year Makes
by Shaun Kenney If Virginia Republicans needed a sizzle reel, this was it. With news that leftist Commonwealth Attorneys are openly refusing to enforce the law in some cases, the threat to the rule of law and the problem of selective enforcement is greater now than ever before. Which is why a long list of…
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Virginia Medically Underserved Areas for General Assembly Consideration
by James C. Sherlock We have a new General Assembly session. With that comes lots of healthcare bills. I will not examine each one, but I have a suggestion for criteria to be applied by the Senate and House committees that do. Ask yourselves how, if at all, each bill helps the federally designated medically…
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McKinsey & Company Has You Covered
by James C. Sherlock Ever feel not only disconnected from, but ignored by central planners? Do you run a shoe store in Sterling or work for a hospital in Richmond? Use natural gas in your home or work? Teach in a public school in Wise County? Drive a gas-or diesel-powered vehicle? In other words, do…
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Bob Good’s Not-So-Excellent Adventure
by James C. Sherlock Republican Rep. Bob Good (R-Va), who represents Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District, got his five minutes of fame. Yesterday he was given a tree with which to hang himself on The New York Times editorial page. His op-ed contained statements that Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Tx) called “stupid platitudes that some consultant told…
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Democrats Want to Raise Youngkin-Proposed Mental Health Budget Increase
by James C. Sherlock There is fundamental agreement in Richmond over mental health services. From the Richmond Times-Dispatch: Virginia’s forecasts of long-term budget surpluses mean this year’s General Assembly has a chance to catch up with years of under-funding Virginia schools and the state’s behavioral health system, General Assembly Democrats say. To govern is to…
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Preparing for the Costs to Government of Virginia’s Generation COVID
by James C. Sherlock To justify her insistence on keeping schools closed, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in February of 2021, “kids are resilient and kids will recover.” She brought that same message to Virginia. In one of the strangest choices in Virginia political history, Terry McAuliffe brought Weingarten…