Category: Government workers and pensions
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Assault and Battery in Schools – Virginia Law and School Division Policies Make “Marks” of Principals
by James C. Sherlock This is addressed directly to Virginia public school principals. You are compliant with current Virginia law whether you report assault and battery to police or do not. Bad law makes for bad policy. Depending upon your school division, your requirements may vary. A lot. In gambling, and this issue is a…
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Herbert Marcuse, “Repressive Tolerance,” and the Suppression of Debate
by James C. Sherlock There have been countless articles here on the tyranny of the left on Virginia college campuses. And nationwide. I need not summarize them here. But I think it useful on a weekend to consider the origins of that movement to better understand it. It did not spring up randomly, and it…
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Private Hospitals show Virginia’s State Hospitals, Colleges and Universities the Way to Efficiency
by James C. Sherlock We read far too often about funding “crises” in government institutions and programs. The general public, me included, would be far more attentive and sometimes supportive if government would follow the lead of private companies and continually right-size itself and emphasize customer-facing services. The health care industry — or rather the…
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What Do We Owe To and Expect from a Special Ed Teacher?
by James C. Sherlock On February 16, USA Today published a story by Jeanine Santucci. That is the latest in an excellent series of reports on the shooting of Newport News first grade teacher Abigail Zwerner. Her article, “Virginia 6-year-old who shot his teacher exposes flaws in how schools treat students with disabilities.” raises questions that Virginians…
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Richmond’s Skinny Budget: Low Stakes Poker, High Stakes Rhetoric
by Shaun Kenney Virginia’s General Assembly managed to pass the Richmond equivalent of a continuing resolution to fund the government until Senate Democrats and House Republicans can hammer out a compromise on corporate tax breaks. One will have to pardon me for not getting terribly wound up about tax breaks for corporations while small businesses…
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Unconstitutional Viewpoint Discrimination in Virginia K-12 Teacher Evaluation Standards
by James C. Sherlock Progressives, in the fullness of their dogma, oppose the entire Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is specifically structured to limit the powers of government, which progressives find not only unsuitable, but unimaginable. In the Golden Age of Progressivism in Virginia, 2020 and 2021, they controlled the governor’s mansion, the…
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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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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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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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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…
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Projected $312 Billion Cost of Lost Earnings of Virginia K-12 Students due to Pandemic School Closures
by James C. Sherlock Over $312 billion in present value. That is the estimate published by Stanford’s Eric A. Hanushek of expected economic losses attributable to Virginia’s pandemic school closures. Virginia students in the COVID cohort can expect on average 5.5 percent lower lifetime earnings. History indicates that the economic losses will be permanent unless the schools…
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City of Norfolk Allowed Its Animal Shelter Manager to Work Remotely. From Florida.
by Kerry Dougherty To those who argue that remote work is lovely and only Luddites believe people should actually show up in their workplace every day, I offer THIS as an extreme example of what can happen. The Virginian-Pilot reports that earlier this year some bonehead in the city of Norfolk gave the manager of…
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Status of Public Employee Collective Bargaining
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The Virginia Mercury has performed a service by compiling a list of the status of public employee bargaining in the Commonwealth. So far, eight jurisdictions have adopted ordinances authorizing collective bargaining agreements. There is activity in another six localities. “Activity” is defined as campaigns advocating collective bargaining agreements or local government officials…
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Bacon Bits: Your Tax Dollars at Work
The Big Dig ain’t got nothing on us. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) board has approved $250 million in additional funding to pay for cost overruns on Phase II of the Silver Line rail project, which, incidentally, was supposed to begin service in 2018, and Metro officials now hope will begin this fall. Fairfax…
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Help Wanted: 300 Full-Time Jobs. Must Be Willing to Go to Work every Day
by Kerry Dougherty Big headlines last week. Virginia state workers began an “exodus” when Governor Glenn Youngkin forced them to come back to work. Youngkin announced on May 5th that he expected state employees to return to the offices they vacated when COVID struck in March of 2020. The nerve! You could hear the howling…