Tag: James A. Bacon
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Three Strikes and You’re Out, Mr. Ryan
by James A. Bacon If University of Virginia President Jim Ryan wants to recruit more African-American students, faculty and staff to the university, here’s some advice: stop reinforcing racial paranoia. Stop lending legitimacy to the idea that Blacks at the University of Virginia are under threat. So far this semester, there have been three racial…
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Infographic of the Day: Where Virginia’s Immigrants Come From
One out of eight inhabitants of Virginia was born outside the United States, according to a post about Virginia’s foreign-born population published by the Virginia Public Access Project. The percentage is even higher in two congressional districts (CDs) with highly competitive races this year — 23.1% in CD 10, where Republican Hung Cao, the son…
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Dem Talking Points Emerge for Virginia’s Educational Meltdown
by James A. Bacon Democrats and the mainstream media were blindsided by the release of National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data last week showing that 4th graders in Virginia experienced the greatest decline in learning between 2017 and 2022 of any state in the union. I conjectured that the evidence was so conclusive that…
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The Youngkin Plan for Reversing Learning Loss
by James A. Bacon Now that the National Assessment for Educational Progress has provided irrefutable proof of the collapse in learning in Virginia schools over the past four years, the Youngkin administration can move on from the task of persuading Virginians that they have a problem to actually working the problem. The initiatives that caught…
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Opioid Epidemic Costs Virginians $3.5 Billion a Year
Over and above the lives it has destroyed, the opioid epidemic cost Virginia’s economy about $3.5 billion in 2020, according to data published by the Virginia Department of Health. The major costs calculated include lost labor, health care and crime. Mapping the costs by locality, the database shows per-capita costs ranging from $132 in Falls…
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Is It Still a Hate Crime If the Perp Was Protesting Pedophilia?
An Albemarle County man, Shane Dennis, has been charged with intimidation for placing a noose on the statue of Homer at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville news media are reporting. Dennis, who appeared for a bond hearing Tuesday in Albemarle County District Court, also has been charged with contempt of court for misbehaving in the…
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The Virginia Media’s Astonishing Response to the NAEP Scores
by James A. Bacon The release of National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores has hit Virginia’s mainstream media outlets like a backhand across the face. Presented undeniable evidence of a catastrophic decline in the educational performance of Virginia’s 4th- and 8th-graders by an impeccable and unbiased source, The Washington Post, Virginian-Pilot, Richmond Times-Dispatch and…
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A “Catastrophic” Collapse in Virginia Test Scores
by James A. Bacon The big news today from the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP), which administers a common test for all 50 states, is that student test scores nationally saw stunning declines in math and reading over the past two years. The drop in math scores was the biggest decline ever recorded for…
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Square Peg, Meet Round Hole
by James A. Bacon I love it when The New York Times tries to explain to its liberal and progressive readers what makes Republicans tick. Viewing the world through their woke lens of intersectional oppression, an article published yesterday concludes that the depravity of White Republican political views reflects their ignorance and racism. The Times…
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Racism at VMI? Not That This Hispanic Alum Ever Saw
Virginia Military Institute alumni share much of their correspondence with me. I can’t come close to publishing it all on this blog. But sometimes a letter illuminates aspects of the ongoing discussion about VMI’s future that have not yet made it into the public domain. The letter below comes from José J. Suárez, an Hispanic…
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Wins Defends LGBTQIA+ Performance Artist at VMI
The rhetorical battle at the Virginia Military Institute rages like the Bloody Angle in the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse. In this ongoing war of words, VMI Superintendent Cedric Wins is like the corps commander who wanders dangerously close to the battlefront. Rather than rely upon subalterns and proxies to speak for him, he has waded…
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Diversity Done Right… and Wrong
by James A. Bacon The drive to institutionalize Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in elite colleges and universities is profoundly destructive, according to presenters at a Friday conference of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA). Far from contributing to intellectual diversity, as it purports to do, DEI constrains free expression and free inquiry. It…
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Data of the Day: Lusting for Luxury Lifestyles
Virginia scores 8th nationally in the frequency of Google searches for “luxury,” “luxury cars,” “Luxury goods,” “luxury travel,” and “luxury apartments,” according to Chrono24, the maker of luxury watches. The fascination with luxury goods appears to be mainly an East Coast phenomenon, with New York topping the list. Lest you think that the metric of…
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At Last, an Educational Success Story!
by James A. Bacon A major theme of Bacon’s Rebellion is that governors and lawmakers should cease chasing chimera like “equity” and “social justice” and focus on programs that demonstrably improve peoples’ lives. The question we should be asking is, “What works?” One program that works, we are told by no less a left-of-center authority…
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Not Gilly Sullivan’s Alumni Association Anymore
by James A. Bacon Aiming to address the lamentable decline in state/local news coverage, States Newsroom supports local news operations in 29 states, including Virginia. As Jim Sherlock detailed here, the nonprofit organization was launched in 2017 by the left-of-center Hopewell Fund, which itself is managed by the left-of-center Arabella Advisors. Its Virginia Mercury digital…