Tag: James Sherlock
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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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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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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…
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School Discipline in Virginia – Part 1 – PBIS
by James C. Sherlock Updated Feb 1 at 8:13:25 with a correction to IES assessment of PBIS. Newport News Schools first implemented Virginia Tiered Systems of Supports (VTSS) and its discipline component, Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), in the 2017-18 school year. That year Newport News Schools was in Cohort 3 of VDOE’s VTSS…
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Virginia Community Schools Redefined – Part 2 – Stop Trying to Provide Mental Health Services in School
by James C. Sherlock In Part 1 of this series I described the current Virginia Community School Framework (the Framework) and found it not only lacking, but counter-productive. Its basic flaw is that it assumes all services to school children will be provided in the schools by school employees, including mental health services. When you…
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Virginia Community Schools Redefined – Hubs for Government and Not-for-Profit Services in Inner Cities – Part 1 – the Current Framework
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in Attendance, Charity, Philanthropy, Nonprofits, Children and Families, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Culture wars, Discipline and Disorder, Education (K-12), Efficiency in Government, General Assembly, Health Care, Infrastructure, LGBQT, Mental illness and substance abuse, Political Influence, Poverty & income gap, Public safety & health, Social Services and Entitlements, Threat Assessmentby James C. Sherlock I believe a major approach to address both education and health care in Virginia’s inner cities is available if we will define it right and use it right. Community schools. One issue. Virginia’s official version of community schools, the Virginia Community School Framework, (the Framework) is fatally flawed. The approach successful elsewhere…
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Senate Privileges and Elections Committee Votes for Virginia to Remain an Oligarchy
by James C. Sherlock Oligarchy: a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution. The Privileges and Elections Committee of the Virginia Senate has voted down two bills by Senator Chap Petersen that would have restored some semblance of a democratic republic status to Virginia. Senate Bill 803 would have for…
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Another Price Virginia Pays for Certificate of Public Need – Mediocrity in Cancer Treatment
by James C. Sherlock In an article titled “60 hospitals and health systems with great oncology programs headed into 2023,” Becker’s Hospital Review gives us a glimpse of one of the greatest costs of Virginia’s decades-long Certificate of Public Need (COPN) program. The hospitals and health systems featured on this list have earned recognition nationally…
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Have Virginia Republican Elected Officials Given Up on Charter Schools?
by James C. Sherlock Two things we know: There is absolutely no question that charter schools run by successful charter management organizations (CMOS) are proven to be the most efficient and effective American public schools in instructing poor urban kids. There is also no question that many Democratic politicians, having eliminated any doubt about their…
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General Assembly Democrat Bill Supports Gender Transition at 16 Without Parental Consent
by James C. Sherlock I note that House Bill No. 2091, with Patrons Munden-King, Clark, Hope, Maldonado, Rasoul and Simon does two things: It modifies Code of Virginia § 20-124.6. Access to minor’s records to permit health care providers to deny a minor patient’s records to parents if, in the provider’s judgment, providing those records would be “reasonably…
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Virginia’s Four Largest Not-for-Profit Health Systems and Medically Underserved Areas Next to their Headquarters
by James C. Sherlock A challenge to Virginia’s largest not-for-profit health systems: just do it. Take the lead. Note the medically underserved areas (MUAs) next to your headquarters and flagship hospitals and provide primary care in those locations. Virginia has federally-designated MUAs in Arlandria (INOVA), Norfolk (Sentara), Roanoke (Carilion) and Lynchburg (Centra). Those health systems…
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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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Newport News Schools Making Changes After Shooting – But Not Enough Yet
by James C. Sherlock Better late than never. Truly. The Daily Press reported today that the Newport News school board has secured funding for state-of-the-art metal detectors. State-of-the-art means systems that can detect weapons without the long lines and delays we associate with such systems. As an example, a 125-year-old company, Kenton Brothers, offers Evolve…