Tag: James Sherlock
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Use of Cross-Gender Hormones for Gender Transitions in Minors
by James C. Sherlock In the sometimes murky world of diagnosis and treatment of gender dysphoria in children and adolescents, the following steps generally but not always occur in order, with each potentially serving as an off-ramp: Diagnosis; Mental heath support; Social transition; Puberty blockers; Cross-gender hormones; and, Surgery; often but not always waiting for…
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“Puberty Blockers Are Wonderful” – UVa Children’s Hospital
by James C. Sherlock How do people communicate? Generally by words and visuals and, in person, with body language. The art and science of marketing and sales is one of the bulwarks of any economy — and any political system. My article on the hard selling of hormone treatments — puberty blockers and cross-gender use…
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Slick Selling of Child Gender Transitions at UVa Children’s Hospital
by James C. Sherlock The University of Virginia Children’s Hospital offers a Madison Avenue-quality sales pitch for child gender transition. As written and smoothly delivered, it deflects any reservation parents may have in supporting such transitions by telling them they have been misled or are being selfish or both. It helps parents decide by blaming…
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The Social Emotional Learning Establishment Seeks Progressive Reordering of Society
by James C. Sherlock Social emotional learning is based on a good idea. The underlying concept is to train adults (teachers and staff) in child psychology with a goal of shaping learning environments that optimize development of children to societal standards of behavior. To teach them how to act. The rub: who decides on the target…
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Some School Divisions Successfully Mitigated COVID Learning Losses in Math
by James C. Sherlock Congratulations are in order. Some school divisions, spread around the state, did a terrific job in mitigating mathematics learning losses during COVID. I picked math for its baseline importance in school and in life and the relative inability for students to advance in that subject without instruction, compared to reading and…
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Prioritize Joyful Teaching and Learning in Virginia Public Schools
by James C. Sherlock Sometimes things are so right in front of you that you look past them. I have been studying public education in Virginia for more than 15 years. The policy face of the teaching and learning is — there is no other word for it — depressing, at least to the degree…
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School Climate Surveys Better Indicators of Learning Climate than Current School Quality Profiles
by James C. Sherlock I spent some time yesterday discussing the Virginia Department of Education’s revisions to school climate surveys. If VDOE returns to the valid, older survey, results could be applied profitably to updating the Learning Climate section of the department’s School Quality Profiles. Right now, that section contains only historical artifacts of the…
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Political Damage to Primary Instruments of Improvement in Virginia Schools
by James C. Sherlock We need all the help we can get assessing Virginia schools and producing actionable information to make them better. The Standards of Learning exams show the results of poor learning, but do not identify actionable causes. Directed to choose an additional measure of school quality by the federal ESSA (Every…
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Abortions in Virginia – Data for the Debate
by James C. Sherlock With all of the controversy, it is useful to know the facts of what has been happening with abortions in Virginia. The Centers for Disease Control conducts abortion surveillance to document the number and characteristics of women obtaining legal induced abortions and the number of abortion-related deaths in the United States.…
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Virginia Model Policies on Protecting Students Show Differences in Constitutional Focus and Interpretation
by James C. Sherlock There is lots of interest, and not a little headline hyperbole, concerning the change in Virginia’s model policies designed to assure all children appropriate treatment at school. Two different world views are apparent in the titles: the Northam administration’s Model Policies for the Treatment of Transgender Students in Virginia’s Public Schools (Northam…
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Lessons from One of the Worst Middle Schools in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock I wrote last time about school climate surveys. Yawn. But perhaps not in this case. I am going to use the results of a 2019 climate survey of Fredericksburg’s only middle school, Walker-Grant, to make a point. The results of that survey of students and staff were absolutely brutal. Especially the…
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What is a Good School, How is One Measured and How do Poor Schools Improve?
by James C. Sherlock I wrote yesterday about the dumpster fires that were Fredericksburg Public Schools during and immediately after the pandemic. They completely fell apart. It is not clear how and whether the children, with whose well being, development and education those schools and their parents were charged, will ever recover from the experience.…
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Fredericksburg Schools Need a New Superintendent
by James C Sherlock Note: I took the unprecedented step of taking a column down ten days ago. I did so out of an abundance of caution in response to an outpouring of disbelief among colleagues and the readers about the 71% chronic absentee rate posted by Fredericksburg Public Schools in 2020-21. Many insisted the number…
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School Attendance Is a Right and an Equal Opportunity Issue
by James C. Sherlock I wrote a column yesterday on chronic absenteeism in Virginia’s schools. The article has generated confusion among some readers about the obligations of parents and those of the state in getting children to school. Some wonder if absenteeism is even the problem that the data say it is. And what about ……
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Virginia Public Schools and Learning Losses – Part 2 – Chronic Absenteeism
by James C. Sherlock Woody Allen is quoted as saying that seventy percent of success in life is showing up. So it is with school. Absenteeism is the most correctable scourge of Virginia public schools. It is not the teachers’ job to get the kids there. But unexcused absenteeism is something other adults can fix pretty…