Tag: James Sherlock
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Virginia Public Schools and Learning Losses – Part 1 – Winners and Losers
by James C. Sherlock This article is the first in a series about COVID-associated learning losses in Virginia public schools. The contribution I hope to make is to measure learning losses and correlating factors in each of 132 school divisions horizontally against its own pre-COVID learning assessment results. That is different than comparing Richmond to Falls…
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Education Schools Redux
by James C. Sherlock Dick Hall-Sizemore went to great lengths in an article to rebut one of my own. He attempted to disprove the two major assertions in my article: The ed schools have had control of education policy in the Commonwealth and nationally for a very long time. They have in the process made…
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Challenge Accepted
by James C. Sherlock I posted a column here based upon government data, specifically the chronic absentee rates of Fredericksburg schools in 2020-21. The data, not my reporting of it, have been challenged by multiple colleagues as unreliable. They expressed their belief that the data were such outliers that they must have been transcribed improperly…
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What Leadership Looks Like – Teacher Shortages, Learning Losses and Gov. Youngkin
by James C. Sherlock Sometimes you just have to let leaders speak for themselves. This is one of those times. Faced with critical teacher shortages and learning losses, I publish here the Governor’s Executive Order 3 and Bridging the Gap: Learning Loss Recovery Plan I don’t just congratulate the governor, but everyone involved, especially including…
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Virginia’s Self-Perpetuating Schools of Education
by James C. Sherlock We are in the midst of a series of articles examining Virginia’s system of schools of education. In this one we will look at how the rules for licensure of teachers and other school staff have changed and impacted teacher education. Those answers are found in the laws of Virginia and in the…
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Virginia’s Schools of Education – Part 1 – Overview of the Upcoming Series
I had barely started a draft of a series on Virginia’s schools of education when it was inadvertently released Saturday. We took it down when we discovered the error. by James C. Sherlock People on both sides of the political divide have acknowledged enormous challenges to Virginia’s pre-K-12 public education system. Some of the problems…
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The Richmond Free Press and the Contrast with Other Progressive Outlets
by James C. Sherlock I celebrate the Richmond Free Press (RFP). I discovered that newspaper in a terrific article in Richmond Magazine in 2015. RFP calls itself a progressive newspaper. And it is. Black progressive. I find it sometimes, but not always, mirrors the views of the White progressives who dominate the national press. RFP staff reporters…
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Virginia’s Teacher Shortages – Alternatives in Teacher Preparation and Recruitment
by James C. Sherlock There is much discussion of Virginia’s teacher shortages. They are traceable to lack of productivity in some combination of Virginia’s recruitment of its high school students to careers in teaching and its teacher preparation programs. Teacher recruitment starts with recruiting high schoolers to go into teaching. Virginia’s program for that is…
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Interview with Virginia’s Secretary of Health and Human Resources on Petersburg Health – Part 1
by James C. Sherlock I have written about the initiatives of the Youngkin Administration to help Petersburg improve the economic situation and quality of life in that city. Petersburg is last in education of children, last in health outcomes and factors, last in public safety. It is an economic basket case. The Youngkin administration and…
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A Chance for Petersburg
by James C. Sherlock The Youngkin administration is doing an unalloyed good thing the exact right way. In partnership with two Democrats. The Governor, in an extraordinary joint presentation with his cabinet secretaries and Democratic Mayor Samuel Parham, laid out a plan for broad state help to Petersburg. Standing on the stage with Democratic State Senator…
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U.K. Suit Demonstrates Legal Jeopardy for Virginia Child Transgender Clinics
by James C. Sherlock You knew it was coming. The Times of London has reported the inevitable lawsuit. Tavistock gender clinic ‘to be sued by 1,000 families’ The Tavistock gender clinic (now closed) is facing mass legal action from youngsters who claim they were rushed into taking life-altering puberty blockers. I have no idea if the…
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Welcome to Richmond, Mr. Kamras
by James C. Sherlock Richmond Mayor Stoney tweeted today urging the school board not to fire Superintendent Jason Kamras at the emergency board meeting tomorrow night. Which means, of course, that they plan to fire him. If they do, it will not be because of the terrible SOL scores. It will be because the Richmond…
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Virginia’s Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) for School Discipline – How is it Going?
by James C. Sherlock The means that Virginia has chosen to maintain classroom discipline, called Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), is controversial. That controversy exists within the federal Department of Education (DOEd). That organization’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has claimed for years that traditional methods of discipline are racist in outcomes and thus…
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The Left Never Rests (Part 3,783) – Vote Democratic
by James C. Sherlock We have a glimpse into the near future in Virginia. For those of my readers who thought that the left in the U.K. would sit still while the Cass Commission examines and reports on transgender care in Britain, think again. Some transgender activists oppose the requirement for a clinical diagnosis of…
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Schools Will Contribute to Suicides Under Current Virginia Transgender Student Guidelines
by James C. Sherlock Teen suicide is a major problem in America and Virginia. The Virginia Department of Health reported in 2021 that suicide is the second leading cause of death among Virginia’s youth. I have talked around but not about teen suicide in previous articles about transgender adolescents. A study published by the National Institutes of…