Tag: James Sherlock
-
Budget Actions to Implement the Methods of the Nation’s Most Successful Educators of Poor, Minority and Special Needs Kids into Virginia Public Schools
by James C. Sherlock I am a graduate of the University of Virginia. I am not a proud one on this subject. I have just completed yet another review of the centers, labs and projects of the UVa School of Education and Human Development (ex-Curry School). The review highlighted two major issues. UVa’s School of…
-
Infrastructure Bill, Meet Richmond’s United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
by James C. Sherlock The President and members of Congress have celebrated the enactment of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act into law. In Virginia and the other states (Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia) of the federal Fourth Circuit, good luck with that. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit just published two…
-
COPN’s Regional Monopolies Helped Boost Virginia Hospitals’ Operating Margins to more than 3x National Median in 2020
by James C. Sherlock Virginians have been assured forever by the hospital lobby that the non-profit regional monopolies established and protected by COPN nearly everywhere but Richmond: are benign public servants with a charitable mission; certainly don’t drive up costs; that competition does not matter; that the State Medical Facilities Plan on which COPN is…
-
Virginia Penalties for Battery Against School and Healthcare Personnel are a Problem
by James C. Sherlock Virginia has a law that, having been amended piecemeal over the years, is inconsistent, inflexible and may not provide the protections that lawmakers or potential victims intended. The law is Code of Virginia § 18.2-57. Assault and battery; penalty. A member of the Fairfax County bar has reported that progressive Commonwealth’s Attorney…
-
Virginia is Facing a Citizen Revolt on Inflation-Driven Tax Increases
by James C. Sherlock Virginians must fund their local governments. It is not wise to chip away at local government revenue without an integrated plan to ensure they are funded to carry out the things we need them to do. However, two key ways in which we raise local revenue, property taxes and sales taxes,…
-
A Lesson for Virginia Democrats in California’s Failed Universal Healthcare Bill
by James C. Sherlock California is one of the five bluest states in the Union. Democrats have supermajorities in both houses of the state legislature and a sometimes-masked Democratic governor. It can’t pass single-payer healthcare. It has not even been able to get a bill to the floor of the Assembly (lower house). It failed…
-
School Discipline – a Big Debate with Big Consequences for Education
by James C. Sherlock Learning can only happen in an appropriate learning environment. How to establish and maintain that learning environment is one of the most consequential debates in public education. In a lot of schools in Virginia, what we are doing now is not working. Laura Meckler, writing in The Washington Post about a…
-
School Choice Can Help Poor Parents Quickly Improve the Education of their Kids
by James C. Sherlock The excellent education reporter Laura Meckler has written a terrific article in The Washington Post titled “Public education is facing a crisis of epic proportions“. Indeed. Test scores are down, and violence is up. Parents are screaming at school boards, and children are crying on the couches of social workers. Anger…
-
Virginia Papers Attack the Youngkin Administration on “News” Pages
by James C. Sherlock Read Saturday’s VaNews January 29, 2022, from the Virginia Public Access Project. It will provide you everything you need to assess how The Washington Post, Richmond Times Dispatch and Virginian-Pilot will cover the Youngkin administration. In their news sections.
-
HB 646 on Nursing Home Staffing Misses the Mark – So Does Its Fiscal Impact Statement
by James C. Sherlock There is a bill, HB 646, Nursing homes; standards of care and staff requirements, regulations in the General Assembly. I support its intent. As written it specifies minimum hours of direct care services for each resident per 24-hour period. In actuality, numbers of personnel required to provide the services depend upon the…
-
What Does Virginia Law Say About Commonwealth’s Attorney Decisions Not to Prosecute Entire Classes of Laws?
by James C. Sherlock I posed two questions in my last article. Can a Commonwealth’s Attorney (CA) decide to decline prosecution of an entire class of misdemeanors? If so, are there any constraints available in the law? By law and precedent the answer to both questions is yes. A CA has discretion in prosecuting misdemeanors.…
-
What Kind of Society Do Virginians Want? The Case of Fairfax County
by James C. Sherlock Yesterday I offered for consideration a lengthy list of misdemeanors that Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano in Fairfax County is declining to prosecute. I did that with a hope that the House of Delegates will amend and pass HB 1198. Today I am going to ask Virginians to consider in what type of society…
-
Some Virginia Senate Democrats Vote in Committee to Define Deviancy Down
by James C. Sherlock The primary obligation of government has always been to protect its populace from harm. That is the basis of the social contract. The people give up absolute individual liberty to achieve group safety. Necessary restrictions on government power started in English-speaking countries with the Magna Carta. In the United States Constitution they…
-
Richmond Fentanyl Deaths Reported by RTD. Next: Efforts to Arrest and Prosecute Local Dealers?
by James C. Sherlock Sometimes reporters commit errors of omission. Especially when a pet cause is threatened by the facts. Left-leaning newspapers, which include the large majority of such outlets, tend to write that an “SUV” ran down a crowd at a Christmas parade or that an “illegal gun” shot a cop. That removes personal…
-
Youngkin Backs Virginia Senate, House Bills that Offer Real Coastal Flood Protection
by James C. Sherlock Some of us, led by then-Delegate Jason Miyares, have been trying for years to establish a state authority that finally can bring regional storm surge protections to Virginia. Now we have a chance. For whatever reasons, we could never get a governor behind the proposal. Gov. Youngkin has stepped up and…