A data warehousing project coming online in late 2012 will help Virginia lawmakers forge education policy based upon hard data instead of anecdote and ideology. Tod Massa is big man with big ideas. His goal is to build a “Longitudinal Data System” (LDS) that will track the progress of Virginians...
(Publisher’s Note: Dr. Schnare is the lead attorney in the UVA-Mann email case.) Recently, Nature Magazine published an editorial suggesting that “access to personal correspondence is a freedom too far” and that Michael Mann, whom they favorably compare to Galileo, should have his emails, written and received while he was...
Some analysts have started talking about the sluggish U.S. economic growth as the “new normal.” I have a hard time with that term. For one thing, “normal” is a relative term. What is normal in one environment is not in another. Based on history and the experience of other countries,...
11/9/2011 – Local school boards are understandably drooling over the possibility of getting out from under the poorly-devised accountability rules of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). That federal system has annually moved the “finish line” of educational success further and further down the field until, this year, 342 Virginia schools...
In 2010, Virginia became the 28th state to create a formal policy for the establishment of full-time multi-district virtual schools — online education through which students anywhere in the state are able to work full-time with their teachers and curriculum over the Internet, rather than in a traditional classroom. But...
I still have my notes from nine years ago. Speaking at a dinner meeting hosted by the Thomas Jefferson Institute, then-Virginia School Board President Mark Christie argued that “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) was doomed to failure. “No Child Left Behind requires that 100 percent – every student – meet...
It is long overdue for the Supreme Court to end these outrageous abuses by an out-of-control EPA and its unconstitutional violation of property rights through its so-called pre-enforcement actions…” That statement comes from a recent press release from the Mountain States Legal Foundation. This assertion is made along with the...
New, Safe & Small Reactors are Under Design Most of us have heard the recent news that Virginia is one of the best places to do business in the United States. But unless policymakers make a concerted effort to address the Commonwealth’s high energy needs in the next decade our...
Defined benefit (DB) plans now are part of the fiscal debate in many states and localities, and Virginia is no exception. Virginia has been a leader in responsible and innovative pension plan management. Yet, the retirement plan places a financial burden on the Commonwealth. After the 2010 valuation, VRS’s funding...
The Jefferson Journal: Fair Exchange: Waivers from NCLB for Stronger Teacher Evaluations
Local school boards are understandably drooling over the possibility of getting out from under the poorly-devised accountability rules of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). But it won’t be a free ride …
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