I remember how it was -- JR
Glenn Youngkin Keeps Getting More Popular, As Virginians Want Him to Keep Addressing Education
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) has increasingly found himself in the news, especially recently when it comes to calling on Attorney General Jason Miyares, also a Republican to use his authority to investigate Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ) for reportedly withholding merit scholarship notifications until it was too late. Youngkin is once more in the news, as a majority of Virginians support his involvement and want to see him take action on the education issue, among others. This is according to a recently-released poll conducted last month by the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University.
The poll found that 53 percent of Virginia adults want to see Youngkin intervene on education, as well as inflation and crime when it comes to the 2023 General Assembly session, which will convene next Wednesday, January 11.
Another takeaway from the poll is that a majority of Virginians also overall approve of Youngkin's performance, and it's not even close. Fifty-two percent approve, while just 32 percent disapprove. This is an improvement from the governor's numbers from that same poll in July 2022, when 49 percent of Virginians approved of Youngkin and 38 percent disapproved.
The poll also contains other particularly noteworthy points when it comes to the major issue of education. This is specially in that there is agreement among black respondents and Republicans, which are demographics often not grouped together:
More than 4 in 10 Virginians believe school-aged students in their community are still falling behind their peers in other states in reading and math proficiency. Over 35% of respondents believe school-aged children are on track or ahead in reading and math proficiency compared to their peers in other states. Political affiliation, race and age had the strongest impact on views of educational performance. Republicans, African Americans and those 35-54 years old believe children are falling behind in math and reading, while Democrats, Hispanics and those 18-34 years old think that children are ahead or on track in math and reading proficiency compared to peers in other states.
The poll was conducted December 3-16, 2022 with 807 adult Virginia respondents. The margin of error is at 6.02 percentage points.
Even before taking office, Youngkin made it an issue on the campaign trail to prioritize education, including when it comes to raising standards. Exit polls from the November 2021 gubernatorial election, during which the governor beat former Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA), showed that Youngkin handily won on the education issue. On his first day in office, January 15, 2022, Youngkin also issued several executive orders on education.
Sadly, those concerned about education and that school-aged students in the commonwealth are falling behind have reason to be. A press release from the governor's office from late last October pointed to how data from the Nation's Report Card (NAEP) revealed that Virginia saw the largest declines in reading and math in the nation.
"Since 2017, fourth graders in Virginia suffered the largest declines in reading and math in the nation on the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). For the first time in 30 years, Virginia’s 4th grade students have fallen below the national average in reading and are barely above the national average in math. The average scores of the Commonwealth's eighth graders also dropped, with statistically significant declines in both reading and math," the Youngkin press release summarized.
Also included was a statement from the governor.
"The NAEP results are another loud wake-up call: our nation’s children have experienced catastrophic learning loss, and Virginia’s students are among the hardest hit, he said. "Every parent in Virginia is now acutely aware that when my predecessors lowered educational standards, those lowered expectations were met. Virginia’s children bear the brunt of these misguided decisions. These actions were compounded by keeping children out of school for extended and unnecessary periods. Virginia may lose a generation of children—particularly among our most in need. We are redoubling our Commitment to Virginians, to prevent us from losing a generation, with additional steps to ensure that all children in Virginia have the tools and support structure to get back on track."
The press release reminded that the governor's office released "Our Commitment to Virginia's Children," which emphasizes action items such as:
Action 1: Raise the Floor and the Ceiling
Action 2: Empower Parents with Emergency Support for Students
Action 3: Launch Tutoring Partnerships
Action 4: Hold Ourselves and Our Schools Accountable
Action 5: Strengthen Virginia’s Teacher Pipeline
Action 6: Provide Parents, Students, and Teachers with Actionable Information
Action 7: Challenge School Divisions to Spend Nearly $2 Billion in Remaining Federal K-12 Funds on Learning Recovery
Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, also a Republican, has likewise made education and improving standards a high priority. A statement of hers doubled down on the demand to raise standards as well as to involve parents.
"Our children are depending on us to make good choices for their future and that’s why I continue to join with the Governor and parents across the Commonwealth, demanding that our board of education put students first, set high standards, and require accountability from everyone. I fully support Governor Youngkin’s plans to bring a quality public school system back to Virginia," her statement read in part.
On parents rights, she made clear that "I join parents in demanding that parental rights not be abused. Parents have a ‘fundamental right to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education, and care of the parent’s child.’ I will continue to work to ensure that every child has options, regardless of zip code, so that they may have a hope and a future!"
Miyares on Wednesday answered that call during a press briefing that not only announced an investigation into TJ for such a reason, but another investigation based on their admission policies.
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A New Harvard Hero
Congratulations to Harvard University and the dean of its school of government, Douglas Elmendorf, for not awarding a proposed fellowship to the ex-head of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth. To have made Mr. Roth a fellow would have aligned the school with those hostile to the Jewish state and thus Jews more generally. Too, it would have been an affront to the memory of the president for whom the school is named, John F. Kennedy.
Mr. Elmendorf has taken criticism for his practice of running a tight ship on personnel. A former governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, withdrew from a fellowship amid student complaints about how he handled the drinking water crisis at Flint. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik was removed from an advisory committee for what Mr. Elmendorf considered inaccurate statements. Even JFK’s own daughter, Caroline, quit in a quarrel with Mr. Elmendorf.
We could argue those cases round or we could argue them flat, but they are context for understanding the Kennedy School’s apparent decision in the case of Mr. Roth. It turns out that instead of a kind of leftist or Democratic partisan, Mr. Elmendorf is starting to come into focus as a dean prepared to enforce the principles for which he wants the school he leads to stand. Mr. Roth certainly isn’t the first person who failed to meet Harvard’s standards.
We have had our innings with Mr. Roth going back at least to 2006, when Human Rights Watch wheeled on Israel in the middle of Hezbollah’s war against the Jewish state. More recently Mr. Roth has been most well known for pushing the claim that Israel is an apartheid state. Even honest liberals — Nicholas Kristof of the Times comes to mind — call the claim false. Bret Stephens wrote in 2019 against the “comparison of Israel to apartheid South Africa.”
In January, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, called the application of the term to Israel “both offensive & wildly inaccurate.” That touches on Harvard’s very motto, Veritas, which dates back to 1643. There are additional institutional aspirations — to civil discourse, to diversity, inclusion, and belonging, and to avoidance of bigotry. Mr. Roth’s record also is sorely lacking on those fronts.
These values are important to advancing the university’s missions. Yet Mr. Roth’s reaction to the situation was a Twitter tantrum blaming Israel for “repression of Palestinians” and suggesting his failure to get a fellowship at Harvard owes to pressure from Jewish donors. Mr. Roth’s reaction itself confirms that Harvard’s decision to award him a fellowship was the correct move. Apparently he’s been taken on at the University of Pennsylvania, instead.
As for the new hero, Dean Elmendorf, let’s hope that Harvard’s incoming president, Claudine Gay, seeks him out for advice on how to turn things around at the university recently ranked worst in the nation on three measures of campus antisemitism, and where the Jewish undergraduate population has reportedly plummeted to below the level at which President Lowell in the early 20th century sought to cap the then-operating formal quotas against Jews.
Which brings us back to John Kennedy. In 1960, JFK gave a speech to American Zionists meeting in New York and spoke about his first visit to the land of Israel, in 1939. “There,” he said, “the neglect and ruin left by centuries of Ottoman misrule were slowly being transformed by miracles of labor and sacrifice.” It was, he said, “still a land of promise” rather than “a land of fulfillment.” He returned in 1951 to “see the grandeur of Israel.”
Kennedy went on at great length in one of the most extraordinary paeans to Israel ever delivered by an American leader. “I left with the conviction that the United Nations may have conferred on Israel the credentials of nationhood; but its own idealism and courage, its own sacrifice and generosity, had earned the credentials of immortality.” It’s a perfect kind of optimism for a school named after John F. Kennedy.
https://www.nysun.com/article/a-new-harvard-hero
****************************************************Proposed Student Loan Rule Is Costly and Flawed
Today, the Department of Education released a proposed rule to create a new and highly problematic income-driven repayment (IDR) plan for federal student loans. The Administration estimated their IDR plan will cost $138 billion; we believe it could cost much more if behavioral effects are more fully incorporated. Assuming the courts find the debt cancellation proposal to be legal, this means the President’s student debt proposals and actions since August 2022 would increase deficits by at least $600 billion over a decade.
The IDR plan would also drive-up tuition costs, expand student debt borrowing, encourage enrollment in low-value degrees, help many financially stable households avoid paying back their debt, and provide huge windfalls to doctors, lawyers, and other borrowers with large balances and high expected lifetime income.
The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:
Between the IDR changes, the extended pause and blanket cancellation, it now looks like the Biden Administration’s student debt proposals could cost $600 billion, or perhaps even more. This is not what the economy or the budget needs right now.
In addition to worsening deficits, the Administration’s student debt plan will stoke more inflation, increase recession risk, raise the cost of college, and deliver costly benefits to highly educated households who will be – or already are – near the top of the income spectrum.
Today’s IDR rule risks transforming the student loan system into an arbitrary grant program that creates more confusion than cohesion and establishes a series of perverse incentives that lead students to take out large sums of debt and colleges to charge increasingly exorbitant tuitions. Doctors, lawyers, and other high-income professionals will benefit by much of their interest payments being cancelled early in their career.
The idea of strengthening and reforming the IDR program is a good one, but the specifics of this proposal are a costly mess.
The Administration should abandon their unilateral effort to remake higher education financing, and instead work with Congress on a thoughtful package of reforms that truly address college costs and value. At minimum, they should dramatically scale back and improve their new proposal, for example by limiting all changes to undergraduates and re-thinking interest cancellation rules. They should also ensure the rule as a whole is fully paid for, so as not to worsen the national debt.
With inflation at a 40-year high and debt approaching record levels, it is governing malpractice to continue adding to deficits – especially by executive fiat.
https://www.crfb.org/press-releases/proposed-student-loan-rule-costly-and-flawed
***********************************My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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