Virginia

Ethics Villains: Fairfax Virginia High Schools, And Why Isn’t The News Media Treating This As The Major Scandal It Is? [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Let’s start with a memorable quote from that eloquent villain, Auric Goldfinger: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.”

This is enemy action against motivated and talented students, responsible and trusting parents, and core American values. It should be reported as such and responded to with the vigor and relentlessness the attack warrants, but the news media is burying the story, because they are enemies as well.

Happenstance: My fault. I reported this story as the last item in the Ethics Alarms Christmas Eve ethics outrage collection, here, pretty much guaranteeing that even fewer people would see it than usual. It should have been a full post. I wrote,

City-Journal reports that at Thomas Jefferson High in Fairfax, Virginia, two administrators have been withholding notifications of National Merit awards from the school’s students awarded them, most of them Asian. This denied those students the chance to use those awards to boost their college-admission prospects and earn scholarships. The author believes that this was intentional, a part of “the school district’s new strategy of “equal outcomes for every student, without exception.” School administrators, for instance, have implemented an “equitable grading” policy that eliminates zeros, gives students a grade of 50 percent just for showing up, and assigns a cryptic code of “NTI” for assignments not turned in. It’s a race to the bottom.”The school’s leadership is acting as if it was just an oversight—for at least three years. Read the article. [Pointer: Mark Metcalf]

Well, hey, that’s just one DEI-obsessed principal, and she’s apologized and maybe will get fired, so all is well, right? Wrong:

Coincidence? The Fairfax Times reports that while Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Michelle Reid claimed the principal at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology withheld National Merit awards from students in a “one-time human error,” Langley High School Principal Kim Greer sent an email to parents apologizing for doing the same thing:

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Ethics Alarm! The Public School Political Indoctrination In Fairfax, Virginia Rates Two “Geenas”

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I know Geena has already appeared here recently, but Americans really should be afraid of this story out of Fairfax, Virginia, and be especially afraid as they consider how long such sinister brain-washing of our young has been going on. The incident has a lot more relevance to the elections next week than an isolated attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, which has none. If we had a responsible journalistic establishment in the country any more, there would be an uproar over such strategies aimed at public school students. As it is, only Fox News has bothered to cover the story at all, and not very well at that.

Fifth graders were assigned the task of critiquing an anti-gun, anti-Second Amendment, anti-NRA essay as part of a persuasive writing fifth-grade unit from the teachers’ aide, “Units of Study in Opinion, Information, and Narrative Writing.” The screed is a fake child’s essay, obviously written by an adult. The clear purpose of the exercise is not to develop critical thinking skills but rather to embed anti-gun beliefs in children too young to evaluate and resist them. Here is the essay:

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‘Fairfax County Paging Kimberly Reicks!’ As Schools Stealth-Install “Equity Grading”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

In the previous post, Ethics Alarms extolled appropriately-involved Iowa parent Kimberly Riecks as an Ethics Hero for getting in the faces of an irresponsible school board. Let’s hope there are some Kimberly Klones in Fairfax County, Virginia, my back yard, because internal Fairfax County Public Schools communications, obtained by local parents through a Freedom of Information Act request, show that officials have secretly implemented “equitable grading” at schools across the district.

[In the “Animal House” clip above, Otter represents public school administrators and Flounder stands for Fairfax County parents.]

“Equitable grading” is exactly what it sounds like. It is a progressive, social justice, crack-brained approach to education in pursuit of “antiracism” and to battle “institutional bias” despite there being no substantive research that supports such measures as anything but destructive to learning. The district’s officials denied the initiative when a suspicious parent inquired, but it has been proceeding in the shadows.

The Fairfax County District used federal coronavirus relief funds (hmmmmm..) to purchase a book for teachers titled “Grading for Equity: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How It Can Transform Schools and Classrooms,” though “equitable grading” has been creeping into classrooms since 2015. It picked up speed while the schools were shuttered due to Wuhan virus panic. “Equitable grading” removes grade penalties for late assignments and in class misconduct, and also allows students to retake tests and redo assignments, often on an unlimited basis. This is all a reaction to the continuing lag of minority students (except Asian-Americans—it’s a mystery!), especially blacks, in school achievement.

Since educators can’t figure out how to bring that group’s grades into the range of white students the old fashioned way–teach good study habits, hold them to high standards, recruit parents into providing a home culture conducive to learning and the love of it—the new approach, aka woke desperation, is to stop penalizing students for the counter-productive and toxic habits and behavior that have kept them failing.

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“Privilege Bingo”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Teachers at Oakton High School in he Fairfax County school district, Virginia’s largest, had students participating in a political indoctrination exercise dubbed “Privilege Bingo.” The idea was to convince students of the innate unfairness of an American society which bestows unearned advantages on white, middle class males, among others. The students were told to self-identify their “privilege” as, school administrators huminahumina-ed when caught CRT-handed, “an opportunity to reflect on their own experiences while building their critical thinking skills.”

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Incompetent Elected Official Of The Month: Republican Virginia House Of Delegates Member Wren Williams

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Williams is concerned about what Virginia children are taught in schools, so he introduced House Bill No 781, “relating to public elementary and secondary schools; student citizenship skills; certain instructional policies prohibited, parental rights; disclosures; penalties; other remedies.”

Among the provisions offered by the patriotic Virginian is approval of public schools teaching “the founding documents,” including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, excerpts from the Federalist Papers, the writings of the Founding Fathers and Alexis de Tocqueville’s“Democracy in America” and “the first debate between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.”

You know, the guy standing next to Abe here:

Wait: are you sure you have the right Douglass/ Douglas, Wren? Might it be this Douglas…

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Election Ethics In Northern Virginia [UPDATED!]

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Virginia Voting-

I just got back from voting. The Marshalls are lucky: we can see the school where our polling place is from our breakfast room window. And yet one of our neighbors, who could walk over to vote in less than 5 minutes, told me yesterday that he mailed in his ballot.

He also voted early. Early voting appeals to knee-jerk partisans, and encourages blind and ill-informed voting. That is especially true in contests like the Virginia Governor’s race, where Terry McAuliffe did or said something almost every day that further illustrated what a bottom-feeding example of the worst of American politics he is.

Yesterday, for example, McAuliffe lied outright (again) describing a Glenn Youngkin (his GOP opponent)-Trump event that didn’t exist. “Guess how Glenn Youngkin is finishing his campaign?” McAuliffe told the crowd at his final rally. “He is doing an event with Donald Trump here in Virginia!” No, Trump wasn’t in Virginia and he never campaigned with Youngkin, though McAuliffe spent the final weeks of the campaign pretending that the two were conjoined twins.

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Ethics Observations On The Lincoln Project “False Flag” Stunt In Charlottesville [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Lincoln Project Stunt

In case you missed it (or have a life and aren’t following the nauseating race for Governor in Virginia) five people holding tiki torches and pretending to be fans of the Charlottesville white supremacy group, Unite the Right, that sparked a riot in 2017 showed up to show their support for GOP gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin last week. The stunt was met with furious criticism of Youngkin’s opponent, Terry McAuliffe, who was presumed to be behind the incident, and why wouldn’t he be? As the slimy former Clinton fundraiser has slipped in the polls, his “ends justify the means” approach to politics (and life) has become especial pungent. However, the Never-Trump group The Lincoln Project came to McAuliffe’s rescue, claiming responsibility for the deception.

Hmmmm…

Yesterday one of the group’s co-founders, Stuart Stevens, refused to apologize for attempting to influence an election by deceiving voters. “Listen, every day I hear people pleading with the Lincoln Project to help show Democrats how to win, how to play hardball. You know, this is an example,” he said on CNN. “The question here is not about some guys who showed up at a rally,’ said Stevens. ‘It’s why hasn’t Glenn Youngkin denounced Donald Trump for saying that there are good people on both sides? I mean, that is absolutely outrageous. And it’s because Glenn Youngkin wants it both ways. And I think that’s the message that needs to be driven here. You know, the Lincoln Project was the first in this race to put Charlottesville in an ad. And some people thought maybe it went too far. But we did it. And it worked. And then McAuliffe’s campaign followed us and put Charlottesville in a very good ad they did. So I think the question here is, we can’t ignore what happened in Charlottesville, the question is why hasn’t Glenn Youngkin denounced Donald Trump?”

Meanwhile, the McAuliffe campaign pronounced the hoax “disgusting” and called on the Lincoln Project to apologize.

Ethics Observations:

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To Be Fair, The Fact That Virginia’s Democratic Candidate For Governor Is A Sleaze Isn’t News…[UPDATED!]

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

McAulifffe

In the last couple of hours, Fox News has been showing a copy of a misdirected email sent to Fox from the McAuliffe campaign asking recipients, news outlets all, to “kill” a story about revelations that the campaign has hired Mark Elias in the waning days of the race. Elias was previously a partner at the law firm Perkins Coie until his deep involvement in the Russian collusion hoax became an embarrassment to the firm, which worked for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. Elias was involved in bringing on Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on Donald Trump that included Christopher Steele’s dossier according to a recent Justice Department report.

It’s no surprise that Clinton’s lawyers would also gravitate to McAuliffe, since he was a Clinton henchman for years. Sending a “please kill this story” email to Fox News, the one large TV news source that wouldn’t kill a story that might embarrass McAuliffe, shows desperation and carelessness by the Democrat’s team. McAuliffe’s poll numbers are in freefall, with GOP hopeful Glenn Youngkin soaring in the past week, not because of any special virtues on his part, but because of one self-inflicted wound after another by his adversary.

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From The “I Don’t Understand This At All” Files…

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Dem classroom ad

The Glenn Youngkin campaign—he’s the Republican running for governor of Virginia–has been circulating this campaign sign for McAuliffe, endorsing the statement that the Democratic candidate made in a televised debate that has his poll numbers in a freefall. (What McAuliffe said was “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”)

Could this possibly be a Democratic party-approved sign? I wondered if it was a “false flag” by the Republicans. The message contradicts what McAuliffe has been saying in recent days about supporting active parental involvement in public school education.

If the sign is genuine, what kind of person would approve of such a message? It’s stunning what goes on in some classrooms, everything from child abuse to mis-instruction to indoctrination. Parents who don’t monitor how and what their children are taught are irresponsible and negligent; it’s as simple as that.

Could the Democrats in Virginia be this stupid? How is that possible?

Unethical? Uncivil? Unprofessional? I’m Not Sure What This Is, But I Am Sure No Competent Mayor Would Do It..

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

mayor_of_charlottesville_03-24-2021-1

Walker is the Mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia.

And they said Donald Trump posted inappropriate tweets…

After that delightful ditty was taken down by Facebook, the Honorable Mayor posted the whole poem, of which she is apparently proud, on Twitter:

mayor_of_charlottesville 2

Either she is having a nervous breakdown, of the citizens of Charlottesville are the most incompetent voters in the nation. I’m desperately searching to find another example of an elected official publicly announcing that he or she hates the city she has vowed to serve. It is a per se breach of loyalty and civic responsibility.

She is ethically obligated to resign. I’m sure she can support herself with her poetry…