by Todd Truitt
Northern Virginia school districts have settled on their latest attempt to avoid greater transparency: asking the Virginia legislature to “delay” the implementation of the new school accountability system by an additional year, claiming the new system’s 3-year development and implementation period is “rushed.”
The effect of this request would be to push the full implementation until fall 2026, after a new governor and legislature will have taken office. One of the districts’ legislative directors publicly “suggested that an all-out battle to overturn the new rules was less likely to win support in the General Assembly [this legislative session] than an effort to delay them.”
The districts likely hope to replicate the 2015 precedent of the repeal of an A-F accountability system by then-Governor Terry McAuliffe prior to its implementation following its 2013 enactment under his predecessor, Governor Bob McDonnell. (For clarification, the new system uses descriptive summative labels as advocated by civil rights organizations.)
When reached for comment, Virginia Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera said: “The new accountability system is about seeing every child, meeting every child where they are, and getting every child and school what they need to be successful.” She also pointed to the state’s recently released data showing what school scores would have been if the new system had been in place. Guidera contrasted such information vs. the old system’s under-identification of schools needing help, lack of practical data for the general community, and resulting negative impact on the civil rights of Virginia communities, parents and students.
