Tag: SOLs
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SOL Scores: Post-Covid Recovery Still Incomplete
by John Butcher The 2025 SOL data are up on the VDOE Web site. This post looks at the statewide data. But First: VDOE reports pass rate averages for “economically disadvantaged” students (“ED” here, mostly those who qualify for free/reduced price meals), their more affluent peers (“Not ED”), and all students. ED students generally perform less well…
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An Overdue SOL Assessment Reform Bill
by Todd Truitt Virginia’s assessments for its Standards of Learning (SOL) could soon get a muchVirginia’s assessments for its Standards of Learning (SOL) will soon hopefully be getting a much-needed revamp. Senator Schuyler Van Valkenburg, D-Henrico County, and Delegate Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax County, have proposed a bill to significantly upgrade our assessment system. The bill…
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Waiting for NAEP
by Charles B. Pyle On December 18, the governing board of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NEAP) -– the battery of fourth- and eighth-grade exams in reading and math known as the Nation’s Report Card -– announced that the results of the 2024 tests will be released January 29, 2025. State-by-state NAEP results are…
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Performance Problems at TJ?
by John Butcher The excellent Jim Bacon recently posted two discussions (here and here) of a recent decline in the ranking of TJ (aka, Fairfax County’s Thomas Jefferson School for Science and Technology). The excellent Dick Hall-Sizemore has penned a rejoinder. Jim points out declines from 2019 (i.e. pre-pandemic) to 2024 in math and science SOL pass rates; and the change in percentage of…
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Why Is Fairfax Unhappy With the New K-12 Accountability System?
by James A. Bacon Fairfax County educators are dissatisfied with the Youngkin administration’s new accountability system for Virginia’s public schools. They are arguing that the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan, which goes into effect next year, will paint an inaccurate picture of how schools and students are performing, reports WTOP News. During a school…
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The Little School District That Could
by James A. Bacon Socioeconomic status is not academic destiny. To be sure, there is a strong correlation between the socioeconomic status of any given school district’s student body and the average level of academic achievement as measured in Virginia by the Standards of Learning (SOL) scores. But correlation is not causation. Do students in…
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Don’t Forget the Dismal History SOL Pass Rates
by Carol J. Bova As the battle rages over the History and Social Science (HSS) Standards of Learning criteria — the State Board of Education decided earlier this month to delay its review of Youngkin administration revisions — it is worth noting how poorly Virginia students mastered the old standards. More than one-third of Virginia…
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Board of Education: Stick to Your Guns!
by James A. Bacon The Youngkin administration’s proposed revisions to the history and social-science Standards of Learning have run into a buzz saw of opposition from critics who claim the standards aren’t, for lack of a better word, “woke” enough. As The Washington Post summarizes the changes: “The new proposed version generally places less less…
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Lame Responses to Youngkin’s History SOL Standards
by James A. Bacon The Youngkin administration has laid out the thinking behind its revisions to the History and Social Studies Standards of Learning tests. The broad thrust is to educate students on how Virginia and the United States came to have the institutions they have. Underlying assumptions are that (1) representative government, property rights,…
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So Much for Burying the Dark Side of Virginia History
by James A. Bacon The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) has posted a new set of proposed goals for the teaching of civics, geography, and economics — the first major changes to the History and Social Science Standards of Learning since the existing standards were adopted in 2015. Critics have accused the Youngkin administration of…
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Surveying the Damage in K-12 Schools
by James A. Bacon Last month the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) released its Nation’s Report Card, which showed that the average math test scores declined by eight points nationally. It was difficult for most Americans to know what to make of the loss. The scores were an abstraction. How bad was the loss of…
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Dem Talking Points Emerge for Virginia’s Educational Meltdown
by James A. Bacon Democrats and the mainstream media were blindsided by the release of National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data last week showing that 4th graders in Virginia experienced the greatest decline in learning between 2017 and 2022 of any state in the union. I conjectured that the evidence was so conclusive that…
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Virginia’s Test Scores at The Bottom of the Nation’s Steaming Heap
by Kerry Dougherty Geez. Who could have predicted this: Only one thing wrong with The New York Times reporting on yesterday’s horrifying report that showed the sharpest drop in national test scores in three decades. It’s this: the devastating failure of American education isn’t due to the pandemic.
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A “Catastrophic” Collapse in Virginia Test Scores
by James A. Bacon The big news today from the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP), which administers a common test for all 50 states, is that student test scores nationally saw stunning declines in math and reading over the past two years. The drop in math scores was the biggest decline ever recorded for…
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Graduation Inflation
by John Butcher The estimable Jim Bacon points out that the (already inflated: see below) graduation rate this year was higher than the pre-COVID 2019 rate, despite the effect of the pandemic and the government’s response to it. The Virginia Department of Education’s excellent new Cohort Graduation Build-A-Table provides a more nuanced look. The reports we see in the press…