Author Archives: sherlockj

By James C. Sherlock

Aimee Rogstad Guidera, Virginia Secretary of Education

I dedicate this as a welcome to our new Secretary of Education and Superintendent of Public Instruction.  Both are very accomplished and we are lucky to have them.

I find it upon occasion useful to review for myself the facts on the ground when dealing with Virginia K-12 education reform.   They are daunting.

Some of the most challenging include:

1. Our state constitution assigns responsibility to both the state and to local school districts for school quality.  The state sets standards but has no effective authority to hold the school districts accountable for meeting them.  That cannot work, and does not.
2. Fierce and important culture war issues now tend to obscure information about fundamental student learning.  They set people who should be allies in improving basic learning at odds with one another about fundamental questions concerning the definition of what should be taught, learned and how.
3. Many in education, like much else in public policy in Virginia, appear viscerally opposed to emulating proven best practices (New York’s astonishing successful urban charter school networks) from other states, or even considering them as possibly applicable in Virginia.  See Note*
4. Virginia’s graduate schools of education aggressively stoke the culture wars from the left.  Indeed, many have proven to be opponents of the foundational standards of Western civilization. That will stir a debate every time.  Many have proven to be opponents of setting objective, measurable standards for K-12 learning and of employing standardized tests for school accountability.
5. Statewide all-student SOL averages in our public schools hide the tragedy of the failure of many children of the urban poor to learn what they need to know to have a fair chance in life.  We don’t live in Lake Wobegone.  Consider English reading SOL results from 2018-19. 

• • Twenty-two percent of all kids failed English Reading SOLs.    
  • Thirty five percent of kids reported as economically disadvantaged failed those same tests.
  • Black (35%) and Hispanic (34%) children failed at nearly exactly that same rate as the economically disadvantaged.  Failed.  Could not read at grade level.
  • To the degree that children must read to learn, which is true in every subject starting in 4th grade, they cannot learn.  And do not.

6.  COVID has proven to be a huge disruptor to a flawed system.

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