Ho, hum. Virginia ranks No. 1 in another national survey. According to Education Week, Virginia is the state where children have the greatest opportunities to succeed. The report compared states based on 13 factors, including parents’ education, student test scores, the percentage of English-speaking residents and the percentage of adults working full time.
Virginia’s favorable ranking does not mean Virginia’s K-12 school system is tops in the country. Virginia’s educational policies do align pretty well with those advocated by Education Week, and student test scores are higher than the national average. But the affluence and educational achievement of Virginia’s population — especially in Northern Virginia — was critical to vaulting the Commonwealth to the top.
(See the Virginian-Pilot article here, and the Education Week Virginia profile here. Thanks to alert reader Jim Wamsley for pointing me to these resources.)
Alfred Rovai, a Regent University professor of education quoted by the Pilot, summed up my reaction to the report:
“If Virginia comes out No. 1, Virginia should also come out No. 1 on student outcomes,” he said. One possibility is that the report isn’t considering the correct factors, he said. Another possibility is that the educational system in Virginia isn’t doing as well as other factors suggest it should, he said.
“There’s a lot of cause to be happy and feel we’re doing a good job,” Rovai said, “but we should use this report as a launching pad to ask some penetrating questions.”
