While we’re on the subject of gaming the Standard of Learning (SOL) scores (see previous two posts), Cranky, also known as John Butcher, reminds us how Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School, one of the top-rated public high schools in the country and former haunt of Bacon’s Rebellion‘s own Les Schreiber, is not counted as a school for purposes of SOL tracking. Scores of its students, drawn from 12 districts in Central Virginia, are credited to high schools in their home districts.
While the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Northern Virginia is counted as a “school” for purposes of reporting SOL scores, Maggie Walker is not — it’s a “program” in Virginia Department of Education-speak.
Asks Cranky: “Do you care that VDOE brokered this corrupt deal so the local superintendents would let their bright kids go to MLW without lowering the SOLs of the local high schools?”
How many other ways have school officials gamed the system to look better under the SOL scoring regimen? How much faith can we put in the SOLs as a tool for measuring progress in school and school districts?
— JAB
