Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Secret SOLs

—

by

Bob Rayner
in

by John Butcher

The Superintendent of Public Instruction’s May 10, 2023, memo scheduled posting of the 2022-2023 student performance results to the Build-A-Table tool on August 17. Those data have not been posted.

It’s not that they don’t have the information. The SOL data, in particular, are collected as they are produced by the online testing. Richmond had data in time to produce for the August 21 Board meeting a 40-page report on progress v. last year.

Note added 8/31: As of last night, Richmond Public Schools took down the report, which broke the link above. Makes one think there was a phone call from VDOE. In any case, I have a pdf of the report. Shoot an email to cranky1{at}duck{dot}com if you’d like a copy.

The report starts with a division v. state overview. (See chart above.)

Yet it seems that the customers who are paying for Richmond’s schools, especially the parents, are not to have direct access to public data that are available to this school board. No telling about parents in other divisions.

We could speculate that the Superintendent (or the Governor) is embarrassed by the minuscule improvement in the state averages (overall average of change by subject, +0.8%) and is slow-walking the release. But, unless somebody at VDOE is incredibly stupid, that hypothesis would seem to be falsified by the release of the state averages to Richmond, which published them.

Another hypothesis could be that the Administration is planning a release of the data in conjunction with proposed legislation for the special session next week. But, unless somebody at VDOE is incredibly stupid, that one also would seem to be falsified by the release of the state averages to Richmond.

2d Note as of 8/31: Richmond’s takedown of their report supports the “incredibly stupid” explanation.

Or we might notice that this is the first time in 23 years the release has not been supervised by Charles Pyle, the former Director of Communications.

What is clear is that they are sitting on the data you and I paid for.

Your tax dollars at work.

Republished with permission from Cranky’s Blog. 

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Comments

19 responses to “Secret SOLs”

  1. Stephen Haner Avatar
    Stephen Haner

    You don’t join us often, Cranky, but when you do, one needs to pay attention. Thanks.

  2. Kathleen Smith Avatar
    Kathleen Smith

    The data is used for accountability, Richmond must assign the VAAP students to schools, then certify that data is accurate. Richmond, in my day, was notoriously late in certification. Until all schools have clicked the certify button, nothing is posted. Richmond was always dead last by days.

    Last week the state sup said data would be forthcoming??? No date provided. Read the weekly sups news letter. The news letter promotes her agenda and then provided the sups memo. Ridiculous read if you ask me.

  3. Kathleen Smith Avatar
    Kathleen Smith

    The data is used for accountability, Richmond must assign the VAAP students to schools, then certify that data is accurate. Richmond, in my day, was notoriously late in certification. Until all schools have clicked the certify button, nothing is posted. Richmond was always dead last by days.

    Last week the state sup said data would be forthcoming??? No date provided. Read the weekly sups news letter. The news letter promotes her agenda and then provided the sups memo. Ridiculous read if you ask me.

  4. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
    James Wyatt Whitehead

    “And the band played on” Ball of confusion, that is what Richmond Public Schools are today. No relief in sight.

  5. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    What happened to Mr. Pyle?

    For RPS as well as some schools with just as terrible SOLs in Henrico and Chesterfield – I’d support some form of 100% voucher schools PROVIDED:

    1. – they primarily take the kids that are getting the terrible scores NOT the ones that are doing ok/fine. Take the kids with the problems.

    2. – the kids get full tuition… no money is required from parents

    3. – They report fully and transparently their results along side
    with RPS, Henrico, Chesterfield and State level SOLs.

    1. Kathleen Smith Avatar
      Kathleen Smith

      No Mr Pyle at VDOE. He was one of the good folks. Hard worker. If he retired, good luck to him. He should join our conversations.

  6. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    One might think this could be the perfect opportunity for Youngkin and the pro-Charter/LAB schools folks to make some moves, perhaps even advocate state-operated “lab” schools!

    Over the years, Cranky, and others, have beat RPS over the head, with ample justification, which seems to provide “satisfaction” to those who dislike RPS and/or public schools, etc but not much else other than wild talk of state take-overs and such.

    But at some point, we do need to get beyond the blame game and do something… and Mr. Youngkin made talk along those lines when he talked about NAEP results.

    RPS is terrible, no argument from me. I just point out that adjacent counties like Henrico has some similarly terrible schools that are adjacent to Richmond and have low income demographics.

    Just beating RPS over the head every so often in BR seems not really constructive.

    1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      It has not been productive, but is meant to be constructive.

  7. WayneS Avatar
    WayneS

    Low bar notwithstanding, it looks like SOL results for RPS students did improve at rates greater than the state average.

    That is at least not bad news.

    1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      Not in reading. And virtually every one of those kids was promoted, count on it. How will that work out?

    2. Kathleen Smith Avatar
      Kathleen Smith

      The state average couldn’t be calculated until
      Data is posted. Probably last years data, why they had to take it down.

      1. WayneS Avatar
        WayneS

        I did not realize that. Thank you.

        I hereby retract my previous comment pending further data.

      2. WayneS Avatar
        WayneS

        I did not realize that. Thank you.

        I hereby retract my previous comment pending further data.

      3. WayneS Avatar
        WayneS

        I did not realize that. Thank you.

        I hereby retract my previous comment pending further data.

  8. James C. Sherlock Avatar
    James C. Sherlock

    These pass rates – averages for all of the Richmond schools – are somehow cause for celebration at the RPS Board? At this rate 53% of Richmond school children will, literally, never be able to read.

    Lunacy.

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      And again, look at some of the Henrico schools with the same issues…

      Blame goes to RPS leadership, as it should.

      Does blame also go to Henrico leadership for it’s SOL failures?

      1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
        Dick Hall-Sizemore

        It should.

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          I think if the same problem exists in some schools in supposedly well-run districts like Henrico, and we are serious about dealing with it, both RPS and Henrico could benefit but as long as we focus on RPS and beat them over the head on it… as if it is purely a leadership issue and not demographic then some of us wonder what the real motivation is in columns like this one.

          It’s easy to continue to whack RPS over the head but what is the point of it without getting to what the problems are?

      2. WayneS Avatar
        WayneS

        Of course.

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