Fewer Virginia middle schools met state benchmarks for full accreditation this year, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Standards of Learning test results released yesterday by the Virginia Department of Education showed that elementary schools and high schools are holding their own, but the percentage of middle schools meeting state benchmarks fell from 71 percent last year to 69 percent this year.
The lagging performance of Virginia middle-school students, especially in math and science, is reflected also in the National Assessment of Educational Progress numbers.
Why, then is Gov. Timothy M. Kaine so insistent upon expanding pre-K programs? Virginia’s problem isn’t at the pre-K level. Virginia pupils perform well when they go to elementary school. They start under-performing in middle-school. If the answer is pumping more money into an ossified public educational system — a premise that I dispute — then why don’t we at least apply funds and creative thinking to the part of the system that is most obviously broken?