by Matt HurtMuch controversy surrounded Superintendent Jillian Balow’s report (Our Commitment to Virginians) in May 2022. While I disagree with a few of the details included in the report, I agree with (and have written about) many of the main concerns that were presented. If we want to have the best educational program in the country, we need to increase expectations and accountability. Luckily, Virginia laid a solid educational foundation in the 1990s which provides the basis which can help us produce the most successful students in the country. First, Virginia developed (and continues to update) a set of grade-level standards which ensured a continuum of skill attainment from year to year. These standards were sequenced to build upon prerequisite skills from the prior year, are very well aligned vertically, and the skills expectations in each grade are reasonable for the vast majority of students to master. While some may argue that this system might hold some students back from progressing at a quicker rate, there is nothing in the regulations which states that schools can’t accelerate students through this progression.Second, Virginia has supplied educators with curricular documents (curriculum frameworks) which fully communicate exactly what students are expected to know, understand, and be able to do. Many states do not explicitly define these expectations, which allow for learning gaps that in turn prohibit higher levels of student success. If we as educators align our instruction and expectations with those curriculum frameworks, we will ensure very high levels of student achievement. Our most successful teachers of our most at-risk students consider these curriculum frameworks as their educational Bibles, which is one of the means by which they ensure success for their students.Third, Virginia has developed a very robust assessment program (Standards of Learning tests) that are very well aligned to the curriculum frameworks. This program has proven reliable in both the administration of online tests as well as the data it produces. Educators can use this data to drill down to find specific issues in need of improvement and it serves as a basis for year-to-year improvement planning. In general, educators in Virginia have greater faith in these assessments than educators in many other states.Fourth, Virginia has a very good accountability system (state accreditation) which is more robust that the current federal accountability under the Every Student Succeeds Act. Many states do not have their own accountability model, and solely rely on federal accountability. With the 2017 Standards of Accreditation, Virginia further enhanced state accreditation to include indicators for subgroup performance. This latest update is critical as it forces educators to be accountable for the learning of all students, not just those who have traditionally experienced success.Virginia’s SOL system of standards, assessments, and accountability provides the structure and incentives to promote student success. Nothing in this paper is intended to convey the idea that everything is perfect in Virginia’s K-12 educational system, as there are certainly improvements that are sorely needed. However, we are fortunate in our Commonwealth to have the foundations in place that will allow us to make sure our students are the most successful in the country. Matt Hurt is director of the Comprehensive Instructional Program based in Wise.
What Virginia Gets Right About K-12 Education
Share this article
ADVERTISEMENT
(comments below)
ADVERTISEMENT
(comments below)
Comments
17 responses to “What Virginia Gets Right About K-12 Education”
-
We do have the foundations for measurement. The question is whether we use those measurements to take effective action in cases where the educational attainment is below expectations. In the specific case of Richmond Public Schools, it seems that we are missing the mark on corrective action.
-
You’d know NOTHING about RPS if there were not SOLs. – the critics would lose their main way of claiming failure.
AND beyond that, you’d have no way to argue that Asians are being discriminated against at TJ… right?
and no way to rank state schools on NAEP or against OECD schools with PISA.
I think there is major contradictions among those who say on one hand that SOLs are GOOD then on the other , they are BAD!
Which is it?
-
Exactly. Those that blame SOL tests for the outcomes of those tests are the worst enemies children have.
-
-
Good job laying out our infrastructure for Education. Although our accountability system is too fluffy, it can be changed to count what matters most- subgroup pass rates.
My problem is not with our foundation, but what to do when the foundation hasn’t served students like those in Petersburg and Richmond well since 2002, the first year of Standards.
We don’t need to change everything. We need to change or do something to make what is not working work!
-
re: ” We don’t need to change everything. We need to change or do something to make what is not working work!”
might need to repeat that a few times to some of the hard-core in BR….
-
The people trying to cancel the SOLs are hardly the conservatives in the state. It’s the Edutocracy that doesn’t like those standardized tests.
-
I heard very few voices backing the SOLs back in the day. Teachers hated teaching the test, students found them stressful, and parents found it warping education around passing these tests.
Maybe things have changed in 20 years, but the loathing for SOLs seemed like one of those rare bipartisan items.
-
If you don’t measure then how do you know you’re effective?
Do you not want Doctors or airline pilots NOT “taught to the test”?
I’m NOT in favor of what is known as “high stakes” tests but to not measure is to not know and to not know means you have no idea if what you are doing is working.
besides, you take away the SOLs and Conservatives have no way to claim that public schools are “failing”.
The irony is they use the SOLs to justify alternatives to public schools but no such advocacy for measuring the Charters performance.
-
No. Rosie, conservatives who want every kid to learn demand SOLs. You know, accountability, so that we can fix the parts that are broken.
-
-
Do you think advocating Charters to replace “failing” public schools and not have to report SOLs is “cancel”?
-
Larry, you have that in your head like an aneurysm.
Everywhere in the country public charter schools take the same standardized tests as every other public school.
Take a deep breath and repeat that.
-
Where are the results so we can “confirm” they do better than public schools?
I’m speaking specifically with regard to Charters doing better than public schools with the demographic that is “failing”, which is the justification that advocates of more Charters use.
It would seem to me the absolute best way to convince people in Virginia to support more Charters, to put pressure on local School Boards, to elect more to school boards – is to provide clear and convincing evidence of the claim that they ARE better for the failing demographics.
Where is that clear evidence?
For instance, in Virginia, we do have some charters.
WHERE is the evidence that these existing Charters do better with the types of kid that are failing in the public school system?
The “aneurysm” is the almost complete lack of evidence to show Charters are better with the demographic that is being used to justify more charters.
-
Having been stymied in your eternal quest to stipulate for the rest of us that charters don’t take standardized tests, you have reliably change the subject.
I have answered this current question – evidence of teaching poor minority kids – each of the 100 times you have asked it over the years.
I am, as ever, assured you will ask this question again, but read: https://nypost.com/2022/07/18/success-academy-shows-again-that-public-schools-can-excel/
-
-
-
-
Matt – Excellent post. I wish you would do more to help balance out the narrative here in BR.
I’d be curious to see what Sherlock’s view is of your post.
-
Excellent as always. But does not even try to address the massive failures to educate poor urban minority kids.
Thanks for bringing a sense of balance to the discussion.
I dunno, What Matt is writing is not really simpatico with what Balow has written where she play games with the “honesty gap” portraying NAEP proficiency as the same as SOL proficiency.
Worst that that – after she spends 3/4 of her “report” on the “gaps” , almost nothing as to how they will be addressed.
I’m glad Matt can be generous but basically what Matt is writing – I get the impression she is rejecting…
Finally, absolutely NONE of what Matt is talking about or Balow is going to happen without some kind of assessment and testing.
You can do all the things you say are good and will work but if you don’t measure outcomes, you know nothing and yet that’s apparently what some want.
Hells Bells , if we had no SOLs JAB would be _hit out of luck in showing how badly black folks do at “learning”.
But I thank Matt and value the fact that he is actually a professional working in public education as opposed to playing one in BR….
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.