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Virginia has been a beacon of bipartisan educational innovation, showcasing historic and recent advancements in standards, early childhood education, career and technology education, and post-secondary pathways. State support for higher education increased 28% in the past five years, alongside greater investments in Advanced Placement classes and regional collaborations between community colleges and employees. It’s no surprise then that Virginia has earned accolades like CNBC’s top ranking for education. These achievements reflect the resilience and drive of our students, teachers, and administrators.
However, these rankings obscure the fact that our K-12 education system is seriously lagging. Virginia had perhaps the greatest learning loss of any state during the pandemic. Nationally, Virginia’s performance is average, and we fall significantly short in serving Black, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged students. For example, the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) shows that Virginia’s average 4th grade reading score (214) is below the national average (216) while the gap between low-income students and others increased 10 points from 1998 to 2022. Moreover, 35% of 8th graders are below basic in math proficiency (including 59% of Black students and 50% of Hispanic students), meaning that a significant population of Virginia’s students are not prepared for meaningful choices in life, let alone to reach their full potential.
Virginia Board of Education approves changes to accreditation, accountability systems
The new Virginia accountability system the Virginia Board of Education is putting in place is an opportunity to focus on improving Virginia students’ outcomes. Unlike Virginia’s traditional accreditation model, this complementary system promises timely and transparent school and student performance data and raises our ambitions about what we should expect from our public schools. It empowers parents, clarifies achievement, and encourages school communities to unite around common improvement goals. While some have raised concerns that over half of Virginia’s schools could be deemed ‘off track’ by the new system, such ratings should fuel our ambition to together achieve higher standards and greater excellence. A state that has, for instance, six in ten of its Black students and half of its Hispanic students below basic is going to have a lot of schools off track under any meaningful accountability system.
The new system’s emphasis on transparency, support for underserved student groups, and focus on advanced coursework and chronic absenteeism are vital steps forward to improve student learning and protect the civil rights of Virginia’s students. The Virginia accountability system has the potential to drive systemic change if leveraged effectively. What we’ve learned over the years here at the University of Virginia’s Partnership for Leadership in Education (UVA-PLE) highlights how such systems foster collective ownership across communities for improving outcomes. An accountability system like this can heighten attention to exemplars, guide resource allocation, and ignite collective actions towards improving outcomes, particularly for underserved students.
We’ve seen this across the country. For instance, in Colorado’s Boulder Valley School District, Alicia Sanchez Elementary received the state’s lowest accountability rating in 2018. In response, the district provided additional attention and resources to help the school implement data-informed strategies to boost collaboration, instructional delivery, and student well-being. As a result, the school in 2020 received the highest rating in the state and the Governor’s Bright Spot Award, with notable acceleration in Black and Hispanic student achievement. Similarly, the district leveraged lessons from exemplars and challenges highlighted in the accountability system to heighten school support across the district, spurring the district to now outperform what demographics would expect.
In Virginia, too few districts have rallied community support to improve student outcomes due to a lack of clear focus on this goal obscured by accreditation rankings that do not reflect the reality of school performance. Despite this, Danville Public Schools leaders were able to heighten attention to what it would take to accelerate student achievement due to strong leadership’s focus on the issue, their embrace of the state’s corrective action plan and locally developed ideas to heighten quality teacher instructional support, and a partnership with UVA-PLE. The meaningful recent progress for students in Danville demonstrates what could be possible with greater transparency and attention to student achievement across the state.
We must approach this accountability system with a forward-thinking mindset. It should drive leaders to invest in proven interventions, competitive teacher pay, and increased support for schools in line with recommendations from the state’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission. Any accountability system will have flaws and need improvement, but we can adapt over time based on learning from implementation to ensure the system recognizes schools that demonstrate exceptional growth, increases access to rigorous dual enrollment or internship opportunities and shines a light on where we must serve students better.
This is a civil rights issue. Ensuring the system ultimately increases equitable and excellent outcomes is an opportunity for bipartisan collaboration, collective innovation and a commitment to meeting every student’s needs.
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