Virginia is changing the way it rates K-12 schools. Most will be failing as a result
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Virginia is changing the way it rates K-12 schools beginning next year.
Why it matters: Education officials warn that a majority of the state's public schools will be rated as "off track" or in need of improvement as a result of the change.
The big picture: For decades, the Virginia Department of Education used an accreditation system to measure performance across multiple school quality indicators, classifying them as accredited, accredited with conditions or not accredited.
- Under the current system, the vast majority of schools (89%) achieved full accreditation for each of the past two school years — only a slight decline from the 92% that were accredited in 2019-2020, per the Times-Dispatch.
- Virginia schools achieved widespread full accreditation despite having some of the steepest post-pandemic drops in student test scores in the nation.
- Gov. Youngkin began pushing for school performance reforms in 2022 to address what he called the "catastrophic learning loss" those test scores displayed and the failure of a "broken" system to reflect what's actually happening in schools.
Zoom in: Virginia's new school rating system, which the Board of Education approved two weeks ago, separates accreditation and accountability into two measurements.
- Schools will still be accredited, or not, but every school in the state will also receive one of four accountability categories: distinguished, on track, off track or needs intensive support.
- The accountability rating measures student performance using chronic absenteeism, test scores and advanced coursework to determine student readiness, growth and mastery.
- How much each category is weighted varies across elementary, middle or high school.
Between the lines: Essentially, accreditation will determine if schools meet basic operational requirements; accountability ratings will give parents and the public a clearer idea of how students and schools are performing, VDOE spokesperson Todd Reid tells Axios.
Yes, but: VDOE's own projections show around 60% of the state's schools will be "off track" or "needs intensive support," according to the Washington Post.
- Those metrics illustrate how badly the state's existing school rating model needed to change, board members told the Times-Dispatch.
The other side: Anne Holton, Virginia's former Secretary of Education and the only Board of Education member not appointed by Youngkin, was the lone dissenting board vote on the state's new system.
- In a thread on X, she said the new model also paints an inaccurate picture of how Virginia schools are doing, underscored by the majority being labeled as "off track."
- What schools need, she said, is more meaningful support for schools currently performing poorly.
What's next: The U.S. Department of Education has 90 days to review the state's plan and suggest changes; barring those, the new rating system goes into effect for the 2025-26 school year, per Virginia Mercury.