Required scores for Standards of Learning tests, or SOLs, will be raised for Virginia’s K-12 students. These so-called “cut” scores measure the minimum outcome students need to achieve proficiency in the tests. WMRA’s Ayse Pirge reports.
With unanimous approval, the Virginia Board of Education voted in September to transition to higher proficiency levels over a multiyear phase. The news release states that the new cut scores will be in line with the National Assessment for Educational Progress, or NAEP. It also said there will be support for students. But some experts have concerns.
CHAD STEWART: We know that the Board made this decision without kind of basic transparent modeling of how higher cut scores would affect graduation rates or accountability ratings or funding distributions from the state budget…
Chad Stewart is a policy analyst at the Virginia Education Association. He says Virginia is in the middle of a massive overhaul of its testing and accountability system. And that even though advocates have been asking for months for modeling on how cut scores would affect different areas, the Board did not provide it.
STEWART: We’re all for rigorous expectations at the VEA. And our teachers believe in that. They know that students deserve that and can rise to the occasion. However, evidence from every other state that have just raised cut scores shows– From right-leaning and left-leaning think tanks have looked at this– that there’s no changes in student achievement from just raising cut scores in isolation…
Stewart says that when the Youngkin administration came in, they noted that they wanted to change cut scores right away, and pushed their board to start having conversations back in 2022.
STEWART: The Board hasn’t taken action this entire time and now they’re taking action at the very end of their tenure, and putting it in the lap of another administration. Because it is going to cause a lot of problems, and ripple throughout our education system rushing this process…
Stewart says the Board convened stakeholders, but the members acknowledged, with the consultant they hired, that they only brought in stakeholders who agreed with their position on raising cut scores. He says a number of their teachers applied to be part of this cohort, but the board had almost none selected for the process.
The Virginia Department of Education lists the general committee member criteria on its webpage, which includes having grade-level experience. Data from proficiency standard setting workshops back in June show that the majority of the participants– about 75 percent– for the reading section were either confident or very confident in the proposed cut scores as being proficient.
In other words, they were confident in the minimum score needed to pass the test. For math, close to 80 percent of members indicated they were confident or very confident in the cut scores. Stewart says other states that have raised their cut scores and tied graduation to state tests have seen major drops in graduation rates.
STEWART: And when students drop out or don’t graduate from high school, it has lifelong implications for their earnings, for their incarceration, for all these other important predictors of life success.
But some educators are in favor of the higher standards. Dr. Nick Nycum, the public school superintendent for Highland County, says that traditionally scores from students there have been at or above state average. Nycum says setting higher expectations is a good thing.
NICK NYCUM: And that is what Virginia is doing is raising the bar for standardized testing… However, whenever there is a change or cut scores are raised or performance levels are raised, yes there are gonna be some hiccups. Some bumps in the road if you will.
Nycum says their current seniors will fall under the old SOL rates, but that everyone else will fall under the new pass cut scores this year. And he acknowledges that some of the bumps in the road could be the suddenness of the change in expectations.
NYCUM: We’re all still learning. A lot of superintendents across the state are asking for… do not implement this with current high school students, 9-12. Kind of phase it in with the 8th graders coming up next year… Personally, I hope that we just count this whole year as kind of like a zero year.
Nycum says they will keep educating their community and faculty, while also having those conversations with the students taking SOLs. But Dr. Joy Blosser, the Chief Academic Officer for Harrisonburg City Public Schools, says it’s the bigger pattern of change that is concerning for her.
JOY BLOSSER: Instead of “here, we’ve made a change,” now we’re going to begin implementing it next school year… It feels like we’re changing the game while we’re playing the game… that doesn’t feel good when you’re actually on the ground, the one who is going to be the one implementing the change.
As for the impact on families–
BLOSSER: I think our families already struggle to understand that 400 when it was the cut score and it was the passing, because it’s a number without a whole lot of context and now that number is changing again.
Again, Blosser emphasizes the frustration of having to quickly implement new changes.
BLOSSER: It feels like that idea of, you’re building a plane while flying it. That’s what it feels like every year.
Blosser says they are going to continue providing solid instruction, as well as using multiple measures to determine student learning.
