Va. Department of Education begins developing new accountability system

Following criticism by Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration, Virginia’s Department of Education will begin to develop a new system for tracking public schools’ and students’ performance.

A June report from Virginia Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera and Superintendent of Public Instruction Lisa Coons to the General Assembly noted that most states have both an accreditation system, which assesses whether schools are meeting all requirements laid out in state laws and regulations, and an accountability system, which provides “timely and transparent information on student and school performance.”

“Virginia’s current accreditation system combines these two systems into one system as a single accreditation system, limiting transparency into how schools maintain compliance and recognize student achievement independent of each other,” the report found. It went on to recommend that Virginia develop “a distinct, stand-alone accountability system” that provides information about how each K-12 school is preparing students.

Virginia’s current system focuses on accreditation and measures schools based on not only academic achievement, performance gaps, student attendance and graduation and dropout rates but also factors like building safety, student-teacher ratios and licensure. Schools are then labeled “accredited,” “accredited with conditions,” or not accredited.

The Virginia Department of Education has said the current system is unclear and should be revised to address recent declines in student performance in core subjects such as math and reading.

“This is an important move to show transparently how schools are growing children, how they’re meeting achievement measures and how they’re readying kids for the future,” said Coons.

On Thursday, the Board of Education voted to direct the department to develop two different measures to track academic performance: an achievement index and an overall school rating.

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