Article VIII, Section 5, of the Constitution of Virginia requires the Virginia Board of Education (“Board") to make annual reports to the Governor and the General Assembly concerning the condition and needs of public education in the Commonwealth. While the Board’s previous annual reports have noted challenges facing Virginia’s public education system, the last few years have seen those challenges rise to an unprecedented scale. The available data show that the learning loss experienced by Virginia students during the pandemic are complex, pervasive, and need significant and ongoing support to return to pre-pandemic student performance levels—let alone accelerate student performance to ensure Virginia students are ready for the future for which their families expect.

The post-pandemic National Assessment of Educational Progress (“NAEP") national assessment data from the 2022 school year and the most recent 2023 Standards of Learning ("SOL") data are a clear call to action for students who continue to struggle with persistent learning loss. The NAEP reported the biggest drop in fourth grade reading performance in 30 years and the first-ever drop in math. These losses were most severe among low-income and minority students and students whose schools were closed longest. The results from the 2022–2023 SOL assessments similarly highlight the impact of the pandemic and prolonged school closures, but also reveal a long-term downward trend in performance.

The disconcerting NAEP and SOL data are mirrored by early grades literacy assessments. The Commonwealth’s youngest learners did not fare well on the Phonological Awareness Literacy Survey (“PALS"), an early literacy assessment that identifies at-risk students. Although PALS data from Spring 2023 show a second consecutive year of improvement, the percentage of students below benchmark remained 4.6 points above the pre-pandemic rate of 19.9 percent, meaning nearly one quarter of early learners remain below expectations in their reading development.

Additionally, Virginia is confronting significant issues in student attendance. Chronic absenteeism rates have doubled from 9 percent prior to the pandemic to almost 18 percent of all Grades 3 through 8 students now chronically absent. These numbers worsen when factoring in high school chronic absenteeism rates. The Governor’s Chronic Absenteeism Task Force was launched in the Fall of 2023 and will provide recommendations to the Board in December 2023, and the Board will work quickly to enact solutions for the 131 school divisions in the Commonwealth.

With the General Assembly and the Governor adding $418 million in a one-time Flexible Funding appropriation to help school divisions begin to address learning losses related to reading and mathematics and support preparation and implementation of the Virginia Literacy Act, the department launched the ALL In Tutoring initiative to help school divisions have a framework and roadmap to move forward in addressing these issues.

To address the academic challenges facing the Commonwealth, the Board’s work in 2023 has focused on increasing the rigor of learning standards and revising the current accreditation and accountability system and implementing two new separate systems. The Board has already approved new, best-in-class standards in History and Social Science and Mathematics. During the 2024 calendar year, the Board will complete revisions of English and Computer Science.

The Board has also focused on updating Virginia’s current accreditation and accountability system. Many stakeholders have indicated challenges in the accreditation’s system in calling out the decreases in student achievement and the ability of the accreditation system to differentiate school performance as a result of learning loss. Most educators, parents and stakeholders feel that the current system does not provide transparent or clear reporting information. These stakeholders want a revised system that clearly and transparently shows how their children are growing and meeting expectations and how the school is helping their child learn.

The Board has initiated a regulatory change to split the accreditation and accountability model and design an outcome-based accountability model grounded in student growth, student achievement, and student readiness. The hallmarks of the new system will be transparency, accurate reporting of rigorous standards, and redesigned assessments tracking student performance to national benchmarks. Accountability will show schools growing students toward post-secondary goals, as well as ensuring students are effectively prepared for the career goals of their choice. Accreditation reporting will share the inputs schools are using to meet accountability metrics. Most importantly, the new accountability system will strengthen the efforts of families and educators to address the learning loss facing Virginia students.

In addition to these critical actions, the Board has also worked collaboratively with the Virginia Department of Education to launch several elements of the Virginia Literacy Act and to support the work of the Commission on Early Childhood Care and Education. Further, several Board members also served on the HB585 Assessment Workgroup. This report was released in September and provides guidance on assessment design, reporting for educators and families, and outlines a clear direction to the VDOE in its next assessment vendor selection process.

Virginia school divisions continue to struggle with localized educator shortages that predate the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, Virginia faces a shortage of staff, including teachers, who enter and remain in Virginia’s public schools. To address staffing challenges, Governor Youngkin and the General Assembly have led a bipartisan effort to invest in Virginia’s teachers by effecting a 5 percent pay raise in August 2022 ($232.2 million) and July 2023 (with FY2023 carryover, $542.9 million), as well as an additional 2 percent in January 2024 ($54.6 million). The Board will also continue to explore alternative approaches to teacher licensure and is in the process of updating its prescribed Standards of Quality (“SOQ"), which will be proposed to the General Assembly, to address the needs of school divisions in a post-pandemic era. One of the key ways the Board has moved on alternative teacher licensure pathways was the approval of petitions from school divisions to partner with iTeach, a decision providing licensure flexibility for thirty-three school divisions.

As the Board moves forward with its work in 2024, its focus remains on learning loss recovery, standards adoption, accreditation reform and focus on ensuring that remaining ESSER dollars and the additional state flexible funding meet the needs of schools. This focus is paralleled with an aggressive, collective focus on reducing chronic absenteeism in Virginia’s schools.

Virginia’s education system is at a critical point, and none can afford for the Board, the Governor, the General Assembly, school divisions, families, or students to take the easy path. The road may be difficult, but the Board remains confident of a brighter future around the bend. The Board is committed to paving these challenging paths and ensuring high expectations for all children across the Commonwealth.