Pursuant to Item 119 of the 2025 Appropriations Act (HB 1600), the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) contracted with WestEd and Quality Information Partners (QIP) to evaluate exemplar assessment systems across 10 focus areas and develop actionable options for modernizing Virginia’s Standards of Learning (SOL) assessment system. This report presents findings from that analysis, along with system design options, implementation guidance, and procurement recommendations for consideration.

Context

Virginia’s assessment modernization effort reflects a multiyear legislative trajectory that began with HB 585 in 2022 and has been shaped by subsequent statutes, most significantly HB 1957 (enacted May 2025) and Senate Bill (SB) 200, along with its House companion HB 299, signed into law in April 2026. Together, these statutes establish additional requirements beyond federal compliance under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA): assessments must evaluate application of knowledge and higher-order skills, individual student reports (ISRs) must be delivered within 45 days of the close of each assessment window, results must be reported on a 100-point scale, and local alternative assessments (LAAs) must meet Board of Education (Board) established guidelines for quality and consistency. The state is entering a new procurement cycle that will determine the design and delivery of the next generation of SOL assessments. These statutes include specific operational provisions that VDOE should implement alongside the broader modernization goals.

Evidence Base

WestEd conducted a systematic scan across more than 15 state assessment systems and multistate consortia, examining 318 pieces of evidence across the 10 focus areas specified in HB 1600. These focus areas span alignment with standards and instructional goals; non-traditional, project-, performance-, and competency-based approaches; accessibility and multilingual supports; advanced technology integration; authentic growth measures and formative feedback; application of knowledge and higher-order reasoning; transparency; innovative scoring practices; reporting to students, families, and educators; and timely reporting to the state educational agency.

The Virginia Innovative Assessment Work Group, established by state statute, met six times between October 2025 and March 2026. WestEd facilitated the final three sessions, which focused on reviewing comparative findings, developing draft recommendations, and validating the implementation framework. In addition, QIP conducted 13 stakeholder engagement sessions with 65 participants across all Virginia regions, including state and division leaders, school administrators, classroom educators, parents, and community-based organizations.

Findings

State scan. The 10 focus areas function as 4 integrated priority clusters rather than as isolated dimensions: (1) alignment, cognitive rigor, and transparency; (2) non-traditional and growth measures; (3) accessibility and multilingual supports; and (4) technology integration, scoring, and reporting. States with the strongest systems, notably Massachusetts, the Smarter Balanced consortium, and Florida, treat assessment modernization as a coherent system design problem in which item types, scoring models, reporting timelines, and transparency practices are interdependent.

Several cross-cutting findings emerged from the scan:

• Assessment modernization should be treated as a coherent and integrated system redesign problem.

• Assessment expectations should be simultaneously technical and public-facing, so that educators can connect what is tested to what they teach.

• Innovation in assessment format is viable only when matched by educator capacity, infrastructure, and psychometric comparability across formats.

• Technology decisions about adaptive engines, automated scoring, and reporting are consequential beyond test delivery and should be evaluated together.

• Transparency and accessibility are foundational to equity and public trust.

• Successful modernization requires phased implementation, stakeholder engagement, and validity research at each stage.

Work Group recommendations. The work group reached substantial agreement on the following six priorities: (i) prioritize the summative assessment system; (ii) focus on alignment and rigor across the full depth and breadth of Virginia’s standards; (iii) incorporate accessibility from the outset using universal design for learning (UDL) principles; (iv) modernize data systems to reduce reporting burden and support timely, accurate scoring and reporting to stakeholders; (v) provide consistent and simple reporting on student outcomes, including standardizing to four performance levels across all assessments; and (vi) increase public trust through transparency and consistency, including release of sample items, rubrics, and scored student work. Smaller subgroups within the work group highlighted additional priorities for VDOE to consider.

Stakeholder feedback. Educators and families reported communication gaps, including misconceptions about test formats and confusion about scoring scales. Teachers identified a lack of predictable test design documentation as a barrier to aligning instruction with state expectations. Parents described the current reporting system as inaccessible and poorly timed, with results arriving too late to inform summer interventions or the following year’s instructional planning. Division leaders called for structured, multiyear assessment cycles and expressed concern about the pace and frequency of changes to the assessment system. While the transition to digital assessment formats was perceived as having significant advantages, all stakeholders reported concerns about the “digital divide" among students, as device navigation skills can affect performance. Finally, stakeholders emphasized that there should be a balance between innovation and academic rigor, and any shift toward performance-based assessments should address their concerns about administrative burden, local scoring validity, and the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI).

System Design

The report presents three tiered options that satisfy all federal requirements under ESSA and all enacted state requirements. They differ in scope of innovation, implementation timeline, and level of investment and risk.

Core: Foundational Modernization. This option retains the current summative model with computer-adaptive delivery in Grades 3 through 8 mathematics and reading. Improves item quality (particularly at the Proficient and Advanced performance levels), implements the 0–100 reporting scale required by statute, standardizes four performance levels across all assessments, deploys UDL-based accessibility decision tools, expands released items and scored student work samples, and addresses LAA requirements under HB 1957 and SB 200. This option does not require structural changes to the current assessment model. Overall, this option is highly feasible. The estimated cost is $30 to $38 million per year for a scope similar to the current contract, based on comparable state contracts and nonbinding vendor estimates from the 2024 RFI. Virginia’s current contract costs approximately $46.5 million per year. Several cost drivers, including end-of-course (EOC) retesting volume, item development intensity, and whether the Virginia Alternate Assessment Program (VAAP) is bundled or maintained separately, could push actual costs above the estimated range. These estimates should not be read as projected savings without careful analysis of the final contract scope.

Enhanced: Innovation Core

This option adds multistage adaptive testing (MST) for EOC subjects, AI-assisted scoring for constructed-response items with required fairness monitoring across all demographic subgroups, and an individual student growth model. Each feature requires pilot testing and validation before operational deployment. While this option offers solutions that go beyond the Core tier, it is still moderately feasible through phased implementation over a multiyear period and does not require federal approval. Estimated incremental costs for this option are $5 to $8 million per year above the Core tier for item bank expansion, AI scoring validation, and growth model development.

Transformative: Structural Redesign. This option incorporates competency-based assessment pathways and expanded local assessment flexibility with statewide moderation. However, the transformative nature of this option requires federal approval (through the Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority or Section 8401 waiver), multiyear pilot programs, and infrastructure that Virginia does not currently have in place, including statewide scorer training, cross-division scoring coordination, and moderation protocols. The timeline is 3–5 years or more. The work group and broader stakeholders consistently prioritized summative system quality over structural redesign, and states that have pursued similar approaches have encountered significant challenges in scaling beyond pilot districts. Costs would be substantially above the Enhanced tier and would be incurred on top of ongoing Core tier operating costs.

Recommended Approach

The recommended approach is for Virginia to adopt the Core tier as the floor of the next procurement and structure the contract to build toward the Enhanced tier over the contract period. The Core tier addresses statutory requirements and sets the technical foundation that Enhanced features depend on, including the item bank depth. The Enhanced tier addresses documented needs, including individual student growth reporting, the 45-day ISR timeline for assessments with constructed-response items, and legislative direction on higher-order reasoning, through features that have been successful in peer states.

The Transformative tier is not recommended for the current procurement cycle. It requires not only substantial infrastructure and federal approval but also a policy determination that a fundamentally different approach to how student learning is defined and measured is the right direction for Virginia. The work group has not expressed that determination; its consistent priority has been a high-quality summative system.

The contract for the current procurement cycle should require the vendor to demonstrate capacity for Enhanced tier features and should include go/no-go decision points before those features move to operational use.

Implementation Timeline

The transition follows four phases and will overlap with the already-in-progress implementation of increased cut scores and a higher proficiency bar, scheduled to take effect through 2029–30. In the pre-procurement phase (2026), VDOE should finalize Board guidelines for mandatory LAAs, complete an ESSA compliance review, and issue the request for proposal (RFP). Year 1 (2027–28) will focus on delivering assessments without disruption under the new vendor. Additional Year 1 priorities, including the 0–100 reporting scale, the 45-day student score report requirement, accessibility tools, and the start of item bank development, may be achievable but will depend on the pace of vendor transition. Years 2 and 3 (2028–30) shift to Enhanced tier pilot testing, including MST for at least one EOC subject, and AI-assisted scoring validation. By Year 4 (2030–31), Enhanced tier features that meet pre-specified criteria for technical quality, fairness, cost, and educator readiness may be considered for operational use.

Near-Term Decisions

Several decisions should be resolved before procurement can proceed, including: the EOC assessment configuration (number of assessments, retake policy, and testing calendar); the 0–100 reporting scale implementation approach and associated communication strategy (including support for appropriately interpreting this scale to all intended stakeholders); Board guidelines and best practices for LAAs (due September 1, 2026, under SB 200); and timely RFP issuance to maintain the transition timeline.

Risks

The stakeholder engagement efforts revealed several misunderstandings about the assessment system among stakeholders. Lack of assessment literacy can undermine a system designed to provide useful data to teachers, families, and students. For example, the new 0–100 reporting scale will predictably be confused with percent correct or familiar grading scales. The report recommends a proactive communication strategy, including audience-tested messaging, an educator ambassador cohort, and materials available in the most commonly spoken community languages. Other risks include vendor transition disruption, item bank insufficiency at upper performance levels, AI scoring implementation delays, and VDOE internal capacity to manage the vendor relationship as well as a changing, complex assessment program.

VDOE Capacity

VDOE’s ability to oversee an assessment program modernization depends on adequate internal staffing. Dedicated communications capacity would position VDOE to manage the public communication demands of the transition proactively rather than reactively. Additional content staff would allow VDOE to keep pace with the volume of item review that an expanded development cycle requires, rather than creating a bottleneck at the state level. A data analyst would give VDOE independent capacity to evaluate vendor files, review score distributions and trends, and respond to technical questions from the field. These investments are modest relative to the contract and would strengthen both oversight and cost control.

Conclusion

Virginia has a clear legislative mandate, a defined set of priorities, and a competitive procurement opportunity to build an assessment system that is rigorous, transparent, and useful to educators and families. The exemplar evidence, work group input, and stakeholder feedback converge on a consistent message: get the summative system right first, build toward innovation through phased implementation, and invest in the communication and capacity infrastructure that the transition requires. The recommended approach—Core as the floor with a structured path to Enhanced—reflects that message and positions Virginia to deliver a modernized assessment system that meets statutory requirements, maintains public trust, and supports student learning.