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FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA — Fairfax County Public Schools’ superintendent criticized Virginia Gov. Glenn Younkin and state education leaders for omitting information in last week’s release of the 2023-2024 Standards of Learning scores, which the district complained made it look like students were losing ground.
Patch obtained a letter sent by Dr. Michelle C. Reid, the Fairfax Schools superintendent to Youngkin, Secretary of Education Aimee Rogstad Guidera, and Dr. Lisa Coons, Virginia’s superintendent of public instruction. The letter said the omission of alternative testing in the SOL numbers made it appear that Fairfax County students were significantly underperforming in English writing and history/social studies compared to the rest of the state.
Only a small number of Fairfax students chose to take SOLs in those two subjects.
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“Instead, thanks to the School Division of Innovation designation granted to FCPS by the VDOE in 2021, our students can demonstrate mastering using a variety of state-approved alternative assessments, which include Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exams — in many cases, nationally-normed college exams,” Reid said in the letter.
Patch reached out to Governor Youngkin, Secretary Guidera and Superintendent Coons for comment about Reid’s letter and the issues it raised. A VDOE spokesman replied with this statement:
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“As it has been for many years now and school divisions are aware, the Virginia Department of Education is required by the U.S. Department of Education to calculate results that reflect only the students who took the approved state assessment exams (Virginia’s Standards of Learning and the Virginia Alternate Assessment Program). School divisions may offer students the opportunity to complete Board-approved substitute tests rather than the state’s SOL test to meet this state testing requirement. This is a local decision left up to each school division. However, per U.S. Department of Education requirements, the substitute test results are not reflected in the SOL results released last week. Most Board-approved substitute test results are included in the state’s Accreditation results which will be released later this fall.”
In school year 2023-24, as in prior years, the vast majority of Fairfax County students took local alternative assessments in writing and history instead of the SOL exams, a school district spokesperson said.
Related: Fairfax Schools See Decline In Writing, History: Standards Of Learning
During the 2023-24 school year, a small subset of students chose to take the SOL exams in writing and history (110 students in writing and 474 in history) and 18,000 students took VDOE-approved alternative assessments, according to Reid. That information was missing from the numbers Youngkin and the VDOE released last Tuesday.
VDOE’s numbers showed FCPS students scoring 41 percent in history/social studies and 28 percent in writing. Factoring in alternative testing, Fairfax students were outperforming compared to students in other districts in those subjects.
“To be clear, FCPS, which is Virginia’s largest school division, continues to outperform state averages in all state-mandated SOL subjects,” Reid said.
Reid also criticized the governor and VDOE’s rollout of the 2023-2024 SOL numbers with a pre-release news conference that did not contain information about the performance of FCPS students who took VDOE-approved alternative assessments.
“Uncharacteristically, early this week, the VDOE released state-wide data to schools after hosting a press event where the achievements of large school systems like Fairfax County Public Schools were not recognized,” she said. “Local media then misrepresented student achievement in writing and history/social sciences.”
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