Three individuals with ties to the Historic Triangle are hoping their experience in the region can help reform Virginia’s Standards of Learning testing system.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe appointed state Sen. John Miller (D-Newport News), Superintendent of Public Instruction and former York County School Division superintendent Dr. Steven Staples, and Colonial Williamsburg Foundation vice president Dr. Bill White to the Standards of Learning Innovation Committee, a group tasked with reforming the way Virginia tests its students.
The full SOL Innovation committee met in Richmond for an introductory meeting Tuesday that acquainted members with the committee, its charges and the current state of Virginia’s Standards of Learning system.
The committee emerged from bipartisan legislation signed by McAuliffe in April. That law, SB 306, eliminated five SOL examinations for elementary and middle school students, cutting the total number of tests for Virginia students from 22 to 17. Instead, schools will be required to develop alternative, project-based means of assessing student achievement.
Consisting of parents, educators, lawmakers and administrators, the committee will examine the state’s accountability and testing system. At the end of its two-year assignment, the committee will make recommendations for improving the system.
After Tuesday’s meeting, both Miller and White agreed SOL reform was a critical issue the state would have to address.
“Pretty clearly, there’s a broad based concern about the testing regimen and where it’s gotten us,” White said. “There’s concern on the part of students and teachers asking if the testing is actually beneficial, that it does anything useful.”
For both men, the questionable effectiveness of the current SOL system undermines one of the primary goals of testing — school accountability. While the push for standardized testing began in the late 1990s and early 2000s as a means of gauging student achievement, White said it had grown to unwieldy proportions.
“You’re left wondering if it’s telling us much or whether it’s come to dominate the classroom,” he said.
The committee will examine the issue of school accountability, but Miller said reducing the number of SOL tests required for Virginia students should also be a priority. Miller pointed to the elimination of the third grade social studies and science SOLs as positive steps.
“I hope that we can develop a system that retains accountability, but one that reduces the number of tests—not only SOL tests, but tests in general benchmark tests and others,” Miller said.
White said the elimination of SOLs for certain subjects could come at a price, however. Without a state-required assessment in a subject like social studies, White said school administrators would be encouraged to shift the classroom focus to SOL subjects.
Both men did agree, however, SOL reforms should emphasize critical thinking over rote memorization.
“We need to develop a workforce that is well-educated, and unless we focus on education, unless we continue to raise the bar and demand more, become more rigorous and get away from producing a generation of young people that are great at memorization but not at critical thinking, we’re not going to be successful as a country,” Miller said.
For White, elements of the Historic Triangle could provide inspiration for a new testing regimen. He said the interdisciplinary nature of the area’s museums and public institutions, like Colonial Williamsburg, the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Historic Jamestowne and the Mariners’ Museum, exemplified the cross-subject experience modern students need to succeed.
With the introductory meeting complete, the committee’s next action will be to divide into two subcommittees — one for elementary education and another for secondary education. Miller said the full committee would meet twice more — at the end of September and at the beginning of November — and hoped to have legislative recommendations ready by the General Assembly’s 2015 session.
In the meantime, White said committee members would investigate the state’s current system, and compare it to the assessment systems of other states, along with those in foreign countries.
“The world is changing, and it’s changing rapidly,” he said. “To be successful in the 21st century, America will have to be innovative and creative.”
