Fairfax County Public Schools is giving the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) a demerit for its recent reveal of annual student test scores.
The results released last week omitted assessments outside of the Standards of Learning (SOL) tests that students take statewide, creating a misleading impression of how FCPS is doing, Superintendent Dr. Michelle Reid said in an Aug. 23 letter to state officials, including Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
In addition, the state didn’t share the data with schools until after Youngkin highlighted it at a press conference last Tuesday (Aug. 20), according to Reid.
“Uncharacteristically, early this week, the VDOE released this state-wide data to schools after hosting a press event where the achievements of large school systems like Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) were not recognized,” Reid said. “Local media then misrepresented FCPS student achievement in writing and history/social sciences.”
At the press conference, Youngkin announced that Virginia saw some improvements in students passing their SOLs and reducing chronic absenteeism during the 2023-2024 school year. He attributed the progress to a $418 million “All in VA” initiative that he launched last September, which allocated funding for tutors and reading specialists and created a task force focused on chronic absenteeism.
According to state data, FCPS saw flat or 1% better pass rates for reading, math and science compared to the previous year, but writing and history rates plunged. Just 28% of students who took the writing SOL passed — down from 57% in 2022-2023 — and the pass rate for the history and social sciences exam went from 62% to 41%.
Though Reid doesn’t dispute the numbers reported by VDOE, she says the announced results are incomplete because they didn’t include “substitute” tests that the state has approved as alternatives to the SOLs, such as SATs and Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate exams.
Because it has some flexibility as a designated School Division of Innovation, FCPS gives students the option to get course credits for the substitute history and writing tests, which Reid says have higher standards than the SOLs.
“As the writing SOL still assesses the now-outdated 2010 writing standards, we want to make sure our students write to current standards,” she wrote. “FCPS has also elected to embrace VDOE flexibility in history/social sciences to offer more authentic assessment experiences for our students, aligned with their classroom learning.”
Only 110 FCPS students took the writing SOLs this year, down from 517 in 2022-2023, and history SOL participation dropped from 1,331 students to 474. Nearly 19,000 students took an alternate writing assessment, maintaining a pass rate of 96%, and over 24,000 students took an alternate history test, where pass rates improved from 90% to 93%, according to FCPS.
“By omitting the tens of thousands of students who performed exceedingly well on VDOE-approved alternative assessments and publishing only the fraction of students who took SOLs, the hard work of our students and staff is not recognized,” Reid said.
The superintendent also noted that FCPS sees higher pass rates for math, science and reading than the state average, though disparities persist between Black and Hispanic students and their white and Asian counterparts. Economically disadvantaged students, English language learners and students in special education also have lower pass rates.
A VDOE spokesperson says the U.S. Department of Education requires that state assessment results be calculated based only on students who took approved exams — meaning the SOLs or the Virginia Alternate Assessment Program, which is for students with significant cognitive disabilities but follows the same standards as the SOLs.
“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,” VDOE Senior Communications Advisor Todd Reid said. “However, per U.S. Department of Education requirements, the substitute test results are not reflected in the SOL results released last week.”
Todd Reid added that “most” results from state-approved substitute tests will be included in Virginia’s accreditation results, which will be released this fall.
Intended to measure whether students are meeting the minimum expectations for core academic subjects, the SOLs have traditionally a key factor in determining school accreditation. In addition to academic achievement and progress in closing gaps, as shown by the SOLs and substitute tests, Virginia grades schools on absentee, dropout and graduation rates.
The VDOE is in the process of overhauling its accreditation system, approving new standards in July that separate a school’s ability to meet statutory regulations, including staffing and safety requirements, from its performance. The Virginia Board of Education is scheduled to vote on a new performance framework centered on students’ academic proficiency and growth tomorrow (Wednesday).
While state officials have argued that the new approach will be more transparent and more clearly show how well a school is educating and supporting students, some school leaders have worried that the prioritization of students’ mastery of a subject over growth will hurt schools with fewer resources and incentivize schools to value standardized testing over other measures of achievement.
The new School Performance and Support Framework will affect federal funding and the state’s formula for calculating school staffing needs, according to a presentation for Wednesday’s board meeting. If approved, the framework will take effect with the 2025-2026 school year.
The Fairfax County School Board will discuss the new accreditation and accountability standards during a work session this afternoon (Tuesday).
