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Tougher academic standards ahead for Virginia students

Published

3 weeks ago

February 27, 2025

Staff Editor

virginiamercury.com – Nathaniel Cline – 2025-02-27 04:20:00

Tougher academic standards ahead for Virginia students

by Nathaniel Cline, Virginia Mercury
February 27, 2025

Virginia students may soon face tougher academic benchmarks as the state aligns its performance levels with the higher standards of a national assessment.

Starting next month, the Virginia Board of Education will begin adjusting its cut scores — used to determine whether K-12 students are meeting proficiency levels — to better match the rigor of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Student performance is typically categorized as “below basic,” “basic,” “proficient” or“advanced,” reflecting their knowledge and skills in core subjects.

Since 1998, Virginia has relied on its Standards of Learning (SOL) assessments to gauge proficiency in areas like reading and math. However, NAEP, a widely recognized national organization, has often been used to assess smaller student groups, such as fourth and eighth graders.

“The NAEP assessment provides a common benchmark that states can then use to look at the relative rigor of their own assessment cut scores,” said Lesley Muldoon, executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board, during a work session Wednesday.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration has frequently pointed to NAEP data to highlight what it calls the “honesty gap” — the disparity between state-level proficiency standards and the more stringent NAEP benchmarks.

Virginia’s learning recovery falls short as NAEP scores show mixed results

Between 2017-2022, Virginia’s fourth-grade reading and math results showed a staggering 40-percentage-point gap between the state’s SOL and NAEP assessments. That disparity does not provide an “accurate picture of student performance,” said Em Cooper, deputy superintendent of teaching and learning, during Wednesday’s work session.

In response, the board has begun discussing plans to revise the cut scores — the threshold for determining student proficiency — in key subjects. The effort is a cornerstone of Youngkin’s broader push to “restore excellence in education,” which includes raising standards in core subjects, increasing transparency and accountability, and overhauling the state’s assessment system.

Youngkin has argued that Virginia’s current proficiency standards are the result of the previous Board of Education lowering cut scores and altering school accreditation standards.

However, Anne Holton, a former state education secretary and an appointee of former Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, defended the previous board’s approach. She noted that Virginia’s pass rates aligned with the NAEP’s “basic” achievement level, which reflects “partial mastery of the knowledge and skills that are fundamental for proficient work at a given grade,” according to NAEP.

The Youngkin administration, however, is pushing for Virginia to meet NAEP’s “proficient” standard — defined as a student demonstrating a deeper understanding of complex topics and the ability to apply them in real-world situations.

Virginia Explained: The debate over student expectations

Board member Amber Northern, a Youngkin appointee, argued that achieving NAEP proficiency is linked to better long-term outcomes, including higher graduation rates and increased job earnings compared to students who score at the NAEP “basic” level.

“NAEP proficiency matters in terms of long-term outcomes for kids [and] I know this because I study it,” Northern said.

She dismissed political finger-pointing over the state’s current standards, urging the board to focus on the benefits of higher expectations.

“I don’t care about the politics, I don’t care about ‘well we did this, and we did this,’ … nobody knows why we are in the situation we’re in, we just know that we’re in it and we’re not about pointing fingers. What we’re about saying is, okay, this is what NAEP proficiency does for our kids, and we should actually have that as our goal to do right by them.”

But Holton pushed back, questioning whether realigning Virginia’s SOL to match NAEP would lead to actual student improvement. While she acknowledged that strong SOL and NAEP scores correlate with better outcomes, she argued that no research supports the idea that adjusting cut scores alone drives success.

“The research shows there’s no impact of realigning our cut scores,” Holton said. “We need our students to do well on the test, but where the line is is irrelevant.”

The process

Previously, cut score adjustments went through a multi-step review involving a standard-setting committee, an articulation committee, and the state superintendent before final recommendations were presented to the Board of Education.

On Wednesday, the Virginia Department of Education staff outlined the board’s new approach, which includes selecting and training committee members, assessment date, and ultimately making recommendations on cut scores.

Under the process proposal, committees will primarily consist of education experts, including teachers and instructional specialists, while the remainder will include community stakeholders such as parents and business leaders.

Educators applying to serve must complete an application demonstrating their understanding of grade level content and assessments. Community members will undergo a selection process led by the board and the governor’s office.

The committees are set to convene in late May once enough assessment data from the 2025 assessment cycle is available. Their proposed cut scores will go before the board for an initial review in June, with a final decision expected in July.

On Thursday, the board will vote on the proposed review process. If approved, the updated performance standards will not take effect until spring 2026.

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Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com.

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Bagby’s omission of his wife, businesses on economic interest disclosure forms raise questions

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15 hours ago

March 18, 2025

Staff Editor

virginiamercury.com – Charlotte Rene Woods – 2025-03-18 15:48:00

Bagby’s omission of his wife, businesses on economic interest disclosure forms raise questions

by Charlotte Rene Woods, Virginia Mercury
March 18, 2025

Political officials in Virginia are required to submit Statement of Economic Interest forms that are posted to the state’s ethics advisory council website. As a part-time legislature, delegates and senators have lives and other work outside of representing constituents and must disclose publicly what might be an economic interest to them.

Sen. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, who is running to be the next chair of the Democratic Party of Virginia, initially failed to disclose his wife and various businesses on recent SOEI forms. Though the document has been amended to include those details, one of his opponents in the race questions why they weren’t revealed in the first place and if it’s something Republicans could target Bagby for should he become the leader of the state’s Democratic party.

Bagby told The Mercury that the omission was an “oversight.”

Potential liability for state Democrats?

The form includes the question “Do you or a member of your immediate family own, separately or together, a business that has a value in excess of $5,000?” Bagby had at first answered “no,” despite his wife’s salon and event space businesses. On the updated form, amended on March 10, he answered yes to that question.

Josh Stanfield, who is also running for DPVA chair, has tried to ask Bagby about potential conflicts of interest in candidate forums.

In an interview with the Mercury and on his blog, Stanfield noted that when former Democratic governor L. Douglas Wilder was a candidate in 1989, he came under scrutiny from Republicans for failing to disclose his real estate and stock holdings on forms. At the time, Wilder called on then-Democratic Attorney General Mary Sue Terry to investigate the matter.

“(She) was able to put that to rest,” Stanfield said. “But the point is, when it comes to these forms, any sort of omission or anything of serious question gives the Republicans a route of attack, whether founded or unfounded.”

Stanfield also points to Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares’ run for re-election and how former DPVA spokesperson Liam Watson was subject to a probe from Miyares’ office. Watson, who left DPVA in 2023 after being elected to Blacksburg town council, now faces trial for election fraud charges.

DPVA’s central committee members will vote between Zach Pruckowski, Bagby and Stanfield on March 22 to pick the party’s new chair. That person will then be the new face and voice of the political party in Virginia and can play a key role in boosting Democrats ahead of this year’s House of Delegates and executive branch elections.

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When reached for comment, Pruckowski did not wish to weigh in on Bagby’s forms.

“I’m just staying focused on making the case to members of (DPVA’s Central Committee) that I’m the best guy for the job,” he said.

As candidates for an inner-party race rather than a state-run election, neither Stanfield and Pruckowski are subject to the SOEI.

“To qualify for the ballot in a state-run election, you have to fill out to SOEI,” DPVA’s executive director Shyam Raman said.

Meanwhile, as a former state candidate and current state lawmaker, Bagby fills out SOEI forms each year. Issues with Bagby’s paperwork were first discovered by independent journalist Christa Motley and when she questioned Bagby about them, his lawyer responded.

“The omission that you shared has been addressed and was a result of an oversight,” Bagby’s lawyer Joe Massie wrote to Motley on March 11 after the forms had been updated.

Motley, who has spent years reporting on how Virginia’s substance use recovery homes are managed in the state, uncovered Bagby’s connections to the Virginia Association of Recovery Residences and began looking into his finances more closely when he announced his run for DPVA chair.

Her reporting on recovery homes revealed Bagby’s role in state funds that VARR has received in recent years — a role Bagby has downplayed.

“All I have done was give money to the recovery community,” he said in a recent interview with The Mercury.

Emails that Motley received through a Freedom of Information Act request showed VARR officials referring to Bagby as a “champion” in the legislature. He also joined a limited liability company called Imagine The Freedom LLC with members of VARR, which owned a property, as well. Though the LLC was on Bagby’s previous SOEI forms, it is absent in recent years. This is because his association with Imagine The Freedom has ended, he told The Mercury.

Virginia’s Conflict of Interest and Ethics Advisory Council website is where SOEI forms are publicly viewable. The database indicates that Bagby recently amended his filing, but previous versions of the forms are not publicly available. The Mercury confirmed the omissions through a records request to the council.

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