The Latest from VEA

Today, HB 585, sponsored by Delegate VanValkenburg won Senate Finance Committee approval by unanimous vote.   The bill requires:

• each student in middle and high school to take only those end-of-course Standards of Learning assessments necessary to meet federal accountability requirements and Virginia high school graduation requirements.
• the Standards of Learning assessments for Virginia Studies, Civics and Economics, Virginia and U.S. history, and biology to include items that require the student to apply knowledge and skills in preparing a response. Such items shall include open-ended questions, long-form writing, and other tasks, with student responses scored by the Department of Education according to statewide scoring rubrics.
• student performance on the Virginia and U.S. history and biology end-of-course assessments to account for 10 percent of the student’s final grade in each such course.
• the Department of Education to convene and consult a workgroup of stakeholders to develop a plan for the implementation of such assessment items no later than the beginning of the 2027–2028 school year. In addition, the Department of Education shall submit its initial plan to the Chairmen of the House Committee on Education, the Senate Committee on Education and Health, the House Committee on Appropriations, and the Senate Committee on Finance and Appropriations no later than November 1, 2022, and provide updates on the implementation of such plan no later than November 1 of each year thereafter through 2027.

View Delegate VanValkenburg’s explanation of HB585 before the Senate Education and Health Committee, HERE.

The VEA has a longstanding position on the issue of high-stakes testing reduction.  The 2022 VEA Legislative Agenda calls on the initiation of legislation to reduce the total number and type of required Standards of Learning (SOL) assessments to the minimum federal requirements.  We applaud Delegate VanValkenburg for carrying HB585 to begin the process of reducing high-stakes standardized tests.

ICYMI: VEA’s Analysis On Three Proposed Budgets

The House and Senate appropriation committees released their proposed budgets on February 20. Each body made some new investments in public education and the House, overall, made large cuts to Virginia’s schools. Like Governor Northam’s proposed budget, both new budgets fall short in funding the Virginia Board of Education-prescribed Standards of Quality (SOQs) – the minimum recommended standards by our state’s education experts.

Based on topline numbers released Sunday, the Senate budget invests hundreds of millions of additional dollars in K-12 schools, while the House budget cuts $638 million in state direct aid.

The average per-pupil state direct aid reduction in the House budget was $525 but was more than three times larger in the 20% of school divisions with the highest share of student poverty ($1,023), than in divisions with the lowest share ($325). Additionally, the cuts in state direct aid in the House budget hit rural school divisions particularly hard, averaging $836 per student versus only $442 for non-rural school divisions.

The VEA has prepared a number of documents to assist our members and stakeholders in understanding the House and Senate budget proposals.

• The first is VEA’s Budget Statement released on February 22nd, 2022. Download here.
• The second is VEA’s Comparison Chart of Three Proposals (Northam’s Budget, the House Budget, and the Senate Budget) and how they stack up. Download here.
• And lastly, VEA’s Governor, House, and Senate Direct Aid Analysis by Poverty and Rural Status. Download here.

The VEA encourages members and stakeholders to share this information with their respective constituencies.