The Latest from VEA

MEDIA ADVISORY

Dr. James J. Fedderman, President of the Virginia Education Association, made the following statement on release of the 2022 NAEP Scores:

With the predictable declines in math and reading test scores on the NAEP test today for Virginia, along with the rest of the country, the Youngkin administration took the opportunity to politicize the results and blame his predecessors. He put out a plan to respond to the results call: “Our Commitment to Virginia’s Children”.

The commitment fails to offer a dime of new spending – it just points to existing spending – and it calls for completely insufficient approaches such as requesting tutor volunteers and pointing to free online learning video platforms. Furthermore, the administration calls for arbitrary changes to SOL cut scores and our school accreditation system without pointing to a shred of evidence that this would conceivably lead to any impacts on student outcomes.

Addressing our real challenges in public schools will take real targeted investments in what’s proven to work: competitive pay, adequate support staff, after school activities, teacher mentorship programs, small class sizes, and modern school infrastructure. The Youngkin administration could respond in a meaningful way to these concerning results if they use our state revenue surplus to invest in critical K-12 services and programs in the upcoming budget.”

Background

This week, the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), known as The Nation’s Report Card, released results from the 2022 Reading and Mathematics assessments for Grades 4 and 8. The National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), the independent, nonpartisan board that oversees The Nation’s Report Card, stressed viewing the results while recognizing the pervasive effects of the global pandemic.

Long-term trend data released in September 2022 posted the largest average score decline in reading since 1990, and the first ever score decline in mathematics.

This is the first Nation’s Report Card since the start of the pandemic for the reported grades.

Overall, the gap in performance between the highest-achieving students and the lowest-achieving students widened. 8th grade math scores dropped by 8 points, rendering 38% of 8th graders below NAEP “basic” achievement level in mathematics. None of the states and none of the Trial Urban District Assessment districts had gains in math in grade 4 or grade 8. Reading scores are slightly less discouraging: 21 states saw no statistically significant decline in reading in 4th grade and 84% of states saw no statistically significant decline in 8th grade reading.