On Thursday, November 21, the Commonwealth of Virginia Board of Education did indeed vote on the Final Review of (the) Proposed A-F School Grading Formula Response to the 2013 Acts of the Assembly. The board delayed a vote on this item last month to allow for more public comment and in response to school divisions’ concerns about the impact of the test scores of LEP students. In the end,the board moved to vote so schools and school divisions can plan and prepare. Options to change this legislation may be on the horizon at some point in time, but for now educators will need to deal with what has been given to our schools. “This is the beginning, not the end of the road” remarked Mr. David Foster, President of the Board.
In a last minute attempt to convince the board to again delay their vote, Steve Staples, chairman of VEC, (Virginia Education Coalition to which VASSP belongs), noted that some very strong school divisions still cannot calculate the unintended consequences of the legislation. “Folks are still trying to figure what those unintended conseuences might be” said Staples. More time would be needed to review and prepare for this evaluation process and it would help also with preparing communities for this new identification process.
Most of the state’s schools, commented one board member, would earn letter grades of A or B based on preliminary data used to establish a school-grading formula approved Thursday by the Virginia Board of Education. This,of course, remains to be seen.
The Governor’s office wasted no time sending out a memorandum announcing the success of the vote at the Thursday morning meeting. You may read the announcement at: http://www.doe.virginia.gov/news/news_releases/2013/nov21_gov.shtml
