“That it was the largest decrease in the country is also embarrassing”

Dick Hall-Sizemore

Governor Youngkin declared it “catastrophic” and proceeded to blame his predecessors.

It should be pointed out that the Northam administration and the “mainstream media” had begun sounding alarms several years ago. The Richmond Times-Dispatch, much criticized on this blog, declared in 2018 that “Virginia’s failing grade on reading SOLs must not be tolerated.” The administration began to take steps after the release of the 2019 NAEP scores to address the problem.  James Lane, then Superintendent of Public Instruction, expressed his dismay over the widening gap in the reading scores and declared the Department of Education (DOE) would examine the methods used by divisions in which students had scored well with an eye to determining whether those methods could be replicated in other divisions.  He also scheduled a statewide literacy summit in early 2020 in Charlottesville to address the problem. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit and whatever was decided at that summit took a back seat to the efforts just to keep schools operating at some level during the crisis.  As the pandemic eased and schools re-opened to in-person instruction, it was recently pointed out on this blog that the Northam administration’s outgoing budget “prioritized reading initiatives for 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders.”

What has Governor Youngkin proposed? For months, his administration has advocated increasing accreditation standards and the SOL “cut scores.” He reiterated those goals in the wake of the NAEP scores. The top priority listed in the Governor’s news release was “Raise the Floor and the Ceiling” and the fourth priority was “Hold Ourselves and Our Schools Accountable.” Those goals were also expressed by Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera, as reported by Jim Bacon on this blog.