RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Three years after the COVID-19 pandemic forced students across the U.S. to connect with their teachers and peers from the other side of a computer screen, data shows Virginia’s students are making progress making back the lost time.
The Virginia Department of Education’s report on this past year’s Standards of Learning (SOL) testing results shows an increase in the percentage of elementary and middle school students who achieved “proficient” or passing scores in reading and math.
66.4% of students in grades 3-8 passed the math exam in 2023-24, a 1.7% increase from the 2022-23 school year. Meanwhile, 71.1% of students in grades 3-8 passed the reading exam, a 0.8% increase from last year.
Meanwhile, at the high school level, 84% of students passed their reading exam, a 1% decrease from 2022-23, and 84% passed math exams, a 3% increase from 2022-23.
“You saw much more improvements in math than in reading,” said Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin. “The reality is that reading, foundational building blocks, if people don’t have them, are harder to recover from. It’s more persistent.”
Youngkin says part of the success is the result of his All in VA initiative, funded by the General Assembly last September, that prioritizes intensive tutoring.
“One of the first things we did was increase the number of tutors that we have so that we can provide more one-to-one attention and instruction for our students,” said Brunswick County Public School Superintendent Dr. Kristy Somerville-Midgette.
The initiative also aimed to put a dent in rising rates of chronic absenteeism, which is defined as when a student misses 10% or more of the school year. The Department of Education says chronic absenteeism is down 16% compared to last year.
Dr. Somerville Midgette says her district used some of the All in VA money to pay teachers to come in on weekends to help students who missed school during the week.
“If you missed one day, then you came in on Saturday for three hours, you gave us that time back. It wasn’t just coming to sit at a computer,” said Dr. Somerville-Midgette. “We had an actual instructor that was there to teach the students and to catch up on any work that they had missed from that day missed.”
Despite the measured improvements, Youngkin said there’s still more work to be done.
“We are going to get this ship now [heading] in the right direction, now that we got it turned around,” said Youngkin.