Governor Glenn Youngkin painted a positive picture of stagnant school test scores Wednesday morning. The governor pointed to intense tutoring programs and more current testing to suggest a better path was possible, but others questioned his term-long strategy.
The results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, were released Wednesday and Governor Glenn Youngkin was metered in his reaction: “The NAEP scores this morning, which were from January 2024, were not unexpected.”
Youngkin said SOL scores before and after the NAEP testing of 4th and 8th graders lined up with what his administration already understood: challenges persist post-COVID and learning loss has continued.
Still, he said he was working with legislators to improve the situation.
“We are working collaboratively to fund a record amount into our school systems," Youngkin told reporters. "We're working collaboratively to set high expectations.”
Among legislative collaborators is Senator Schuyler VanValkenburg. A high school teacher by trade, he was the lone Democrat to buck an effort to slow a new school accountability system backed by the Governor.
Still, VanValkenburg noted NAEP scores released this week hadn't changed much from those Youngkin criticized former Governor Ralph Northam for.
“I think it really wasn’t helpful. We had an administration that came in, bashed on the Northam administration and then spent four years trying to privatize public education and playing culture war games," VanValkenburg told Radio IQ. "They haven’t helped us do the long steady work that it requires to get our scores up.”
VanValkenburg said he looked forward to working with Youngkin’s administration in its final year, especially on the state’s long-debated school funding formula which could see big changes for the first time since the 1970s.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.