Genre Analysis: Standards of Learning

Virginia Standards of Learning

The Standards of Learning (SOL) is a program from the Commonwealth of Virginia. The program sets forth learning and achievement guidelines for grade K-12 in Virginia’s Public School system. These standards are what many teachers, principals, attendants, and the business community feel students should obtain before high school graduation. The SOL was a direct response to President George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind Law,” was signed into law on January 8, 2002. This law addresses student expected achievement in four major areas: English, Mathematics, Science, and History/Social Science. In 1998, the first year of SOL testing, two percent of commonwealth public schools met the standard for full accreditation. Standards of Learning are not administered in private schools, hear in lies one of the major issue topics for the SOL. Students will be held back if he or she doesn’t pass their SOL’s. A school’s allotted budget is mandated by it’s ability to meet achievement requirements and test school outputs by the students. The biggest issue with these required tests is students are deprived of a more hands on approach to learning and lesson plans are rushed to meet SOL deadlines. President Bush’s “No child left behind,” in the Henrico County school system simply this meant push every child through no matter what. Teachers and administrators were always working on a timeline to push lesson plans through students to be ready for the upcoming SOL practice tests. Teachers were discouraged to take extra time to explain a lesson to the few students who weren’t on the same comprehension level as the rest of the class. Virginia Board of Education’s response to these complaints were county budget increases to pay for zone dictated learning centers. Governor Gilmore appropriated twenty-five million dollars for teacher training, twenty-nine million for remediation, twenty-five million for supplemental instructional materials, and five million for the diagnostic Early Reading Initiative. “It is important to note that this is over and above other school funding.” Cheri Peirson Yecke, Secretary of Education, July 1999, State of Virginia. These “improvements” were only offered for two hours after normal school hours and did not accommodate student athletes. Placement of such facilities and resources were primarily in low income regions of the counties far from the mast population. Represented more of a “dog and pony show” for the media. Prior to the Standards of Learning; the Literacy Passport Test (LPT) had three parts: math, reading, and writing. The only consequence for failure of the test was for the student and not on the schools. The LPT statistics show evidence of academic stagnation, between sixty-five to seventy percent students passed since 1990. During this time period the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia found that twenty-four percent of Virginia high school graduates who went on to Virginia public colleges needed remedial help. Clearly, there was a need for an improvement is Virginia education, this doesn’t include private school statistics.

The parent and teacher aspect of the Standards of Learning tests are consistently against the introduction. At PTA meetings across the state of Virginia parents argue the SOL is a top-down reform being forced upon schools with no public input. Over five thousand people - citizens, educators, parents, teachers - were involved in revising the SOLs. Over ten public hearings were conducted throughout the state of Virginia, and this number does not include the numerous local gatherings held by Board members. This “grassroot” effort was an indication of heart filled efforts by people who care about their children’s education. The new standards and tests seemed to have been dumped onto the teachers and principals without any warning, when in fact the Virginia Standards of Learning were adopted in June of 1995. The first actual administration of the test took place in the spring of 1998. Giving local school divisions nearly three years to realign their curriculum before the baseline test was administered. In no way did this occur “out of the blue.” Governor Gilmore’s millions in budget increases for teacher training started years before the first test was administered. Teachers on the other hand as a whole feel the SOLs rush their lesson plans. Leaving little time for the students to actually get a grasp on the topic at hand. Deadlines diminish the ability for field trips for younger students. Myself, attending Virginia public school; I was given the opportunity to attend field-trips to Yorktown, Jamestown, Science Museum of Virginia, Frontier Culture Museum, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Field-trips as these should never be budgeted due to it’s enormous impact on a young students education. Why read about it when you can experience it first hand? Students who fall behind in class or dictated as a special needs student and is removed from the class to learn with others who need “extra” help in the subject.

Accreditation is what schools and administrators strive to achieve at all costs. Since a schools ability to increase it’s budget primarily comes from these statistics students are pushed through their education. The percentage of schools meeting the state’s accreditation standards increased to six and a half percent in 1999, twenty-two percent in 200, forty percent in 2001, sixty-four percent in 2002, seventy-eight in 2003, and eighty-four percent in 2004. Students weren’t miraculously getting smarter, they were being pushed through so no student was left behind. Ninety-five percent of Virginia’s elementary schools are now fully accredited, as are eighty-three percent of commonwealth’s middle schools, and ninety-four percent of the high schools. Private schools are not mandated by the Standards of Learning tests and are still highly competitive in college acceptance. More teachers in Henrico County Virginia moved from the public to private atmosphere from 2000 to 2004. When asked their reasoning the teachers replied with, “I can teach by the curriculum and not by cooperate opinionated what’s right to get into college.” Mrs. Stone, St. Benedictine HS, 2003, State of Virginia.

Going to a private school until high school I personally can see both sides of the argument. The SOL were initiated in my school the year before i transferred to the public system. Private schools were more administratively structured and mandated the curriculum based upon college level courses. I learned in seventh grade what public school systems were teaching us in my freshman year of high school. Teachers seemed to be more stressed about completing certain lesson plans by structured timelines. There were more students in remedial learning environments than there actually needed to be. The students as whole went along with what teachers instructed them to do, until parents like mine disliked the current situation and tried to revise such decisions at PTA meetings. Friends still attending private school were learning higher math than my AP class and continued the cycle throughout my curriculum. The Standards of Learning aren’t going anywhere, but there needs to be more of a concern for the students well being and not just putting out good numbers in reports. Pushing students through high school is only going to set them up for failure when they attend a public or private University.

Cited:
Virginia Department of Education News. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.doe.virginia.gov/VDOE/NewHome/pressreleases/2005/oct25.html

Standards of Learning. (n.d.). Retrieved from the OLPC Wiki:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standards_of_Learning

Commonwealth of Knowledge. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.knowledge.state.va.us/main/news/solsfactfiction.htm