A long way to go in Virginia
A lot of times when we bring up school choice, people in Virginia will scoff saying that we have great public schools, why would parents need choice? And while a good many of our public schools are doing just fine, sadly far too many of them are not, and our students are the ones who suffer.
The Virginian-Pilot today reports that:
…53 of 216 testing schools in South Hampton Roads failed to raise scores enough in 2008 to meet federal standards.
The state Department of Education released preliminary results Wednesday morning for the entire state. Twenty-six percent of 1,837 schools did not meet standards, and 59 percent of 132 divisions fell short.
More than one out of every four Virginia schools did not meet standards. More than half of all school divisions are falling behind. That’s not very encouraging to hear if you are a parent.
In Virginia Beach, six middle schools and six elementary schools missed the mark, up from eight total last year. All of the middle schools had problems in math, and at ten of the schools, African-American students scored below the required pass rates.
We have to do better for all of Virginia’s students.
