Recent SOL data show modest gains. Youngkin wants you to believe he’s the reason. He’s not.
“A ship that was off course has been turned around,” Youngkin said during a Tuesday press conference at the Patrick Henry Building in downtown Richmond. “We are seeing progress, but we will also say today that we have a long way to go.”
— Reported by VPM August 20
On Tuesday, Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued a prudent word of caution about the modest gains displayed on the SOL scores released this week. And he did a bit of crowing, taking credit for “a ship that was off course” having “turned around.”
The governor is quite correct that there’s much work to be done. Is there, however, a reason to crow?
Before answering that question, let’s look at what the numbers have to say.
About Those Numbers …
The Advance reached out to Matt Hurt, director of the Comprehensive Instructional Program, to gain some perspective on the SOL numbers released this week, which do show modest gains across most areas.
Hurt shared his breakdown of district-by-district pass rates comparing 2023 to 2024 scores.
The school district that sits at the top of that list — Colonial Beach — should be of particular interest to Spotsylvania County. It’s the same district that had until recently been run by a Board which by its actions made clear it was working to undermine the school system as we know it.
The Colonial Beach public school system realized the greatest gains in Virginia by improving its SOL pass rate by 9.55% over 2023, from 58.62% to 68.17%. (The next closest jump was Bath County, which saw scores rise by 7.74%.)
That improvement in Colonial Beach is directly the result of its then-superintendent Clint Mitchell, who now runs Spotsylvania County Public Schools.
Mitchell attributes his success to changing a school’s culture. In an interview with the Advance earlier this summer, Mitchell said:
I want to build an infectious culture in our buildings where people feel that they want to be there.
Building a place where people want to be is the key to success. And that’s something that Hurt is able to back up with data.
According to the 2023 School Climate Survey in Virginia, “There was one question in the survey which correlated higher with SOL outcomes (positive correlation) and teacher vacancy rates (negative correlation) than any other,” Hurt wrote to the Advance earlier this year. “‘Overall, my school is a good place to work and learn.’ That pretty much sums everything up.”
Such progress does not occur overnight (Mitchell was in year three in Colonial Beach before coming to Spotsylvania). Hold on to that thought, as it will be important below.
Regionally, our schools held serve.
In Spotsylvania County, while the pass rate went up slightly, from 64.96% in 2023 to 66.87% in 2024; its ranking relative to other districts fell, from 77 in 2023 to 79 in 2024.
In Stafford County, the district saw a slight increase in test scores from 2023, rising from 66.25% then to 68.40% in 2024. It fell one slot relative to other districts in the state, from 68 in 2024 to 69 in 2024.
Fredericksburg saw a jump in test score pass rates from 47.20% in 2023 to 50.52% in 2024. It’s ranking relative to other districts also moved up a notch, from 125 in 2023, to 124 in 2024. Hardly news to celebrate. But at least the numbers are tracking in a positive direction.
In King George the passing rate moved from 68.67% in 2023 to 69.71% in 2024. However, relative to other districts it fell from its 2023 ranking of 57 to 63 in 2024.
And in Caroline County, the pass rate fell from 58.11% in 2023 to 57.92% in 2024. It’s ranking relative to other districts also fell, from 104 in 2023, to 107 in 2024.
Credit the Governor?
Youngkin credited his ALL in VA plan for the increases. To be sure, this played a role. However, it’s impossible to draw a straight line from this program to the modest improvements in scores. Mostly because the program simply hasn’t been around enough to have a significant effect.
The programs that Youngkin and the General Assembly developed for ALL in VA didn’t fully get off the ground until January 2024.
It is more likely that children being back in school full-time for a second full year post-COVID had more to do with the improvement than ALL in VA. Education losses and discipline problems correctly attributed to at-home learning were less notable — though were still an issue — in the 2023-2024 school year than they had been in the 2022-2023 school year, as students were learning to be students again in a school environment.
The state’s push to reduce chronic absenteeism was appreciated, but much of the credit for this must go to the schools themselves. Further, one would expect better attendance the second full year back. Again, students had to re-learn the routines of attending school.
So yes, credit the governor and the General Assembly to a point.
However, on Tuesday, as he has throughout his tenure, Youngkin was using SOL scores to bolster his own position, not to seriously address what is happening in public schools — the good and the bad.
Youngkin rode into office carried on the shoulders of an anti-public education wave, and he wasted no time in repaying them for placing him in the Governor’s Mansion. He established a tip-line where parents could anonymously report teachers they suspected of teaching dangerous ideas (whatever that term means). This is a Stasi-state like tactic, and it made clear Youngkin neither respected, nor trusted, Virginia’s educators.
When pushed to turn over the reports, he refused, hiding behind Virginia’s notoriously weak FOIA laws.
Matters only got worse.
When book banning took hold across the commonwealth, Youngkin looked the other way, refusing to put a stop to this most-egregious violation of the First Amendment.
Few places were more affected by that movement to ban books than Spotsylvania County. There, one parent was determined to ban every book she found offensive — and there were few beyond the vapid dreck published by Brave Books that didn’t offend her.
Youngkin not only said nothing, but Jon Russell, who somehow found a way into the Youngkin state education department, came to Spotsylvania and helped lead the attack on reading. As well as the attack on educators.
Not satisfied to stop there, Youngkin appointees to the Board of Education then gave a superintendent’s license to Mark Taylor — a man who had no qualifications for the job — so he could the lead Spotsylvania County Schools. Is it any surprise that one of Taylor’s first, among his many, anti-book pushes was to advocate closing school libraries, using underfunding as an excuse?
And where is Youngkin now that the anti-book mania is attacking King George County, Rockingham County, Hanover County and more? Sitting silently, tacitly giving his approval.
For the entirety of his tenure as governor, Youngkin has been openly denigrating public school teachers, slamming the state’s academic performance (with grossly misleading data), and turning a deaf ear to those who would ban, and even burn, books. The only time he spoke lovingly of public schools was when CNN’s ranking them the best in the nation pushed Virginia back into the No. 1 position as America’s Top State for Business.
Youngkin hasn’t improved education in Virginia. All he’s managed to do is make it a leader in the nation in book bans.
If there is credit to be given, it should be given to the teachers who have persevered through three years of a governor who has been openly hostile to them, and openly misrepresented their work by standing behind false readings of testing data.
Teachers have endured school boards that have turned what should be a politics-free job into a political position they use to springboard their antipublic school agendas. In Spotsylvania, teachers lost jobs, or just left, out of frustration with the extremist politics of the then-majority that cared more for returning Bible School to Spotsylvania schools than educating children for the future.
A District We’d All be Wise to Watch
It’s notable that Youngkin didn’t talk about the No. 3 ranked district on Hurt’s list for SOL passing rate. For the second straight year, it’s Wise County schools.
Located in far southwest Virginia, Wise County is challenged in many areas: health and economics most notably. How does its school district outperform far wealthier, privileged districts like Fairfax and Loudon?
Wise is where the CIP program run by Hurt got its start, and a lot has gone right there. Beginning with the way it handles standardized testing.
Rather than using it as a punitive tool to criticize educators and build a case to end public education, as Gov. Youngkin has done throughout his time in office, Wise uses the data to understand where students are struggling, and then flows resources and support to those students in a structured and logical manner that helps them close learning gaps.
Moreover, Wise County has created an environment where teachers want to work, and children want to attend.
The result? Wise County — if one uses testing data as its measure — is one of the finest school districts in a state that is consistently ranked by outside organization as one of the ten best states for education in the nation.
(Next week, the Advance will be in Wise, Virginia, to report on CIP and the schools there. Watch for our special report.)
The Governor’s Gift
Lest we be too harsh, perhaps Youngkin’s presser on Tuesday did one good thing for education this week. He’s proven that standards-based and high-stakes-testing-based education when used as a political football to advance one’s career as opposed to helping children — as Youngkin has done throughout his time in office, and as other governors across the nation both Democratic and Republican have done — has failed.
If this governor really believes in education and supporting public schools. He’ll turn to the people who can most help him get what he says he wants — higher scores — and start trusting them.
The “ship,” as education was referred to as by Youngkin on Tuesday, was never unmoored or off course or on the verge of crashing. The ship — public education — is a sturdy vessel.
And somehow, through the storms Youngkin blew up over the past three years, and the rocks he tried to crash it on, it is standing tall and sailing well.
Let’s hope for a better captain — be they Democrat or Republican — come January 2026, when Youngkin is finally forced to turn over the wheel to someone who understands the value of the ship they will steer far better Youngkin has demonstrated to this point.
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