Hampton Roads schools show improvement in science, math scores; stagnation in reading, writing – The Virginian-Pilot

Hampton Roads schools are making some progress as they continue to dig out from across-the-board learning losses caused by the pandemic, according to data released Thursday morning by the Virginia Department of Education.

The VDOE released the results of the 2022-23 Standards of Learning assessments, administered annually to Virginia students.

Some of the highest year-over-year gains for area divisions were seen in pass rates for science, with Portsmouth and Norfolk schools seeing a 7 and 8 percentage point jump, respectively. Hampton, Suffolk and Newport News both saw 5 percentage point increases in their science pass rates, and Chesapeake and Virginia Beach both increased by 2 percentage points.

Some divisions also saw multipoint gains in math. Suffolk’s pass rate increased by 7 percentage points. Newport News saw a 5 percentage point gain, and Hampton, Norfolk and Portsmouth each saw 4 percentage point gains.

Reading, writing and history pass rates were mostly stagnant from last year. However, Suffolk’s history pass rate increased by 5 percentage points.

The scores in Hampton Roads and across the state are still notably lower than pre-pandemic levels.

“Grade 3 through 8 Virginia students are still struggling to recover the learning loss from the pandemic and are not performing as well as their pre-pandemic peers,” said Superintendent of Public Instruction, Lisa Coons, in a press release.

The VDOE also noted that chronic absenteeism is tied to lower scores. Statewide, the number of chronically absent students doubled from 2018-19 to 2022-23. Students who miss more than 10% of the school year, or more than 18 days, are considered chronically absent.

This year’s scores show that students in grades 3-8 who missed 18 or more days of school scored 18% lower in reading than students with regular attendance. In math, data show that students in grades 3-8 who missed 18 or more days of school scored 25% lower than those with regular attendance.

Following the SOL results release, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced “All In VA,” a new plan to address the impact of COVID-19 learning loss, student achievement and chronic absenteeism.

All In VA is a “three-pronged approach to accelerate the learning loss recovery” which specifically looks at ways to address attendance, literacy and learning, and directs VDOE to provide guidance and support to school systems and families in each area. The state has invested more than $400 million to this effort and encourages school divisions to use it for “high-dose tutoring,”  the Virginia Literacy Act and chronic absenteeism response.

The VDOE noted that statewide pass rates for every elementary and middle-school grade are behind 2018-19 pass rates in reading and math. The press release also noted that minimum scores for proficiency were lowered between the administration of the 2018-2019 tests and the 2020-2021 tests.

The Virginia Education Association president, James Fedderman, slammed Youngkin for his response to the SOL scores.

In a press release, Fedderman claimed that Youngkin’s administration has made several blunders in addressing learning loss and improving the state’s public education system — as Youngkin promised to do when he first took office two years ago. Instead, the teachers union claimed, public education funding has been cut, making it difficult to fully implement some of the tutoring and chronic absenteeism initiatives, and policies such as the model policies on the treatment of transgender students have failed to support students and teachers.

“The only ingredient missing in Virginia to meet all student needs is political will,” Fedderman said in the release.

Below are the pass rates by subject area for the Hampton Roads divisions. The numbers in parenthesis are last year’s pass rates for comparison.

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Chesapeake
Reading: 78% (78%)
Writing: 72% (82%)
Math: 77% (74%)
Science: 74% (72%)
History: 74% (74%)

Hampton
Reading: 70% (71%)
Writing: 62% (63%)
Math: 72% (68%)
Science: 67% (62%)
History: 65% (64%)

Newport News
Reading: 59% (58%)
Writing: 53% (50%)
Math: 56% (51%)
Science: 53% (48%)
History: 45% (44%)

Norfolk
Reading: 61% (61%)
Writing: 49% (48%)
Math: 50% (46%)
Science: 55% (47%)
History: 50% (49%)

Portsmouth
Reading: 60% (61%)
Writing: 45% (48%)
Math: 53% (49%)
Science: 52% (45%)
History: 54% (52%)

Virginia Beach
Reading: 82% (82%)
Writing: 73% (74%)
Math: 77% (76%)
Science: 77% (75%)
History: 73% (74%)

Isle of Wight
Reading: 78% (78%)
Writing: 70% (73%)
Math: 77% (73%)
Science: 67% (71%)
History: 71% (72%)

Poquoson
Reading: 87% (89%)
Writing: 79% (79%)
Math: 85% (82%)
Science: 86% (83%)
History: 81% (84%)

Suffolk
Reading: 72% (71%)
Writing: 65% (63%)
Math: 69% (62%)
Science: 63% (58%)
History: 60% (55%)

Williamsburg-James City County
Reading: 77% (77%)
Writing: 70% (68%)
Math: 75% (72%)
Science: 72% (71%)
History: 70% (69%)

York County
Reading: 87% (87%)
Writing 77% (80%)
Math 86% (85%)
Science 81% (79%)
History 80% (83%)

State
Reading: 73% (73%)
Writing: 65% (65%)
Math: 69% (66%)
Science: 67% (65%)
History: 65% (66%)