THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 16, 1995 TAG: 9511160330
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B9 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
Worried about going too far, too fast in their effort to improve Virginia's schools, members of the State Board of Education appeared ready Wednesday to delay key elements of the Allen administration's conservative plan for school reform.
Even some of Allen's appointees to the board said they wanted to hear more from the public before adopting the changes, which would hold great consequences for schools, teachers, students and parents.
``My goodness, there's a lot of big issues here. I'm just not ready to decide,'' member Michelle Easton, one of five Allen appointees, said during a workshop to discuss issues for the upcoming General Assembly session.
Among some of the potentially controversial items are proposals to:
Yank accreditation from poorly performing schools that fail to raise academic achievement two years after being placed on a plan to correct deficiencies.
Require schools to provide remedial courses to students who fall below newly adopted state academic standards.
Mandate that school boards appoint parents and community members to a panel that would advise on education issues.
Issue an annual ``report card'' that ranks the performance of every school in the state.
``A lot of people think these are good ideas, but they're really massive changes,'' Easton said. ``Don't we want to ask the public about this? I think it would be crazy just to vote and `Bye, bye' it's gone.''
State schools chief William C. Bosher Jr. has proposed the changes in the state's ``Standards of Quality'' in his push for tougher academic standards. The so-called SOQs offer a broad outline of policies the board considers essential for a quality education.
Because changes to the SOQ require legislative approval, Bosher had hoped to get board approval in time to introduce them into the General Assembly session that begins in January.
But board President James P. Jones, noting the politically contentious election and the partisan divisions that remain, predicted that an effort to seek such major changes this session ``would be dead on arrival.''
The board is expected to vote today on whether to amend the SOQs.
``My prediction is that the board will go slow'' rather than risk having legislators derail the plan, Jones said. ``I think it's going to be difficult for the legislators to take anything but a political view of things.''
The proposed changes to the SOQs are linked to the board's adoption last summer of updated ``Standards of Learning,'' or SOLs, which spell out what schoolkids in each grade should learn in math, science, social studies and English.
The changes that Bosher is calling for would set up a structure to hold school districts accountable for the performance of teachers and students.
To measure student achievement against the new SOLs, Bosher and the board want to develop a state testing program and create consequences for students, teachers and schools that don't measure up.
Uncertainty among educators over what the consequences might be, fueled by rumors and speculation in the media, has created a firestorm, Jones said.
Bosher said his primary goal in the upcoming legislative session was to get funding to begin development of the statewide tests, at an estimated cost of $25 million. The board hopes to begin testing students in spring 1997. The report card and consequences can come later, he said.
Acknowledging that ``general anxiety'' existed over his proposed SOQ changes, Bosher said he could accept ``taking a more cautious approach for those areas of concern and building a consensus.''
Bosher said his concern is that failure to hold schools accountable would render useless the improved academic standards.
``If there are no consequences to them,'' he said, ``we won't have Standards of Learning, we will have Suggestions of Learning.'' by CNB