THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 28, 1995 TAG: 9509280383
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
With tough new academic standards in place, the state Board of Education began debate Wednesday over a costly and potentially divisive plan to hold Virginia's students and schools accountable if they fail to measure up.
State schools Superintendent William C. Bosher Jr. estimated a total cost of up to $25 million over two years.
The board's plan is to develop a system of statewide tests to ensure that students perform up to the recently revised Standards of Learning, or SOLs. The SOLs spell out what students in each grade should know in math, science, English and social studies.
While SOLs have been in place in Virginia since the early 1980s, the board is trying for the first time to measure student performance against the standards and to develop consequences for failure.
Agreeing on the consequences may prove difficult. Board members shied from the debate Wednesday, but they were clearly at odds over how far the state should go to punish students or schools that failed to meet the standards.
``I sense what's coming is a definite change of the public education system,'' said Lil Tuttle, one of five appointees of Gov. George F. Allen on the nine-member board. Tuttle worried that the state was attempting to ``micromanage'' local school districts and would become an ``umpire in some kind of academic ballgame.''
Michelle Easton, another Allen appointee, said, ``We cannot be commanding it top down.''
The consequences, state board President James P. Jones acknowledged, are ``where the political rubber hits the road.''
``It is such a delicate question here, you could run into a roadblock at any place along the way,'' Jones said.
Bosher argues for a system of rewards and sanctions at every grade level tested for students, teachers and schools. ``You've got to have that in order for it to have meaning,'' Bosher said.
The only clear consensus on the board was to deny a high school diploma to students who fail a final assessment, given presumably in the junior year.
The Allen administration supports denying driver's licenses to high school students who don't pass the assessment test. Other possibilities include failing students who don't pass.
Schools with a certain percentage of student failures might lose accreditation, which could result in loss of funds and the state cleaning house, removing teachers and ordering new instructional programs.
Board member Alan Wurtzel said he doubted the General Assembly would allow the state to take away money from low-performing schools. He favored sending in state assistance to pull them up, and he called for teacher bonuses in achieving schools.
Cost is another ticklish issue. The General Assembly has to approve the money.
Bosher said the Allen administration will seek the money when the General Assembly convenes in January.
The state hopes to begin testing students in third, fifth, seventh, ninth and 11th grades by spring 1997. Bosher also wants to administer an entry test to kindergartners to measure their ``readiness'' for school. The state Department of Education will seek bids from private contractors to develop the tests.
KEYWORDS: STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION STANDARDS by CNB