I strongly support the School Performance and Support Framework.

A revised Framework is needed given the failure of the current accreditation and accountability systems to provide a transparent accounting of school performance. During the post-COVID period, the current system signaled that schools were doing well even as student achievement plunged. The new Framework corrects the prior shortcomings. It assigns a higher weighting to mastery than growth which will incentivize schools to recoup learnings losses.

Virginia is not alone in emphasizing achievement over growth. Massachusetts, which is often cited for its exemplary education policies, uses a 60% weighting for achievement and 20% for growth for elementary and middle schools and explicitly targets a 3:1 ratio of achievement to growth.

For the high school mastery index, Virginia should ensure that the SOL exam results used are not concentrated solely in 9^th grade, so that schools are incentivized to promote academic growth throughout high school. While that can be done readily for reading and science, most high school math SOL exams are currently taken in 9^th grade. To correct this temporal skewing, Virginia should require that all students taking a math course with an end-of-course SOL take the associated SOL exam; this would increase the number of older students taking math SOL exams.

The Framework also excels in giving meaningful weight to chronic absenteeism. Since 2018-19, the share of Virginia students who are chronically absent has roughly doubled. This is troubling as chronic absenteeism correlates with poor academic performance for the student and disrupts overall classroom functioning as well. If we want to boost student performance, we must ensure that students are in the classroom.

Lastly, the Framework addresses the need for greater school accountability for recently arrived English Learners. At present, an elementary school may never be held accountable for the math performance of a recently arrived student who enrolls in 1^st grade. That should not be the case. It is important to bring these students into school performance measures with accommodations as needed, so that they can receive targeted support in a timely manner.

Thank you for the significant progress made with the new Framework; all of Virginia’s students will be the beneficiaries.