It seems no matter how you convey the results of testing -- an A-F analysis or the Balanced Scorecard that has been in place since the 2017-18 school year -- West Virginia schools are still doing a poorer job for our kids than they were doing pre-pandemic; and a poor job in general.
Balanced Scorecard results for the 2022-23 school year show there has been a small improvement over last year's performance in the annual statewide assessment, but we haven't gotten back even to 2018-19 levels.
Improvement is good, of course, but even with improvement only 55% of West Virginia students PARTIALLY met the standard for English Language Arts. We were at 56.9% before the pandemic. Only 50.6% of students partially meet the standard in math, compared with 53.5% pre-pandemic.
But because parents should not be content with partially educated students, let's look at the percentage deemed proficient.
This time around, 35% of students tested were proficient in math, down from 39% in 2019. ELA proficiency was at 44%, down from 46% in 2019. Science proficiency was 29%, down from 33% pre-COVID.
That is simply unacceptable.
Parents and guardians can and should visit wveis.k12.wv.us/essa/dashboard.html for specifics on your childrens' school districts.
Once we overcome our disappointment and frustration there is another step to take. Blaming schools and educators is easy -- and certainly the responsibility lands in their laps.
But what are families, communities and lawmakers doing to support them and give our students a better chance to excel?
As teachers take a look at these scores and figure out how to do better for our students, no doubt there will be concerns such as "How do we get lawmakers out of our way while we try to educate these kids?" "How are we supposed to focus on teaching when our schools are also caring for the physical and mental health of students, feeding them (sometimes clothing them), keeping them safe, and offering a haven they might not have at home?" "How are we going to get the resources we need to teach when our communities' economies are still in shambles?"
And, "How do we convince students to prioritize their educations when families and communities too often place no value on -- in fact, in some cases have a negative attitude toward -- getting an education?"
There is blame to spread far and wide on this problem.
Teachers and school systems will use the data to get to work toward greater improvement.
As they do so, we must ask ourselves, are we ready to do our share?