Standards of Learning

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Standards of Learning or (SOL) is a program of the Commonwealth of Virginia. It sets forth learning and achievement expectations for grades K-12 in Virginia's Public Schools. The standards represent what many teachers, school administrators, parents, and business and community leaders believe schools should teach and students should learn.

1 Establishing standards
2 Results over 10 years
3 Criticism
4 External links

[edit] Establishing standards

In June 1995, the Virginia Board of Education approved Standards of Learning in four core content areas - mathematics, science, English, and history and the social sciences. In September 1997, the Board of Education established new Standards for Accrediting Public Schools in Virginia (SOA) that link statewide accountability tests to the SOL and hold students, schools, and school divisions accountable for results. [1]

[edit] Results over 10 years

In 1998, the first year of SOL testing, only 2 percent of the commonwealth’s public schools met the standard for full accreditation. The percentage of schools meeting the state’s accreditation standards increased to 6.5 percent in 1999, 22 percent in 2000, 40 percent in 2001, 64 percent in 2002, 78 percent in 2003, and 84 percent in 2004.

In October 2005, the State reported that students in 1,685, or 92 percent, of the commonwealth’s 1,834 schools receiving accreditation ratings for 2005-2006, met or exceeded state achievement objectives on Standards of Learning (SOL) tests and other statewide assessments in the four core academic areas. [2]

[edit] Criticism

The SOL program, and its emphasis on testing, have come under intense criticism by both teachers and parents. Teachers complain that they are now in a situation of "teaching to the test" and are unable to answer questions not related to test matter. It is also, however, very unfair to the students of Virginia. Concedering that only one test determines the students outlook and concerning whether they pass their grade level or not. Sometimes the students cannot pass all of the multiple ones they must take and this leads to failure to graduate or to attend a graduation ceremony. The student must take the class over. Situations have occurred where students that have made straight A's in a specific class fail that classes SOL. If students do fail the SOL in a specific subject, they are given the option to re-take the SOL the following year.