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Virginia public school student performance not as bad as report makes it seem, education association says

Students are heading back to the classroom three months after a state report warned of dropping test scores across all age groups.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A report from the Virginia Department of Education says that Virginia students are falling behind.

The report warned of statewide declines in student performance across reading, literacy, math and kindergarten readiness. 

But Regan Davis of the Chesapeake Education Association said students are not performing as badly as this report makes it out to be

Davis said the report makes public schools "look as bleak as possible," but that's not the case.

"It did paint a picture that Virginia Public Schools appear to be horrible and declining, and if you look at the actual, specific statistics, they are cherry-picked," Davis said. “It’s making a picture that public schools are bad and we should have charter schools and private schools."

RELATED: VDOE leader appointed by Youngkin says as talks of learning equity increased, achievement gaps did too

Gwen Bailey is a military family life counselor who works with children. She said she's noticed students are not performing as well as before.

“From just talking to some of the kids and doing some little activities with them, I’m going, ‘Hmmm.’ There’s some type of delay," Bailey said.

“I’m looking at some of the writing skills, even just in writing their names for some of the lower grades that probably should know how to make letters a lot better. And some of them have some difficulty reading.”

Virginia Department of Education leaders released the report in May. It warned of dropping test scores across all age groups, and the pandemic is not making things easier.

“I think it’s a tremendous concern,” Bailey said.

Public Instruction Superintendent Jillian Balow wrote in the foreword: “Already-present declines in student achievement were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic school closures."

The report points to specific areas of concern. 

Only 33% of 8th and 38% of 4th graders are proficient in reading. And, “alarmingly," the report says 42% of 2nd graders scored below the reading benchmark.

“Virginia is experiencing achievement gaps and declines in college admissions testing and AP examinations,” the report continued.

Virginia Beach mother Taheerah Abdul thinks the pandemic impacted her child's academic performance.

“I mean everything’s kind of declined since the pandemic," Abdul said. “My senior who graduated, he actually dropped completely from him being a 4.0 to a 3.5 just from that year out, alone.”

Davis said the report doesn’t adequately highlight trends in improvement. He said although the pandemic may have played a role in dropping student scores, what’s needed is continued investments in public education.

“When we invest in our student’s futures, when we invest in our educators – and not just teachers, the custodians, the teacher assistants, micro-film technicians, data clerks, everybody. When we invest resources into our employees, students have greater opportunities," Davis said.

"When we have opportunities such as fully funding our budgets, increasing pay rate, decreasing the student to teacher ratios, all of those opportunities that our elected officials can do, all of those opportunities can better help our students be successful.”

The report warned school division leaders that must act to close the achievement gap to avoid an "alarming trajectory" of students "ill-prepared for success in life."

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