Marinating in Failure

By John R. Butcher

August 22, 2018 by cranky

The 2018 SOL pass rates are up on the VDOE Web site.

Richmond this year posted a one-point gain in the average reading pass rate and a repeat in science but declines otherwise.

In terms of a graph:

Recalling that the accreditation benchmarks are 75 in English and 70 otherwise, this is a picture of abiding failure to properly educate Richmond’s schoolchildren.

With a 1 point gain in the reading pass rate, Richmond was third from the last among divisions, after a tie for second last year (not counting the School for the Deaf and Blind).

Notwithstanding the 3 point drop in Richmond’s writing pass rate from last year, Petersburg’s sixteen point(!) decrease brought Richmond up from last place to second from the bottom.

In history & social science, Richmond’s 5 point drop left it next to last, again.

The 2 point slide in the math rate was small enough, in light of even larger declines elsewhere, to bring Richmond up from second to fourth from the bottom.

Finally, the repeat pass rate in science was enough to leave Richmond in a tie for second from last, after a second place finish last year.

We'll have more to say later about a school-by-school analysis as well as the relationship between this ongoing disaster and the State’s (predictably futile) intrusion into the Richmond school system.