Henrico students show improvement, but still below most state averages in SOLs

Henrico students showed across-the-board improvement on Virginia’s Standards of Learning and other assessment exams during the 2021-22 school year but their overall proficiency levels remained below the state averages in reading, writing, math and history and were even in science, according to new data released Aug. 18 by the Virginia Department of Education.

Overall, among the 29 individual grade- or course-level SOL tests administered in those five academic subjects, Henrico students had higher pass rates than their peers statewide on only three of them: earth science, world history II and Virginia studies. They were even on four others (fifth-grade and end-of-course high school reading; algebra II; and fifth-grade science).

Statewide, students made gains in most subjects but overall achievement levels still were below pre-pandemic levels. In a press release, Virginia Department of Education officials and the state’s two highest ranking education officials attributed that in part to “the continuing impact of prolonged school closures on student learning.”

Virginia Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow blamed what VDOE officials termed the “less rigorous proficiency standards” adopted by the state’s board of education during the 2020-21 school year.

(View a school-by-school breakdown of all 2021-22 SOL results from Henrico schools here.)

“Had the board retained the pre-pandemic level of rigor on the reading SOLs, we would be looking at less recovery in reading,” Balow said, predicting that the path back to pre-pandemic achievement levels would be a multi-year effort. “The first step in addressing the learning loss our students have experienced is to dive into the SOL data at the state, division and school levels and identify the instructional supports and interventions students require individually and in the aggregate to get back on track to grade-level proficiency. This is especially critical for our youngest learners who have spent more than a third of their early elementary years without the benefit of in-person instruction.”

Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera expressed similar sentiments, saying that the closure of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic “exacerbated downward trends in achievement that began several years before COVID-19.

“Moving forward, we must restore a culture of high expectations for every child in every school in the commonwealth. This includes working with the Board of Education to raise standards, increase transparency and create an accountability system that drives improvement and sets grade-level achievement as the goal for every child.”

Assessment data will factor heavily in next month's release of school accreditation information, which measures the ability of a school to meet various standards of education.

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In Henrico, 70% of students passed English reading SOLs – an improvement of 7% from last year’s results but still below the state average of 73%.

Henrico students showed significant improvement on the math SOLs, with pass rates jumping from 48% in 2020-21 to 61% last year. But the statewide average also jumped, from 54% to 66%.

Only 61% of Henrico students passed the writing SOLs, compared with 65% of students statewide. And in the history SOLs, Henrico students passed 64% of the time, compared with the statewide average of 66%. (Most school divisions used local writing and history assessments the previous year, so the VDOE did not report statewide results for those two tests last year.)

On the science SOLs, Henrico students matched the statewide pass rate of 65% after having been just below the state average last year (59% to 58%).

Overall, economically disadvantaged students in the county passed SOL exams at rates that were between 16% and 21% lower than their counterparts in Henrico. The figures were similar for Black and Hispanic students in the county, who demonstrated lower achievement levels than their Asian and white counterparts.

Asian students in Henrico passed all five tests at rates between 89% and 91%, while white students did so at rates between 75% and 84%. Among Hispanic students, those rates were between 46% and 57%, while among Black students, the rates were between 39% and 53%.

READING: Students in grades 3 through 8 take the English reading SOLs, and high school students do so once with an end-of-course test. At each grade level except fifth and high school, Henrico’s pass rates were slightly below the state averages; at the two former levels, they matched the state average. The largest gap was in sixth-grade (63% pass rate, compared with the state average of 70%).

WRITING: The school system’s overall writing scores are a composite of tests taken by eighth-graders and high school students (who take an end-of-course writing test). Just 55% of eighth-graders passed the test (compared with the state average of 57%), but while the high school pass rate was higher (68%), it was farther below the statewide average in that age group (74%).

MATH: Henrico students passed eight of the nine math SOLs (grades 3 through 8, as well as geometry and algebra I and II) at rates lower than the state average. In the ninth, algebra II, the Henrico pass rate equaled the state rate (85%). The most eye-opening discrepancies came on the sixth-grade test (which only 32% of Henrico students passed, compared with 57% statewide) and the eighth-grade test (which only 44% of Henrico students passed, compared with 57% statewide).

HISTORY: Among the six history SOLs administered, the highest pass rate among Henrico students was 67% (on both the civics and econ exam and the Virginia studies exam). Only 33% of Henrico students passed the Virginia and US history exam (compared with just 38% statewide), but Henrico students outperformed the state average in world history II (58% to 48%).

SCIENCE: Henrico students surpassed the state pass rate in earth science in a big way (85% to 72%) but were below the statewide rates in eighth-grade science, biology and chemistry, and even in fifth-grade science, at 61%.