CORRESPONDENT OF THE DAY

SOL Changes Are Just the Beginning
Editor, Times-Dispatch: Regarding the article, "Va. Education Leaders Consider Scrapping Third Grade History Assessment": The comments made by State Superintendent of Instruction Patricia Wright left me slack-jawed, then angry.

Wright said, "The last thing I want to do is unravel the accountability system" -- but she wants to unravel it nonetheless. She spoke of a "new vision of assessment" which is a signal this is just the beginning of something larger. She went on to add she doesn't want "to minimize the importance of history and social science, civics and economics," but intends to do so by abolishing this assessment. Finally, she said she has a "budget to manage" -- implying that if this one assessment is retained the entire state education budget will be in jeopardy of going in the red.

I have been in public education as a classroom teacher for 30 years. When the SOL initiative began in the late 1990s, I told my wife this was just another fad that would soak up money, run its course, and morph into yet another fad when it was convenient to do so. I have been around for Minimum Competency Testing of the 1970s and 1980s. It was replaced by the Literacy Passport testing initiative of the 1990s.

Now, with a new administration and the No Child Left Behind Act being "reconfigured" in Washington, what better time, and smokescreen, than to start monkeying around with the SOL initiative? This has nothing to do with managing budgets, but everything to do with ditching a testing regimen that is becoming an embarrassment for many school districts. They cannot get SOL accreditation no matter how often scoring for the SOL tests is adjusted, and NCLB is demanding ludicrous performance objectives. None of this is an accident. The NCLB demands 100 percent success -- which will not happen. So we go into crisis mode and conclude we need a new vision either for the NCLB, SOLs, or probably both.

It is ironic the DOE wants to drive a stake in a history test. If folks knew the history of testing at the DOE they would be wise to the periodic scam being perpetrated upon them. What is the agenda at the DOE? What will it cost? People criticize the spending on public education. If they want to know where to start looking, go look at the DOE.

David B. Anthony.
Gwynn.