West Virginia’s test scores in math and reading have taken dramatic dives over the course of the pandemic years – and so have everyone else’s.
That’s according to the numbers released Monday by the U.S. Department of Education, chronicling the results of the countrywide assessment in those two subjects taken earlier this year.
The scores netted nationally by America’s public school fourth- and eighth-graders were hardly stellar, said Peggy Carr, a commissioner who heads the National Center for Education Statistics, which is a subsidiary of the department.
“It is a serious wakeup call,” she said.
The test carries a 500-point scale, but no public school district – anywhere – came close to that benchmark.
And if the nation fell collectively short, the Mountain State had a slightly longer drop.
While fourth-graders nationwide averaged 235 in math, their peers in West Virginia scored an average of 226.
Fourth-grade reading scores averaged out 205 in West Virginia, opposed to 216 nationally.
The Mountain State’s eighth-graders netted an average of 260 in math, compared to the country’s overall score of 273.
Eighth-grade reading scores came in at 249 for West Virginia, and 259 elsewhere.
Totals for both grades, in both disciplines, put West Virginia around 44th in the country, among 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Carr was talking about the general downward slide wrought academically by COVID. Many districts across the U.S. went all remote as diagnoses and deaths began to stack up in spring 2020.
Other students were stymied by off-and-on, in-person attendance.
In West Virginia, it was all of the above – and more.
State Board of Education President Paul Hardesty said as much over the summer, while he discussed the West Virginia Balanced Scorecard, a homegrown assessment of school systems here.
Meanwhile, there are charter schools and the Hope scholarship to think about, along with the changes in academic oversight that Amendment Four could bring, should that proposed legislation be voted into law next month.
Students who graduate and stay, will be the state’s economic driver, he said.
“Our education system must feed West Virginia’s economic engine with a productive and vibrant workforce,” the board president said.
“That means we must ensure our students and schools are meeting and exceeding academic expectations.”
Monongalia County’s school district, meanwhile, outpaced most of its neighbors in that state assessment, and Deputy Schools Superintendent Donna Talerico was hopeful, and pragmatic, as she looked ahead.
“We’re still re-imaging what school looks like,” she said.
TWEET@DominionPostWV
