Va. SOLs will be later and harder next year (copy) (copy) (copy)
Many Virginia students wrapped up their annual Standards of Learning exams last week and are now looking forward to a lackadaisical final few weeks of the school year filled with movies, free time and little academic pressure — for the last time.
Starting next year, Virginia schools will be required to administer SOL exams during the final two weeks of the school year, eliminating the post-testing lull that has long marked the unofficial start of summer for many students. At the same time, the state is prepared to implement next year a significantly higher passing bar incrementally over the next four years. By 2030, Virginia's standardized tests will be among the hardest in the nation.
The change in when tests are administered comes from legislation carried by Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico, that the General Assembly passed last year. VanValkenburg, a high school civics teacher, said giving tests weeks before the end of the school year creates unnecessary downtime and cuts into instructional time.
“It's just common sense that we should want to have kids learning for as long as humanly possible to get ready for these tests,” VanValkenburg said. “When you're testing them weeks before the school year ends, you're leaving a lot of dead time in the calendar.”
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In some subject areas, like history, recent curriculum revisions have expanded the amount of material students are expected to learn. Chopping off one of the nine months of the school year puts a pinch on teachers and students to get through the curriculum, VanValkenburg said.
“There’s just no reason for that,” he said.
The legislation also changes how SOL scores are reported. Beginning next year, exams will move from the state’s longstanding 0-600 scale to a traditional 0-100 scale.
“When people look at a 600-point scale, the average person and even the average teacher has a hard time deciphering what it means,” VanValkenburg said. “I think in the name of transparency, we should be on a scale that is more readable and translatable for parents, for sure, and for teachers as well.”
Harder exams coming next year
This spring also marks the end of the “buffer year” before SOL exams become significantly more difficult. Last year, the Virginia Board of Education voted to gradually raise the “cut scores” — the number of questions students must answer correctly to pass — on SOLs to among the highest in the nation over a four-year period.
Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, made K-12 education a cornerstone of his administration and spearheaded several changes to raise academic standards through the state Board of Education. Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who took office in January, has been less focused on K-12 education than her predecessor and has not publicly made clear her positions on school accountability.
When they implemented the more rigorous passing bar late last year, Board of Education members included this school year as a transition period because of Virginia’s graduation requirements. Seniors must pass end-of-course SOLs, or in some cases alternative assessments, in order to graduate and earn a diploma.
“Clearly, the board has made a statement that we didn’t want to … impact the graduating seniors with anything that we did,” board member Ida McPherson said during the November meeting.
As of spring 2025, Virginia’s on-time graduation rate was about 93%. Critics of the tougher standards say that many more students will not graduate if they can’t pass the harder tests.
The Virginia Board of Education, with its broad constitutional authority, is now split between six holdover appointees of Youngkin and three appointees of Spanberger.
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Anna Bryson (804) 649-6922
