Students may be out of school for the summer, but early results from the state's revamped math Standards of Learning tests (SOLs) are coming in, and as the state expected, scores are dropping.
The early numbers are not official results; none have been certified by the state just yet. But what administrators have seen, shows that scores vary widely from district to district.
Early numbers from Albemarle County schools show scores dropping in most grade levels between 10 and 20 points on average. The biggest drops came for students in the third, fourth and fifth grades.
That seems to be a typical trend for most systems around the state. In Orange County, students in lower grade levels saw their scores drop by as much as 40 points on average.
Albemarle County Schools math specialist Craig Dommer said, "Elementary schools tended to have the largest drop from last year's scores. And talking with my counterparts across the state, that seems to be what happened statewide."
One of the leading contributors to the drop is the fact that the tests are so new. Neither teachers nor students knew exactly what to expect before the new exams were released in the spring, but educators, at least in Albemarle County, are working hard this summer to prepare for the coming school year. Now that they know what to expect, they're optimistic for next year's test scores.
