Va. official backs off ending 3rd-grade history SOL

RICHMOND

A much-maligned proposal to eliminate the standardized history test for Virginia's third-graders is being withdrawn by the state superintendent of public instruction.

"I believe we need to continue to discuss the testing burden for teachers and young students," State Superintendent Patricia I. Wright said Friday. But she said she understood the concerns of the educators, legislators and others who disagreed with eliminating the test, which would have saved the state about $380,000 each year.

The plan to discontinue the history and social science standardized test was set to be considered by the state Board of Education next week. Virginia is one of five states, all in the South, to require a social studies test in the third grade, according to the Center for Evaluation & Education Policy.

The cumulative test measures what students learn from kindergarten through third grade, including topics such as China, Greece and Mali, and the contributions of Americans such as Abraham Lincoln, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.

Ninety-three percent of students who took the test last year passed.

Virginia students also take social studies tests in fifth grade and in high school.

The testing proposal did not affect the standards requiring the teaching of social studies in the third grade.

Division superintendents statewide had pushed the Department of Education to cut back on the four third-grade tests.

"I expect teachers to continue to teach the Standards of Learning required for students in grades through three whether or not there is another high-stakes test in grade three," said Don Ford, superintendent of Harrisonburg City Public Schools and the outgoing president of the Virginia Association of School Superintendents.

But Del. Kenny Alexander, D-Norfolk, chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus, said he was pleased to hear the test would stay.

"Some educators, advocates, historians and those who teach civic education strongly believed that African American history and Native American history particularly were going to be eliminated," he said.

Despite Wright's revised stance, a hastily scheduled House Education Committee hearing to vet the standardized testing issue still will be held Monday, the committee chairman, Republican Del. Bob Tata of Virginia Beach, said Friday.

"If this thing comes around again in another year or two, we'll have some data," he said.

Lauren Roth, (757) 222-5133, lauren.roth@pilotonline.com

Julian Walker, (804) 697-1564,

julian.walker@pilotonline.com