CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia Board of Education President Paul Hardesty was blunt with his assessment of the state assessment results: “These are not good. They’re just not good.”
While proficiency rates did increase from the 2020-2021 academic year, the rates of students proficient in math, reading and science lag behind numbers from before the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the state Department of Education’s data, reading proficiency increased from 40% in the 2020-2021 academic year to 42% in the most recent school year, while math proficiency increased from 28% to 33%. Science proficiency remained steady at 28%.
Before the coronavirus pandemic — when schools had to embrace remote learning and classes were online — reading proficiency reached 46%, math proficiency was at 39% and science proficiency was 33%.
The state Board of Education received the report during its meeting Wednesday.
“Not trying to be critical, we have come through a challenging two years. No one would question that,” Hardesty said. “I’ll be honest with you, public education is under attack from across the country right now, and results like this, they give credence to that attack, whether we want to accept it or not.”
Officials noted improvements in language arts in all grades except eighth grade and gains in math except for 11th grade. They also reported an increase in proficiency in fifth-grade science, no change in eighth-grade science, and a decline in 11th-grade science.
Hardesty urged the board to do more to boost early test scores, arguing action impacting these grades would result in better academic performances and higher proficiency.
“If we can’t get those levels up, it’s a direct indicator to look at the falling off of the cliff when it gets to grades eight, nine, 10 and 11,” he said.
The board’s assessment of academic proficiency came during the same meeting in which members selected David Roach as the next state superintendent of schools. Roach succeeds Clayton Burch, who requested to lead the West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and the Blind.