CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The school year is winding down in West Virginia and state School Superintendent Michele Blatt is pointing toward some recent positive assessment numbers.
Harvard and Stanford University Education Scorecard has for a second year in a row pointed out gains among West Virginia students when it comes to academic recovery following the pandemic.
“It found that his year that West Virginia ranked sixth in math for growth and 8th in reading for growth,” Blatt said Tuesday on MetroNews “Talkline.”
The report gets its numbers from test results from students in Grades 3-8, comparing state test results with national assessment data.
Blatt said the numbers were a little better than the previous year.
“We ranked sixth in math in the previous year, so we retained that ranking but went up from 11th in reading to 8th in reading when compared to other states,” Blatt said. “We are extremely pleased with that.”
Blatt said getting back to the basics, as encouraged by state BOE President Paul Hardesty a few years ago, the state Department of Education’s beginning the Ready, Read, Write, West Virginia initiative in 2022 and the legislature passing the reading-focused Third Grade Success Act in 2023 have all helped.
“The Science of Reading implementation plans across all of our counties and the support for our students in K-3 have been a huge focus over the last three years,” Blatt said.
The intervention plans required by the Third Grade Success Act are working, Blatt said.
“We are starting to see a decrease in students that need additional intervention,” Blatt said. “Part of that act requires students to be benchmarked three times a year with intervention plans and we see the number of students that need those intervention plans decrease as the years go on.”
The state has also shown a decrease in chronic absenteeism among students in recent years. Blatt said the rate decreased from 29 percent in 2022 to 23 percent in 2025.
Chronically absent is a designation for a student who misses more than 18 days of school a year.