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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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VA Educators Happy With Committee’s Standards Of Learning Reforms

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Monday, December 8, 2014   

RICHMOND, Va. – Virginia educators say they're happy with what they see as common sense, bipartisan reforms to be proposed for the state's Standards of Learning (SOL).

The SOL Innovation Committee has been meeting for about six months and is about to report its reform plan to lawmakers and the governor.

Meg Gruber, president of the Virginia Education Association and a long-time high school science teacher, says the proposals her organization has hammered out will help keep accountability without being as rigid and punitive as the current SOL.

And Gruber says the reforms seem to have bipartisan support.

"The legislators of both parties who are on the SOL innovation committee, they're very involved in the process and they seem to be very favorable,” she says. “I think that's a very good sign."

Gruber points out some of the legislators in the innovation group are also on the General Assembly's important education committees and plan to back the proposals there.

Standardized tests, such as the SOL, are intended to measure learning and make sure students are not slipping through the cracks.

The problem, Gruber says, is the tests have become the objective rather than a measurement tool.

She says we can't cram all the students into a one-size-fits-all model and punish them if they don't match.

Instead, Gruber says, educators should use tests to see what the students are getting and not getting.

"We're not dealing in a factory model,” she stresses. “We have to meet the needs of our students where they are and help them progress.

“We are dealing with human beings, not building an automobile."

Gruber says teachers are often so busy trying to cover the material on the tests, they don't have time to get the students to think independently and learn more deeply.

Gruber says at times the memorization can almost become like a game of Trivial Pursuit.

"'Do you know who won this battle?'” she relates. “We want to be able to get deeper into 'why did the battle occur?' 'Why did they win the battle?' What was the outcome?'

“We need to get the kids thinking a lot deeper."





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