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West Virginia shows improvement in public schools post-COVID

(Graphic by Steven Allen Adams)

CHARLESTON — A review of data from West Virginia’s annual Balanced Scorecard for public schools and public charter schools shows that math, reading and writing proficiency is not only returning to pre-COVID levels but also exceeding those levels in some cases.

The West Virginia Department of Education released the Balanced Scorecard for the 2024-2025 school year last week, which looks at multiple factors, including test scores from the annual statewide assessment in grades three, eight and 11.

The Balanced Scorecard first debuted for the 2017-2018 school year after former governor Jim Justice called for the end of a previous system that graded schools on an A-F scale. The Balanced Scorecard provides a high-level view, but it also provides specific data for individual schools.

“Each public school and district receives a scorecard that measures progress across multiple indicators, including academic achievement, academic progress and student success indicators such as chronic absenteeism and post-secondary outcomes,” according to an explanation of the Balanced Scorecard metric provided by the Department of Education. “The Balanced Scorecard provides annual updates to families, communities and stakeholders on district and school performance.

A review of Balanced Scorecard data includes information for the 2024-25, 2023-23, 2022-23, 2021-22 school years (post-COVID); and the 2018-19 school year (pe-COVID). It excludes data from the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years, when COVID-19 caused a shutdown of schools in the spring of 2020 and frequent school closings in the fall of 2020.

The Balanced Scorecard for the previous school year showed that 57.3% of West Virginia students partially met standards for English Language Arts (ELA).

As a result of the improvements, the state’s ELA performance last school year was given a yellow classification for partially meeting standards.

Last year’s ELA number is up from 56.1% during the 2023-24 school year; 55% during the 2022-23 school year; and 51.6% during the 2021-22 school year after the COVID-19 school shutdowns during the 2020-21 school year. It is also higher than the 2018-19 pre-COVID number of 56.9%. Testing was scrapped during the 2019-2020 school year due to Justice shutting down the schools in March 2020 during the start of the pandemic.

Progress towards meeting ELA standards was 47.21% last school year, up from 45.65% in 2023-24, 46.28% in 2022-23, 46.1% in 2021-22 post-COVID, and 45% 2018-19 pre-COVID.

Math performance during the 2024-25 school year was 52.9% and given a yellow classification for partially meeting standards, up from 50.9% in 2023-24 and 50.6% in 2022-23. Math performance in 2021-22 post-COVID was 44%, while pre-COVID performance in the 2018-19 school year was 53.5%.

Progress towards math proficiency was 44.17% in the 2024-25 school year, up from 39.98% in 2023-24 and 42% in 2022-23, but down from 44.4% in 2021-22 post-COVID. Math proficiency progress in the 2018-19 school year was 43.8%.

Much focus has been placed by the Legislature and state school officials on early elementary school education with the implementation of the Third Grade Success Act in 2023, which placed additional aides in early elementary classrooms. The Third Grade Success Act also focuses on math, ELA, and phonics education.

Elementary school ELA performance last school year was 59.58%, up from 58.12% in 2023-24, 55.72% in 2022-23, 54% in 2021-22 post-COVID. It is also up from 58.5% during the 2018-19 school year pre-COVID. Elementary school math performance in the previous school year was 60.78%, up from 59.36% in 2023-24, 58.49% in 2022-23, and 55.4% in 2021-22 post-COVID. It is also up from 59.3% in 2018-19 pre-COVID.

Chronic absenteeism in West Virginia’s public schools remains a problem since the closures of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic and classified as red for not meeting standards, though the rates continue to come down. According to the 2024-24 Balanced Scorecard, the chronically absent rate was 22.64%. That is down from 23.53% in 2023-24, 27.55% in the 2022-23 school year, and 29.1% in the 2021-22 school year.

Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com.

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