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Democrats’ romp in last week’s Virginia elections offered an almost complete redemption of their poor performance four years ago.
In that race, Republican Glenn Youngkin upset national expectations to seize the governorship, with a raft of GOP challengers riding his coattails to both statewide office and a new majority in the House of Delegates. Their victories were powered by growing discontentment with then-President Biden, but also backlash to local education moves ranging from COVID-era school closures to proposed limitations on gifted education.
Those results, among the first signs of the tumult that would come to define the Biden era, were flipped this time around. Virginia Democrats racked up commanding margins up and down the ballot, with U.S.
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Rep Abigail Spanberger’s gubernatorial win accompanied by a 13-seat swing in the legislature. The part of unpopular incumbent president was played by Donald Trump, whose sagging approval in the state helped sink Republican candidates.
What’s not certain is whether Spanberger and her party have won back public trust on the issue of K–12 schools — or whether they intend to roll back portions of the far-reaching education agenda enacted during Youngkin’s time in office. The outgoing governor has shepherded the adoption of a new school accountability system, raised cut scores for proficiency on federally mandated exams, and revamped the state’s academic standards in history, math, English, and computer science. Some of his initiatives have won support from across the political aisle, but resistance from some educators and progressives could tempt the ascendant Democrats to reverse others.
One of the most moderate members of the U.S. House, Spanberger struck a cautious tone in laying out her education proposals during the campaign.
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Among the top priorities listed in her 10-page policy plan is a commitment to upholding academic rigor by making student outcomes transparent to families. But with educators already raising objections to shifts in state testing and many Democrats skeptical of the newly implemented accountability framework, she could find herself presiding over a turbulent majority for the next several years.
Andrew Rotherham, a longtime player in Virginia’s policy scene who was appointed by Youngkin to a seat on the state board of education in 2022, said that by piloting a successful recovery from post-pandemic learning loss, Spanberger could find her way to “a national leadership role” in the future, perhaps on her party’s presidential ticket.
“She’s someone who’s looking at 2028,” Rotherham said. “Her national imperatives actually line up pretty well with what’s good for kids, but she’ll be under a lot of political pressure.”
Representatives of Spanberger did not respond to a request for comment.
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Unified control over a blue state will reflect on Democrats nationally as much as Spanberger herself. Beyond tackling school assessment and improvement, the party will have to confront questions that weren’t yet on the agenda the last time it captured the governor’s mansion: how to infuse literacy instruction with lessons from the science of reading, how to counter burgeoning demand for private school choice programs that have been established in other states, and how to decisively reclaim K–12 education as a winning issue for the center-left. Exit polls from CNN showed that Spanberger beat her Republican opponent by just 10 points among voters who listed schools as their most important issue, compared with a yawning 63-point advantage among those listing healthcare and a 27-point edge with economy-focused Virginians
Democratic State Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, a high school teacher who sits on his chamber’s education committee, applauded legislation passed over the last few years to improve literacy instruction and revamp state testing. The Spanberger administration should aim to carry out those goals and focus on lifting student performance, he added.
“What their priority needs to be, and what our priority needs to be, is continuing the work we’ve done,” he said.
New accountability system
The state of Virginia schools came under national scrutiny early in Youngkin’s tenure, when a series of indicators revealed significant declines in K–12 learning.
to و and و a – تفاصيل مهمة
The 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress, a nationally representative exam commonly referred to as “the Nation’s Report Card,” showed that fourth-graders in Virginia lost some of the most ground in math and reading of students in any state over the previous three years, even amid a national crash in scores precipitated by the pandemic. An analysis by economists at Harvard and Stanford estimated the learning losses as roughly five months of reading instruction and nearly a full academic year of math instruction. Pass rates on the Standards of Learning assessmentsthe state’s mandated annual exam, also lagged far below pre-pandemic levels.
Although much of the blame for the swoon was attributed to COVID-related school closures, the new administration argued that its origins lay in the dilution of academic expectations under the previous Democratic governor, Ralph Northam. In a report issued at Gov. Youngkin’s request, the state’s department of education argued that slumping student achievement had preceded COVID’s emergence by several years, but was masked by the lowering of cut scores for proficiency on state tests in 2019 and 2021; strikingly, that decision was reached even as most other states around the country were raising their own proficiency bars.
Many state Democrats panned the report, dismissing it as a racist “dog-whistle,” but Youngkin’s campaign to revisit the cut scores and build a new school accreditation system — the existing one gave the vast majority of schools good marks, even as student scores had plummeted — quickly won allies. Todd Truitt, a Democrat and father of two school-aged children in northern Virginia, said the state’s academic standards just a few years ago were “pretty much alone at the bottom.”
the و of و a – تفاصيل مهمة
“There was a definite lowering of standards, objectively,” observed Truitt, who has written in favor of much of Youngkin’s K–12 program even while supporting Spanberger and her party this cycle.
After several years of design work, a new accountability framework was adopted in 2024 that made substantial changes to existing regulations, including by reversing a policy that allowed schools to leave the academic performance of English learners out of their state ratings data for over five years. Legislation to delay the new system’s implementation was defeated earlier this year when several Democrats crossed party lines to help kill the measure. In the months leading up to this fall’s elections, the Virginia Board of Education also voted unanimously to significantly raise proficiency cut scores on state exams.
Rotherham said at the March meeting when the vote was held that he and his colleagues intended to “dramatically raise standards in this state and report honestly to parents.”
Sen. VanValkenburg, one of the Democrats who voted against delaying the adoption of the new accountability system, praised local lawmakers for their work on the issue, pointing to a rethink of literacy instruction that passed unanimously in the state legislature in 2022. His own legislation to modernize state tests also attracted widespread support in both parties and became law this spring.
In the past few years, VanValkenburg said, “a lot of movement on education” has been achieved. “Some of it’s been Democratic-led, some of it’s been Republican-led, but a lot of it has been bipartisan.”
The ‘honesty gap’
After the blue wave in last week’s elections, Gov.-elect Spanberger and her allies will have little need of bipartisanship over the next few years.
In addition to winning all the state’s topline races, Democrats stormed to a 28-seat majority in the House of Delegates. Their margin in the 40-member state Senate is still a slim 21-19, but unified control over Richmond will allow the party to take the lead in future debates over schools.
the و of و been – تفاصيل مهمة
Spanberger will largely determine the order of operations. Her public roadmap for education policy specifically mentions not just the implementation of tougher school accountability measures, but also changes to state tests “to ensure that parents and educators have the best information possible to improve student performance.”
How her fellow partisans regard those commitments is somewhat hazy: Most Senate Democrats voted to put off enacting the new accreditation system — an idea spearheaded by then-Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, who has since been elected to serve as Spanberger’s lieutenant governor. What’s , leaders in several major districts havepublicly attackedthe new framework as too harsh on public schools.
Yet support for higher standards is considered likely to hold steady. Denise Forte, a nationally known education advocate who leads the civil rights-focused EdTrust, publicly endorsed the system as a means of closing the “honesty gap.” While not offering a firm statement backing the accountability push, Spanberger has said in an interview that “accountability is vital to ensuring that our kids are learning.”
Progressives may instead turn to school finance reform, another of the new governor’s priorities. Democrats in the legislature have spent much of the last two years wrangling with Youngkin over funding for schools, proposing this winter to send nearly a quarter of a billion dollars to local districts to cover the costs of hiring new staff. One of the wealthiest states in the nation, Virginia was recently measured as 33rd overall in per-pupil spending.
the و to و of – تفاصيل مهمة
Rotherham said Spanberger would have the opportunity to build her national profile by focusing on updating the state’s school funding formula and remaking the Science of Learning exams to make their results legible to families.
“Politically, she could say, ‘We weren’t there yet, and I took it to the next level.’ That would be a compelling story to tell.”
Disclosure: Andrew Rotherham served on the Virginia Board of Education from 2022 to 2025. He also sits onThe 74’s board of directors.
to و the و on – تفاصيل مهمة
He played no role in the reporting or editing of this article.
The 74 contributor Chad Aldeman worked as a consultant on Virginia’s new accountability framework. He played no role in the reporting or editing of this article.
Did you use this article in your work?
We’d love to hear how The 74’s reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers.Tell us how
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Disclaimer: This news article has been republished exactly as it appeared on its original source, without any modification. We do not take any responsibility for its content, which remains solely the responsibility of the original publisher.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n; n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;n.queue=();t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)(0);s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,’https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’); fbq(‘init’, ‘626037510879173’); // 626037510879173 fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);{“@context”:”http://schema.org”,”@type”:”NewsArticle”,”dateCreated”:”2025-11-13T10:55:06+04:00″,”datePublished”:”2025-11-13T10:55:06+04:00″,”dateModified”:”2025-11-13T10:55:06+04:00″,”headline”:”In Virginia, Newly Elected Governor Inherits School Improvement Push”,”name”:”In Virginia, Newly Elected Governor Inherits School Improvement Push”,”keywords”:[],”url”:”https://uaetodaynews.com/in-virginia-newly-elected-governor-inherits-school-improvement-push-the-74/”,”description”:”Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Democratsu2019 romp in last weeku2019s Virginia elections offered an almost complete redemption of their poor performance”,”copyrightYear”:”2025″,”articleSection”:”Education”,”articleBody”:”nnntttttnntttttnn n Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newslettern n n n nDemocratsu2019 romp in last weeku2019s Virginia elections offered an almost complete redemption of their poor performance four years ago. nnnnIn that race, Republican Glenn Youngkin upset national expectations to seize the governorship, with a raft of GOP challengers riding his coattails to both statewide office and a new majority in the House of Delegates. Their victories were powered by growing discontentment with then-President Biden, but also backlash to local education moves ranging from COVID-era school closures to proposed limitations on gifted education.nnnnnnnnThose results, among the first signs of the tumult that would come to define the Biden era, were flipped this time around. Virginia Democrats racked up commanding margins up and down the ballot, with U.S. Rep Abigail Spanbergeru2019s gubernatorial win accompanied by a 13-seat swing in the legislature. The part of unpopular incumbent president was played by Donald Trump, whose sagging approval in the state helped sink Republican candidates. nnnRelatedIn Virginia, Democrats Suffer First Major Loss of Biden ErannnnWhatu2019s not certain is whether Spanberger and her party have won back public trust on the issue of Ku201312 schools u2014 or whether they intend to roll back portions of the far-reaching education agenda enacted during Youngkinu2019s time in office. The outgoing governor has shepherded the adoption of a new school accountability system, raised cut scores for proficiency on federally mandated exams, and revamped the stateu2019s academic standards in history, math, English, and computer science. Some of his initiatives have won support from across the political aisle, but resistance from some educators and progressives could tempt the ascendant Democrats to reverse others. nnnnOne of the most moderate members of the U.S. House, Spanberger struck a cautious tone in laying out her education proposals during the campaign. Among the top priorities listed in her 10-page policy plan is a commitment to upholding academic rigor by making student outcomes more transparent to families. But with educators already raising objections to shifts in state testing and many Democrats skeptical of the newly implemented accountability framework, she could find herself presiding over a turbulent majority for the next several years. nnnnDemocrats captured not only Virginiau2019s slate of statewide offices, but also a commanding statehouse majority. (Getty)nnnnAndrew Rotherham, a longtime player in Virginiau2019s policy scene who was appointed by Youngkin to a seat on the state board of education in 2022, said that by piloting a successful recovery from post-pandemic learning loss, Spanberger could find her way to u201ca national leadership roleu201d in the future, perhaps on her partyu2019s presidential ticket. nnnnu201cSheu2019s someone whou2019s looking at 2028,u201d Rotherham said. u201cHer national imperatives actually line up pretty well with whatu2019s good for kids, but sheu2019ll be under a lot of political pressure.u201dnnnnRepresentatives of Spanberger did not respond to a request for comment.nnnnUnified control over a blue stateu00a0will reflect on Democrats nationally as much as Spanberger herself. Beyond tackling school assessment and improvement, the party will have to confront questions that werenu2019t yet on the agenda the last time it captured the governoru2019s mansion: how to infuse literacy instruction with lessons from the scienceu00a0of reading, how to counter burgeoning demand for private school choice programs that have been established in other states, and how to decisively reclaim Ku201312 education as a winning issue for the center-left. Exit polls from CNN showed that Spanberger beat her Republican opponent by just 10 points among voters who listed schools as their most important issue, compared with a yawning 63-point advantage among those listing healthcare and a 27-point edge with economy-focused VirginiansnnnnDemocratic State Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, a high school teacher who sits on his chamberu2019s education committee, applauded legislation passed over the last few years to improve literacy instruction and revamp state testing. The Spanberger administration should aim to carry out those goals and focus on lifting student performance, he added.nnnnu201cWhat their priority needs to be, and what our priority needs to be, is continuing the work weu2019ve done,u201d he said.nnnnNew accountability systemnnnnThe state of Virginia schools came under national scrutiny early in Youngkinu2019s tenure, when a series of indicators revealed significant declines in Ku201312 learning.nnnRelatedNationu2019s Report Card Shows Largest Drops Ever Recorded in 4th and 8th Grade MathnnnnThe 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress, a nationally representative exam commonly referred to as u201cthe Nationu2019s Report Card,u201d showed that fourth-graders in Virginia lost some of the most ground in math and reading of students in any state over the previous three years, even amid a national crash in scores precipitated by the pandemic. An analysis by economists at Harvard and Stanford estimated the learning losses as roughly five months of reading instruction and nearly a full academic year of math instruction. Pass rates on the Standards of Learning assessmentsthe stateu2019s mandated annual exam, also lagged far below pre-pandemic levels.nnnnAlthough much of the blame for the swoon was attributed to COVID-related school closures, the new administration argued that its origins lay in the dilution of academic expectations under the previous Democratic governor, Ralph Northam. In a report issued at Gov. Youngkinu2019s request, the stateu2019s department of education argued that slumping student achievement had preceded COVIDu2019s emergence by several years, but was masked by the lowering of cut scores for proficiency on state tests in 2019 and 2021; strikingly, that decision was reached even as most other states around the country were raising their own proficiency bars. nnnnRepublican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, elected in 2021, directed heavy criticism against Virginiau2019s academic standards and school accountability system. (Getty)nnnnMany state Democrats panned the report, dismissing it as a racist u201cdog-whistle,u201d but Youngkinu2019s campaign to revisit the cut scores and build a new school accreditation system u2014 the existing one gave the vast majority of schools good marks, even as student scores had plummeted u2014 quickly won allies. Todd Truitt, a Democrat and father of two school-aged children in northern Virginia, said the stateu2019s academic standards just a few years ago were u201cpretty much alone at the bottom.u201dnnnnu201cThere was a definite lowering of standards, objectively,u201d observed Truitt, who has written in favor of much of Youngkinu2019s Ku201312 program even while supporting Spanberger and her party this cycle.nnnnAfter several years of design work, a new accountability framework was adopted in 2024 that made substantial changes to existing regulations, including by reversing a policy that allowed schools to leave the academic performance of English learners out of their state ratings data for over five years. Legislation to delay the new systemu2019s implementation was defeated earlier this year when several Democrats crossed party lines to help kill the measure. In the months leading up to this fallu2019s elections, the Virginia Board of Education also voted unanimously to significantly raise proficiency cut scores on state exams.nnnnRotherham said at the March meeting when the vote was held that he and his colleagues intended to u201cdramatically raise standards in this state and report more honestly to parents.u201dnnnRelatedVirginiau2019s New Accountability System Looks to Raise the Bar on SchoolsnnnnSen. VanValkenburg, one of the Democrats who voted against delaying the adoption of the new accountability system, praised local lawmakers for their work on the issue, pointing to a rethink of literacy instruction that passed unanimously in the state legislature in 2022. His own legislation to modernize state tests also attracted widespread support in both parties and became law this spring.nnnnIn the past few years, VanValkenburg said, u201ca lot of movement on educationu201d has been achieved. u201cSome of itu2019s been Democratic-led, some of itu2019s been Republican-led, but a lot of it has been bipartisan.u201dnnnnThe u2018honesty gapu2019nnnnAfter the blue wave in last weeku2019s elections, Gov.-elect Spanberger and her allies will have little need of bipartisanship over the next few years.nnnnIn addition to winning all the stateu2019s topline races, Democrats stormed to a 28-seat majority in the House of Delegates. Their margin in the 40-member state Senate is still a slim 21-19, but unified control over Richmond will allow the party to take the lead in future debates over schools. nnnnSpanberger will largely determine the order of operations. Her public roadmap for education policy specifically mentions not just the implementation of tougher school accountability measures, but also changes to state tests u201cto ensure that parents and educators have the best information possible to improve student performance.u201d nnnnHow her fellow partisans regard those commitments is somewhat hazy: Most Senate Democrats voted to put off enacting the new accreditation system u2014 an idea spearheaded by then-Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, who has since been elected to serve as Spanbergeru2019s lieutenant governor. Whatu2019s more, leaders in several major districts have publicly attacked the new framework as too harsh on public schools.nnnnYet support for higher standards is considered likely to hold steady. Denise Forte, a nationally known education advocate who leads the civil rights-focused EdTrust, publicly endorsed the system as a means of closing the u201chonesty gap.u201d While not offering a firm statement backing the accountability push, Spanberger has said in an interview that u201caccountability is vital to ensuring that our kids are learning.u201dnnnnProgressives may instead turn to school finance reform, another of the new governoru2019s priorities. Democrats in the legislature have spent much of the last two years wrangling with Youngkin over more funding for schools, proposing this winter to send nearly a quarter of a billion dollars to local districts to cover the costs of hiring new staff. One of the wealthiest states in the nation, Virginia was recently measured as 33rd overall in per-pupil spending. nnnRelatedHidden Figures Behind Student Funding in D.C., Maryland and VirginiannnnRotherham said Spanberger would have the opportunity to build her national profile by focusing on updating the stateu2019s school funding formula and remaking the Science of Learning exams to make their results more legible to families. nnnnu201cPolitically, she could say, u2018We werenu2019t there yet, and I took it to the next level.u2019 That would be a compelling story to tell.u201dnnnnDisclosure: Andrew Rotherham served on the Virginia Board of Education from 2022 to 2025. He also sits on The 74u2019s board of directors. He played no role in the reporting or editing of this article. nnnnThe 74 contributor Chad Aldeman worked as a consultant on Virginiau2019s new accountability framework. He played no role in the reporting or editing of this article.nn n n n Did you use this article in your work?
nWeu2019d love to hear how The 74u2019s reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers. Tell us hown n n !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?n n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;n.queue=();t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;n t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)(0);s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,n document,’script’,’https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);n fbq(‘init’, ‘626037510879173’); // 626037510879173n fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);n rnrnrnrnrnDisclaimer: This news article has been republished exactly as it appeared on its original source, without any modification. rnWe do not take any responsibility for its content, which remains solely the responsibility of the original publisher.rnrnrnrnrnrnAuthor: Kevin MahnkenrnPublished on: 2025-11-13 00:53:00rnSource: www.the74million.orgrnrn”,”publisher”:{“@id”:”#Publisher”,”@type”:”Organization”,”name”:”uaetodaynews“,”logo”:{“@type”:”ImageObject”,”url”:”https://uaetodaynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/images-e1759081190269.png”},”sameAs”:[“https://www.facebook.com/uaetodaynewscom”,”https://www.pinterest.com/uaetodaynews/”,”https://www.instagram.com/uaetoday_news_com/”]},”sourceOrganization”:{“@id”:”#Publisher”},”copyrightHolder”:{“@id”:”#Publisher”},”mainEntityOfPage”:{“@type”:”WebPage”,”@id”:”https://uaetodaynews.com/in-virginia-newly-elected-governor-inherits-school-improvement-push-the-74/”,”breadcrumb”:{“@id”:”#Breadcrumb”}},”author”:{“@type”:”Person”,”name”:”uaetodaynews”,”url”:”https://uaetodaynews.com/author/arabsongmedia-net/”},”image”:{“@type”:”ImageObject”,”url”:”https://i0.wp.com/uaetodaynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Gubernatorial-Candidate-Abigail-Spanberger-825×495.jpg?fit=825%2C495&ssl=1″,”width”:1200,”height”:495}}
Disclaimer: This news article has been republished exactly as it appeared on its original source, without any modification.
We do not take any responsibility for its content, which remains solely the responsibility of the original publisher.
Author: uaetodaynews
Published on: 2025-11-13 06:55:00
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