Virginia Board of Education Unanimously Adopts Higher Expectations for Student Proficiency

Richmond, VA - In a momentous vote on Thursday, September 25, 2025, the Virginia Board of Education unanimously approved a set of elevated academic expectations for K-12 students, signaling a renewed commitment to rigor, transparency, and higher student outcomes across the Commonwealth. This decision marks a pivotal step in the Board's broader effort to raise expectations and ensure proficiency standards align with national benchmarks and reflect true mastery of the more rigorous academic standards previously adopted.

Cut scores define the minimum score a student must achieve to reach a performance level on an assessment. By modifying cut scores, the Board ensures that "proficient" reflects the skills and knowledge students need to be ready for success in college, career ready, or in military pathways after high school. The new cut scores are statistically equivalent to the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) proficient cuts. Aligning to NAEP is important because it provides Virginia with a nationally recognized benchmark of excellence, ensuring that student performance is measured in alignment with the highest national standard.

Board President Grace Creasey remarked, "To rise to meet any challenge in life, our students must work to meet greater and greater challenges in school. We have a Constitutional duty to provide a high-quality education to every student in Virginia's public schools, and to do that, we must provide a rigorous education that sets high expectations for our students, parents, and teachers to meet together."

"Thursday's unanimous vote is one of the most consequential actions this Board will take during this term," said State Superintendent Emily Anne Gullickson. "It reflects our confidence in Virginia's students and our shared promise that when Virginia says a student is proficient, it truly means 'ready for the next step' whether that is the military, advanced study, the workforce, or civic life. As we phase in these higher expectations, we will do so thoughtfully, collaboratively, and with robust support for every family, teacher, and school."

The Virginia Department of Education emphasized that higher expectations will be paired with data-informed evidence-based supports for students, educators, and families. Supports include a comprehensive communications toolkit to build awareness and understanding, professional learning to share evidence-based strategies for students to meet higher expectations, and practical resources and improved student reports for parents to help them support their child's learning. Together, these efforts aim to ensure that every stakeholder is informed and prepared to help students succeed.

"We're out to actually do the biggest, most important thing that we can do as a society, which is invest in education for children," said Board Member Dr. Amber Northern. "We are going to do this together. This state education agency has never been in the position of providing as much supports and help to districts as they are now."

"We can and we should raise expectations. Our kids are very capable and we should definitely set the bar higher," said Board Member Antione Green. "There's no doubt in my mind that they will rise to the challenge and as a result, we will be honest with them in terms of their individual proficiencies. As a result of the work that we do today, we know our students will make the necessary academic adjustments. We know that the work that we do will help identify what supports they need in order to ultimately be academically successful and meet the expectations that we set for them and we know at the end they will make us proud."

"As the field looks at this, I just encourage folks to see this as an opportunity to help young people together," said Board Member Brandon Monk. "How can we as educators, as superintendent, as whoever you may be as a parent, take our young people from where they are now to where they can be because we all know with high expectations, they'll rise to those opportunities and looking forward to seeing what that looks like down in the next pipeline."

"Everybody that sits on the board has been educated and we are members that have been granted the public trust as it relates to education. We got here because there were good teachers that poured into us and we were products of good schools and we didn't come from a time period where kids couldn't read or write or do math. It would be very negligent of us to leave behind other people when we've been granted such gifts," said Board Member Ida McPherson. "So as it stands now, the job for us is to make sure that we communicate to the field that based upon the data, there has to be a sense of urgency that we have to do something about education in Virginia."

"What I hope the final message is that we believe that we can do this and that this board has come together, along with staff and stakeholders," said Board Member Mashea Ashton. "The time is now to move forward as urgently and as thoughtfully as possible to make sure that every child in Virginia has a chance to reach their full potential."

"I've always said that there's no career more important than educating our students and teaching them to become citizens -- productive citizens, to have careers, to have families, whatever they choose to do in life," said Board Member Debbie Kilgore. "Our goal is to raise our students up. So when they leave the school system, they are either ready to enter college, they're ready to go in the workforce, and we've heard so many comments about how we are failing them right now, and none of us want to do that."

"I appreciate the comments I've gotten from my fellow special educators out there, the comments we heard today," said Board Member Dr. Beth Ackerman. "I've never heard anyone express that we don't need to raise the bar. Actually, never heard it, not once, from anybody in the public. Everybody seems to be in agreement. We need to raise the bar. It's always been questions around the impact and I think this superintendent's office and her team is ready for that."

"I want to commend all of the work that's got us to this point. And again, this is going to be an ongoing process across the Commonwealth," said Vice President Bill Hansen. "I encourage everyone involved in this process going forward to keep their eye on students and what is best for them to really help them."

KEY HIGHLIGHTS OF THE VOTE & POLICY SHIFT

The Board's decision follows extensive stakeholder engagement, including public comment and input from educators, families, and community members. Many voiced strong support for the Superintendent's recommendations, recognizing the long-term benefits of raising expectations by providing a more accurate picture of student progress to help parents and teachers as well as support economic growth by building a stronger, more skilled workforce pipeline.

"In order to position Virginia as a top state for talent, the Commonwealth must cultivate talent starting in elementary school and continuing through middle school and high school," said Director of Talent and Workforce Initiatives at the Virginia Economic Development Partnership Rachel O'Brien. "A robust, future ready K12 system is essential to prepare today's students for the jobs of tomorrow. This is vital for individual opportunity and it is a strategic imperative for Virginia's economic growth and competitiveness."

"My encouragement to the board is to maintain high expectations as a Commonwealth, as our economy, and for our students, we should be focusing on the best outcomes that we can support," said Executive Director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia Scott Flemming. "Our post-secondary institutions are among the best in the world, and they are telling us that we can do better. And so I encourage the board to maintain high standards for the students of Virginia."

"Virginia's been talking about doing this for over three years now. You've had countless hearings, consulted with numerous leading national experts, had a voluminous amount of meetings with Virginia school principals, superintendents, business leaders, parents, and community members," said Todd Truitt, parent of two Arlington Public Schools students. "Most importantly, raising the cut scores to NAEP proficient will be a significant improvement for notifying parents as to whether their children are on the path to college."

'I've spent the last 20 years in the plumbing and pipefitting industry of the Commonwealth. The success of our industries and industries like mine depends on graduates who are ready to step into apprenticeships, technical training programs with a solid foundation in math and critical thinking," said Midlothian resident Phillip Abou-Zaki. "When we raise our expectations, we send a message to students, families, and schools that we believe in our kids and know that they are capable of

NEXT STEPS

Background & Rationale

Over the past two years, Virginia has adopted more rigorous academic standards in mathematics (2023) and reading (2024) to reflect deeper conceptual understanding, critical thinking, and real-world application. To measure whether students meet these higher expectations, Standards of Learning assessments and test questions in both mathematics and English were fully revised to align to the more rigorous academic standards and placed greater emphasis on higher order thinking and integrating multiple skills. However, the previous proficiency cut scores were set at levels that many experts and stakeholders argued no longer matched the expectations embedded in the more rigorous standards.

The next step to raise expectations was to approve new cut scores. Cut scores define the minimum score a student must achieve to reach a performance level on an assessment. By modifying cut scores, the Board ensures that "proficient" reflects the skills and knowledge students need to be ready for success in college, career ready, or in military pathways after high school.

The concept of an "honesty gap", or the divergence between how students perform on state assessments versus on national benchmarks, has grown increasingly salient. If state proficiency is too lenient, it risks overstating student readiness and underserving those who need intervention and support.

To address this, the Board initiated a standard setting process, including standard-setting committees and public input, to recommend higher proficiency cut scores that better align with deeper learning and national norms. This vote finalized that shift.

Importantly, Virginia's updated accountability system the School Performance and Support Framework has received federal approval, allowing the Commonwealth to move forward with improved student performance metrics, split accreditation and accountability systems, and targeted support to schools needing intensive support.

The Virginia Department of Education will present a final multi-year phase-in implementation plan at the Board's October 23, 2025, business meeting after receiving input from stakeholders. For more information regarding Virginia Standards of Learning and assessments, visit the VDOE website.

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