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JARK: Virginia's new school accountability framework better differentiates schools but needs targeted refinements
Summary
The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission told the State Board of Education the School Performance and Support Framework (SPSF) provides clearer differentiation than the prior system but recommends refinements — including clearer labels, level-specific thresholds, adjusted handling of federal designations, capped 3E scoring, and options for English-learner inclusion and growth weighting.
Joe McMahon, project leader and chief legislative analyst at the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JARK), told the State Board of Education that Virginia's School Performance and Support Framework is "more effective and useful than the prior system" but identified several technical and policy refinements the board should consider.
JARK cited three broad conclusions: the SPSF is a substantive improvement over the prior ratings system because it differentiates schools more meaningfully and separates accreditation from accountability; the framework's structure generally aligns with federal guidance and peer states; and several scoring rules and labels reduce clarity or produce unfair distributions across school levels.
The report singled out specific changes for board consideration. JARK recommended developing new, continuous terminology for the four performance labels (keeping a distinct "needs intensive support" category while replacing or renaming other labels that stakeholders confuse), adopting level-specific scoring thresholds so elementary, middle and high schools are comparable, and amending rules that automatically lower state labels for federal designations (CSI, TSI, ATSI) so the practice is less punitive and better aligned with federal intent. Joe McMahon summarized that the board could "maintain the emphasis on subgroup performance while also better aligning with the intent of federal designations and avoiding being unnecessarily punitive."
JARK also recommended refining indicator scoring. The commission said Virginia places a heavier weight on proficiency than many states, which increases correlation between SPSF scores and student demographics; it offered a policy option to increase the growth indicator's weight to better reflect schools' contributions to student learning. The report flagged the three E's indicator (college, career and military readiness) for permitting outsized point accumulation by students across multiple pathways and recommended capping per-student 3E points and recalibrating ASVAB-based enlistment scoring. For recently arrived English learners, JARK proposed considering a longer exclusion from proficiency calculations (the report's "exception B") that would delay inclusion until a student's third year in U.S. schools as a policy option to test.
Board members asked detailed questions about the mechanics of each proposal, including how TSI/ATSI adjustments would change the number of schools labeled "needs intensive support," the feasibility of level-specific thresholds, and the operational steps for capping 3E points. JARK emphasized the recommendations are refinements, not a wholesale overhaul: "fundamental changes to the system are not needed," McMahon said, but "tweaks, changes on the margins, refinements" would improve fairness and clarity.
The presentation concluded with JARK's offer of technical examples and appendices; the commission reported it had reached 13 recommendations and two policy options. Board members expressed appreciation and pressed staff to return analyses mapping JARK recommendations to implementation timelines and to model the proposed changes before any regulatory action.
The board will consider JARK's recommendations alongside department proposals in upcoming reviews; specific regulatory or statutory steps were not finalized at this session.
