After conducting two years of research and holding numerous rounds of public comment, the Virginia ... [+] Board of Education is updating the state's K-12 school accountability and accreditation systems.

The Commonwealth of Virginia is taking a major step toward revitalizing its public schools in the wake of sweeping student performance declines. It’s a move that bets on the willingness of parents to know the truth about school performance.

The state Board of Education is revamping what it acknowledges is an “outdated and confusing school accreditation system with a more clear and actionable school performance and support framework.” The state wants to open a much larger window onto school performance, creating greater transparency so that parents and educators have more visibility into why students might be underperforming. The greater the transparency, the greater the opportunity to devise programs and interventions to reverse learning loss.

While it might sound like a mere bureaucratic change, it isn’t. Rather, it is a vital development in following the failures of the state’s current school accreditation system that concludes schools are just fine, despite major learning losses.

Statewide standardized test scores in 2022-2023 academic year show student achievement remains well below pre-pandemic performance. More than half of all third- to eighth-grade students either failed, or were at risk of failing, their reading test, while nearly two-thirds either failed, or were at risk of failing, their standardized math test.

And yet, according to the Board of Education, “our current accreditation ratings barely change because it is not a robust or accurate measure of student mastery of content and skills. The accreditation ratings still told parents and communities across Virginia that 88% of schools were doing fine.”

“Our current accreditation system is not communicating with parents and Virginians in a transparent or responsive way or accurately showing the overall performance of our schools and student needs,” it added.

The nine-member board is appointed by the governor and establishes curriculum standards, graduation requirements, school accreditation standards and teacher licensure requirements.

After conducting two years of research and holding numerous rounds of public comment, the board is shifting to a school accreditation system comprised of “a clearly weighted index that values and incentivizes growth, mastery, readiness for success at the next ‘level’ and graduation.”

The state’s secretary of education, Aimee Guidera, says the new accreditation system will be a major improvement in accountability. Once in place, “parents will have a clear picture of how well their neighborhood school is serving all its students, teachers and staff will better understand where there are areas for improvement, and policymakers will be able to allocate resources more effectively to ensure that those schools that need the most help are prioritized.”

The goal of greater accountability isn’t to shame schools and teachers or highlight failure. Quite the opposite. Andrew Rotherham, a member of the board, stresses that “well-designed accountability systems focusing on clear measurable standards for proficiency increase school performance and student learning.” More importantly, he adds, “parents simply expect and deserve honesty about how schools in their communities are performing.”

He's 100 percent right. Parents deserve better. They should have more insight into school quality. Taxpayers also deserve better, given the breadth of annual spending on Virginia’s public schools at more than $21 billion .

The Board of Education last month laid the foundation for approval of the new accreditation system. There are still details to be worked out, but given the deep need to get students back on track, board members must overcome the inertia they are confronting and keep doing the right thing.