Blacks, Hispanics improve on SOL test
By Josh Goodman | October 29, 2002Black and Hispanic students scored higher on most of Virginia's Standards of Learning exams this year than in the past year and closed the gap with the general student population on some exams. Black students improved on 22 of the 28 SOL exams, while Hispanic students improved on 20 of the exams. As a whole, the Virginia student population improved on 23 of the exams over last year's scores. Charles Pyle, a spokesman for the Virginia Department of Education, attributed the higher scores to the individual work of educators. The improvement is "due to the tremendous efforts on the part of the teachers and administrators," Pyle said. More schools have made their curriculums match with state standards and this has helped improve SOL scores, he said. The SOL exams, which are still in their testing phase for students in grades 3-12, will be used to determine whether students graduate and schools receive accreditation by 2007. In this year's exam results, gaps remained between black and Hispanic students and the general student population, though the gap narrowed on some exams. Black students improved compared to the general population on 19 of the 28 exams.
