Virginia’s decision to be exempt from the “No Child Left Behind” Policy is in the best interest of the state’s students and teachers. The Policy would have a school where a handful of students do not meet the standards be considered a “failing school”, even if all other test-takers went above and beyond.

In theory, the policy makes sense because it gives a nice, clean number to tell the Government which of America’s schools are “succeeding” and which are not. However, what the Federal Government failed to realize is that it is not realistic or practical. Schools and teachers cannot be rated solely on their numbers, but must be viewed holistically.

With the new system of teacher evaluations, teachers now must submit a portfolio of sorts containing the scores and grades of their students for the entire year. This offers a much better representation of how students are doing in schools – as opposed to one number at the end of the year.

Complaints of this new method are that it takes a lot of work to get it up and running, but those are just growing pains. Every new system takes a while to get started, but once it is fully in place, it will be much better for the education of Virginia students.