Competence to Excellence: Building on the Standards of Learning Successes
Governor Timothy M. Kaine’s address to the Board of Education
April 26, 2006
Excerpt #1 Transcript

While the Standards of Learning have raised the academic floor and enabled students to reach higher and have established that single, consistent yardstick statewide, it is important, and I always point this out and I know you know it, but let’s say it again: the SOLs have always been intended as a minimum, a minimum set of standards for competency. To say this is not to denigrate the Standards of Learning, or suggest that the SOLs somehow limit learning and achievement. To the contrary, the success of our schools on larger achievement measures under the SOL program demonstrate the relationship between rigorous minimum competency standards and increased achievement.

But the enthusiastic response to high school reform initiatives such as Early College Scholars and the Virginia Virtual Advanced Placement School demonstrates that there are thousands, there are tens of thousands – there are hundreds of thousands – of students in the commonwealth who are ready and eager to soar from competence to excellence. The SOLs, as minimum standards, do not hold schools accountable for meeting the needs of these students in terms of excellence.