Education is a top concern for voters in Virginia. As President Trump closes the Federal Department of Education, shifting funding and control to the states, the issues surrounding education policy are more important now than ever. 

Below is a look at the state of education in Virginia, the Thomas Jefferson Institute’s vision for education reform, and a look at where our gubernatorial candidates stand on the key means of improving our school performance.   

Virginia students continued to struggle to meet national proficiency standards based on results in the most recently released 2024 data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Reading scores remained stagnant among Virginia’s fourth graders while math scores slightly increased. Among Virginia’s eighth graders, scores in both reading and math declined. Only 31% of Virginia’s fourth graders were proficient in reading and 40% in math on the national assessment in 2024. For eighth graders, only 29% were proficient in both reading and math.

Virginia parents are kept in the dark about their children’s poor performance, as reports from the state’s Standards of Learning (SOL) assessment hide this failure. In fact, on the 2024 SOL, 73% of Virginia’s fourth graders scored proficient in reading and 72% of eighth graders. In math, the 2024 SOL showed 71% of fourth graders were proficient and 63% of eighth graders.

Sadly, Virginia’s “proficient” standards in reading on the SOL align to “below basic” on the national assessment. This means a failure to display even partial mastery of the knowledge and skills that are fundamental for work at grade level are deemed “proficient” using Virginia’s standards.

Virginia is one of only two states to have its “proficient” standard in reading align with “below basic” performance on the national assessment. Its math standards are only a little better — aligning with “basic” on NAEP, or partial mastery of the skills needed for grade level proficiency.

The 2024 Nation’s Report Card revealed 42% of Virginia fourth graders and 34% of eighth graders were reading below basic level on the national assessment. That means more than one-in-three Virginia students could not show even partial mastery of the reading skills necessary for grade level proficiency. In math, 24% of fourth graders and 37% of eighth graders scored below basic.

Since 2019, the last national assessment before the pandemic interrupted learning, the percentage of Virginia students scoring below basic on the NAEP has increased each year, except in fourth grade math which slightly decreased this year after a 12-percentage point jump between 2019 and 2022. 

The continued increase in the rate of Virginia students scoring below basic on the NAEP is a reason for concern for Virginia parents who ought to have confidence in their schools to provide a quality education which prepares their children for academic success. This should be the top issue for the next Governor and General Assembly. 

Virginians deserve a transparent and accountable public education system that ensures schools provide an excellent education and struggling students receive the support they deserve. This is especially important as significant achievement gaps persist between Virginia’s least and most advantaged students, and as most of Virginia’s students continue to struggle to meet the nation’s proficiency standards. 

Despite Virginia’s significant underperformance academically, our schools have become a battleground in the culture wars that have divided our country and become a distraction in our classrooms. From the inclusion of men in women’s sports and spaces, to the growing celebration of non-traditional sex and gender norms and the continued failure to keep parents informed and empowered in their children’s education – there has been a growing mistrust in Virginia’s schools which has led to a significant student exodus from the public schools.

Virginia’s election must restore trust in our schools by raising standards, ensuring accountability through transparency, and increasing educational options for our children. Funding must focus on those in need, and reward those schools and teachers that innovate and improve academic excellence. Voters must choose leadership that champions results, innovation, choice, and common sense. 

To this end, here is the Thomas Jefferson Institute’s vision for education policy for the next Governor and General Assembly.

Education Policy Goal of the Thomas Jefferson Institute:

To transform Virginia’s education system by empowering parents through greater transparency and accountability, a more fiscally accountable student-based funding formula, prioritizing student academic success, and greater choice of educational opportunities through a more competitive education environment.

Specific Legislative Actions to Meet TJI’s Education Policy Goals:

1. On Addressing Learning Gaps and Declining Standards:

Problem: Virginia’s education system is experiencing significant declines in student achievement, particularly for low-income and minority students, as evidenced by stagnant or falling NAEP scores. Prolonged school closures and weakened academic standards have exacerbated these learning gaps.

Solution:

• Support the new State Board of Education’s School Performance & Support Framework. This includes:
• Opposing any delay in the implementation of the new standards for measuring student proficiency and school performance.
• Opposing any efforts to lower the new standards.
• Prioritizing resources and targeted interventions for schools and students consistently underperforming, as spelled out in the new framework.
• Ensuring school level performance is shared with and made available to parents and the public.

Key Message: “Our students are falling behind. We must set high expectations, hold our schools accountable for results, and ensure every child has the foundation for success.”

2. On Empowering Parents with Private School Choice and Opportunity:

Problem: Access to quality education often depends on a child’s zip code, leaving many low-income students trapped in failing schools. Parental choice in education is severely limited in Virginia compared to other states.

Solution:

• Propose legislation to significantly expand parental choice in education. This includes:
• Ensuring Virginia’s next governor participates in the Educational Choice for Children Act, a new program of the Trump Administration’s Department of Education to provide federal tax credits to fund scholarships for low-income students (up to 300 percent of medial local income) to attend private schools or receive private supplemental educational services.
• Expanding and extending the Education Improvement Scholarship Tax Credit program to provide 100% state tax credits for donations to scholarships for low-income students to attend private schools that best meet their needs.
• Passing “Opportunity Scholarships” to provide direct private tuition assistance to low-income children in failing schools.

Key Message: “Every child deserves a quality education, not just those in the right zip code. Empowering parents with choice ensures that funding follows the student, fostering real educational equality.”

3. On Fostering Public School Competition and Innovation:

Problem: A lack of competition and diverse options within the public education system stifles innovation and limits opportunities for students to find the best learning environment for their needs.

Solution:

• Encourage and fund innovative educational models, such as:
• Creating a regional charter school authorizing agency to expand public charter schools throughout the Commonwealth.
• Funding more magnet schools and career academies to provide unique alternatives to one-size-fits-all public schools.
• Expanding online learning programs that offer flexibility and specialized instruction, which are open to both public school and homeschool students and families.
• Continuing the expansion and funding for college partnership lab schools.
• Supporting Cross-Boundary Public School Choice.

Key Message: “Innovation thrives in competition. By fostering diverse educational models, we can unlock new pathways to learning and ensure every student has access to the best possible education.”

4. On Funding Models and Fiscal Accountability:

Problem: Virginia’s current education funding model (Standards of Quality – SOQ) lacks transparency, is difficult to understand and does not effectively direct resources to where they are most needed, particularly for harder-to-teach students. Funds may not be reaching classrooms directly, and accountability for spending is insufficient.

Solution:

• Enact legislation to implement Weighted Student Funding (WSF), a system that allocates more funds to schools based on the number of harder-to-teach students (e.g., low-income, English Learners, special education). Which would:
• Empower individual schools, principals, and teachers with greater spending authority over their allocated funds.
• Establish clear metrics and accountability for how funds are utilized to improve student outcomes.
• Ensure that funding is tied to students in a way that is transparent and easily understood.

Key Message: “It’s not just how much we spend, but how we spend it. Weighted Student Funding ensures resources reach the students who need them most, empowering teachers and increasing accountability.”

5. On Reducing Federal Overreach and Restoring Local Control:

Problem: Federal involvement in K-12 education often leads to bureaucratic inefficiencies, one-size-fits-all mandates, reduced local control over education policy, and increasingly removes the role of parents in their children’s education.

Solution:

• Support policies and legislation that transfer education funding and authority back to states and local communities. This includes:
• Agreeing to participate in the Trump Administration’s Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA).
• Supporting the reduction or elimination of the federal Department of Education’s role in K-12 schooling, with funding shifted to the states through block grants.

Key Message: “Education is best managed closest to the students. It’s time to reclaim local control from distant federal bureaucrats and put decision-making power back in the hands of local parents and communities.”

6. On Restoring Parent Rights and Ending Sex and Gender Experimentation with our Children

Problem: Schools have become increasingly hostile to a more traditional view of sex and gender, which has led to the inclusion of age-inappropriate books in schools, the teaching and celebration of non-traditional sexual mores, and the denial of exclusive spaces and sports based on biological sex. Parents are increasingly denied a say in what their children are taught or what their children are exposed.

Solution:

• Support legislation and regulations that restore a parent’s role in overseeing their child’s education and ends the non-scientific view of biological sex as it pertains to sports and spaces.  This includes:
• Supporting a Parent’s Bill of Rights that gives parents the right to opt out of classes or lessons that violate their beliefs.
• Providing parent participation on committees reviewing curricula and library books before they are placed or used in schools.
• Ending the expansion of Title IX to force the opening of sex specific sports and spaces to the opposite biological sex.

Key Message: “Parents are the first and most important teacher a child will ever have. Parental rights must be protected and affirmed.” 

The Core Philosophies of Each Major Party Candidates for Virginia Governor

Neither candidate has provided elaborate details on their respective plans for education. But, in reviewing campaign speeches, websites, press coverage of their views, and their voting history on education, it is easy to see that they have sharply different views – not just on the current state of education in Virginia, but also on their plans to improve Virginia’s schools. 

• Abigail Spanberger’s Approach: Strong public‑school investment, including increased state funding for traditional K-12 schools and community colleges, addressing teacher shortages, and increasing support for teacher training. She opposes diverting public funds to private schools or to fund opportunity scholarships. She supports depoliticizing classroom instruction, which she defines as allowing schools to determine how to handle the culture issues that she views as becoming too divisive under Governor Youngkin.  

• Winsome Earle-Sears’ Approach: Strong emphasis on school choice and parental control, including support for charter schools, lab schools, virtual schools, and giving parents taxpayer-backed control over education spending. She argues against a one-size-fits-all approach to schooling, which she believes limits creative solutions, especially in low-income communities. She supports fighting against Critical Race Theory and other cultural concerns raised in curricula around the state. She also supports longer school days and school years to make up for Covid learning loss. 

While both candidates agree Virginia’s education system faces challenges, they starkly differ on how to address those problems: Spanberger through increased spending and minor fixes to the current public school-based system, Earle‑Sears via decentralization and parental empowerment. Comparing each candidate’s known positions to the Thomas Jefferson Institute’s vision for an effective education policy exposes real differences in Virginia’s available choices for its next governor.

The Thomas Jefferson Institute is a non-partisan, free market think tank that does not endorse candidates. The above is meant to be informative of each candidate’s education policy positions contrasted to those of the Thomas Jefferson Institute. For more information on TJI’s education views, please contact Chris Braunlich at Chris@thomasjeffersoninst.org or Derrick Max at DMax@thomasjeffersoninst.org.