Virginia Students Suffering From Covid Shutdowns

Here’s an underwhelming headline from the local newspaper: “Students in Hampton Roads Passed SOL Tests With Incremental Gains Over Year Before.”

This is what is known as putting lipstick on a pig. I could bore you with charts and numbers, but here’s what matters most:

Only about 3/4 of Virginia kids passed most of the Standards of Learning of tests, according to a report in The Virginian-Pilot. And that’s in the good school districts. In Norfolk and Portsmouth the scores are far lower.

Across Virginia, students passed the 2025-26 school year’s Standards of Learning tests at slightly higher rates than the year prior. But the pass rate of all major school districts in the region, aside from Virginia Beach, does not match the pre-pandemic state average. The region’s districts all showed improvement in students’ scores to the year prior — besides Norfolk, which declined a few percentage points in all but one subject.

This is abysmal. Student continue to lag, due to covid lockdowns.

This is the shameful legacy of former Gov. Ralph Northam.

This blackface mid-wit was one of the first governors in the U.S. to shut down schools and he made re-opening schools nearly impossible for more than a year. When they did reopen, the Northam administration insisted on masks, 6-foot distancing and silent lunches. It was gothic. No wonder most kids opted not to return for “in-person” instruction.

In fact, Virginia is ranked as the 7th WORST state for having the fewest days of in-person school from 2020 to 2021. Yep, the Old Dominion ranked 44th out of 50.

Remember when we used to be proud of our schools?

For more than a year Virginia’s governor told kids that school wasn’t important. Students didn’t even get grades at the end of the 2020 school year. The next year they were almost all engaged in virtual learning, which proved to be an oxymoron. There was precious little learning going on as kids used their school-issued tablets as doorstops.

I met a high school junior working at Harris Teeter a few weeks after a panicky Lord Northam closed schools. I asked what she was doing and she said since there were no grades that spring she’d decided to essentially drop out and get a job. She was still working there the next fall and winter.

Great job Northam.

Six years on, Virginia’s public school students still haven’t caught up. Any wonder?

I dare any Democrat running for Congress in Virginia to campaign with Ralph Northam.

Vote accordingly.