Educators are challenged to prepare Virginia's students to succeed in the world. The skills and content in the Standards of Learning may be part of that, but only part; and many would argue, not the most important part.  The competencies and dispositions that are so critical in today's world (not to mention tomorrow's world, where our students will live) are largely absent from the state standards. So what are schools to do?

 

Shenandoah County and many other school divisions in Virginia are working to create frameworks for learning that integrate but reach beyond the SOLs.  I recently had a chance to talk with Assistant Superintendent Ebbie Linaburg. She described the focus of Shenandoah's work:

 

From the beginning, it was about ways to find balance between meeting the requirements of the SOL and acting on our belief that we are teaching something beyond that by developing students' essential competencies for all time. We have concentrated on switching the emphasis from teaching to learning.