When the State Department of Education decided to issue school and school division report cards with SOL results and other statistical data, the VEA urged them to also include teacher opinion for a fuller community report. The first such report has been compiled from voluntary teacher responses.
Teachers overwhelmingly agree that their schools are seeking higher standards.
Their responses also validate VEA's call for better materials and staff development. The teacher-designed survey was conducted in the spring of 2000 in cooperation with the Virginia Education Association. This survey provides a means for classroom teachers to hold others in the system accountable so the full weight of reform doesn t fall on teachers. Nearly 31,000, or about 35 percent of the commonwealth s 87,000 teachers participated in the survey by filling out an anonymous, on-line questionnaire. Responses were tabulated by the Survey and Evaluation Research Laboratory of Virginia Commonwealth University.