Chapter 6: The Impact of Accountability Reform on the “Wise Practice” of Secondary History Teachers: The Virginia Experience

In the late 1990s, the Commonwealth of Virginia implemented a massive accountability reform effort that included the development of content standards, high-stakes testing, and revised standards of school accreditation. Subsequently, the Virginia Board of Education released the History and Social Science Standards of Learning (revised and rereleased in 2001), which were designed to provide a framework for history instruction across the state. These Standards of Learning (SOLs) were followed in 1998 by multiple-choice, high-stakes assessments intended to address the knowledge and skills specified in the standards (Duke & Reck, 2003). These new policies and actions unleashed extensive debate and discussion over the content of the standards, the nature of the tests, and the effects of this reform on teaching and learning (Duke & Reck, 2003; Fore, 1995). Virginia’s reform efforts have spurred research studies on the history of assessment (Heinecke, Curry-Cocoran, & Moon, 2003); the role of Virginia superintendents and principals in the implementation of these reforms (Grogan & Sherman, 2003; Tucker, 2003), classroom instruction of math, language arts, and biology teachers with high SOL scores (Grogan & Roland, 2003); and attitudes of new and veteran teachers toward the SOLs (Winkler, 2002). However, scholars have paid little attention to the influence of Virginia’s standards and high-stakes assessment on the classroom practices of secondary history teachers.