Virginia Districts Plan the Summit While Students Are Stuck at Base Camp
7th October 2026
Last month, public school leaders from Fairfax County, Prince William County, and Richmond traveled to Aspen, Colorado. As members of the Aspen Institute and College Board’s Social Mobility Leadership Network, their districts are participating in a three-year program on expanding low-income students’ access to advanced coursework.
As I previously wrote in the Daily Signal, membership requires each district to sign a data-sharing agreement with the Aspen Institute and the College Board. The agreement covers advanced coursework participation data “disaggregated by race, ethnicity, income status, and other locally relevant student groups.”
Aspen is beautiful, and helping more students succeed in advanced coursework is a worthy goal. But these districts face a more basic problem: Many of their students are not performing at grade level.
Richmond Public Schools is a case in point. According to the Virginia Department of Education, nearly half of its students failed their Standards of Learning (SOL) tests in reading, math, and science in 2025-26.