Fairfax GOP Chairman Steve Knotts joined WMAL’s O’Connor & Company this week, to discuss plummeting standardized test results in the county’s government-run schools. “It’s absolutely terrible,” Knotts said on Monday’s program.

New data from the Virginia Department of Education revealed significant learning losses in reading, math and science among students enrolled in Fairfax County Public Schools. From 2018-19 to 2020-21, reading proficiency rates among district students declined 8 points, from 81 to 73. Proficiency in math plummeted 25 points from 86 to 61. Science proficiency fell 19 points, from 84 to 65.

Rather than focus on combating learning loss, Fairfax County’s school board seems more interested in advancing a far-left ideological agenda, Knotts said. “We’ve got to get to a point where parents use the schools as a tool to educate their children — and they are given choices in how they educate those kids,” the chairman added. “If that means pulling them out and putting them somewhere else, the state and county should be supporting that with tax dollars to make that happen.”

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