School Divisions of Innovation; performance-based assessments.

School Divisions of Innovation; performance-based assessments. Allows a local school board, when applying for itsschool division to be designated as a School Division of Innovation,to apply to the Board of Education to replace the Virginia Studiesand Civics and Economics Standards of Learning assessments with performance-basedassessments. The bill requires any such application to (i) demonstratethat the proposed performance-based assessment requires that studentsdemonstrate the knowledge and skills required by the relevant Standardsof Learning and that students demonstrate one or more of the skillsand qualities of critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication,or citizenship and (ii) provide evidence of the local school board'scapacity to administer and score performance-based assessments.