RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ A bipartisan effort to repeal an A-F grading scale for entire schools is advancing in the General Assembly. The A-F scale for schools was adopted in 2013 at the urging of then-Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, as a public measure of school quality based on student test scores. But the law was never implemented. The 2014 legislature delayed it two years. On a 3-2 vote Monday, a Senate subcommittee endorsed Sen. Richard Black’s bill to abolish the A-F scale entirely. A similar measure is pending in the House of Delegates. Black, a Loudoun County Republican, said he initially supported the grading scale but has become convinced that an F grade would stigmatize a school’s students and make it hard to recruit teachers. Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s administration supports repeal.
