New NC test scores show improvement, but a third of schools are labeled low performing

North Carolina student test scores improved last school year, but more than a third of the schools in the state are now labeled as low performing .

New statewide test scores released on Thursday show that 51.2% of students were proficient on state exams during the 2021-22 school year. That compares to the 45.4% passing rate in the 2020-21 school year and 58.8% in the 2018-19 school year.

“The recovery is in progress, but it is going to take time,” Tammy Howard, director of the state Department of Public Instruction’s Office of Accountability, said at Thursday’s State Board of Education meeting.

Additionally, 34% of the schools now meet the state’s definition of being labeled low-performing by having a D or F performance grade and not exceeding growth expectations on exams. That’s 77% more schools than were labeled low performing just before the pandemic started.

State education officials are discouraging comparisons to pre-pandemic performance, citing how some students were still in remote learning and missed time last school year because of COVID-19.

“As we review this year’s data, let’s keep in mind that we’re comparing a completely normal school year with the 21-22 data that is reflective of a very abnormal three-year period,” said State Board of Education member Jill Camnitz.

Among Triangle districts, Chapel Hill-Carrboro, Wake County and Johnston County were above the state average on test proficiency. But Orange County and Durham Public Schools were below. The proficiency rate was 70.5% in Chapel Hill, 61.4% in Wake, 53.3% in Johnston, 48.4% in Orange and 44% in Durham.

DPI has a new dashboard, https://ncdpi.tiny.us/TestingStateLevel, where people can view test scores.

School grades

The new results marked the first time since the 2018-19 school year that the state issued A-F letter grades to individual schools and also reported whether schools met academic growth targets.

The school grades are based 80% on passing rates on exams and 20% on growth on the tests.

The percentage of schools with A and B grades was 23%, down from 37% in the 2018-19 school year. The percentage of schools with D and F grades nearly doubled from 22% in the 2018-19 school year to 42% last school year.

State officials said it’s not a surprise that there are more low-performing schools and D and F schools due to how heavily it’s weighted toward passing rates on exams.

On average, high-poverty schools have lower performance grades than more affluent schools. Critics complain the grades required by state lawmakers stigmatize high-poverty schools.

“I share the same concerns of many educators, parents and others who have raised concerns for years about the fairness of the grades,” State Superintendent Catherine Truitt said in a news release Thursday.

Efforts to modify the performance grades have passed in the state House. But the legislation has all died in the Senate, where Senate leader Phil Berger has been a vocal proponent of the A-F grades.

In addition, 70% of the state’s schools met or exceeded growth expectations on the exams last school year. That compares to nearly 73% of schools meeting targets in 2018-19.

The new report lists 864 low performing schools. That’s up from 488 schools in the 2018-19 school year.

Graduation rate down

There was also bad news from a drop in the state’s graduation rate for the second year in a row.

The four-year high school graduation rate dropped to 86.2%. It had been at 86.9% in the 2020-21 school year and 87.6% in the 2019-20 school year.

The state’s graduation rate is higher than when it was reported for the first time at 68.3% for the Class of 2006. But the steady increase has stopped amid the pandemic.

Pandemic learning loss

The newest round of test results comes as the state and the nation try to recover from steep learning losses that occurred during the pandemic. In particular, students received only limited amounts of in-person instruction during the 2020-21 school year due to COVID restrictions.

A DPI analysis found that all groups suffered pandemic learning loss, with students being months and in some cases more than a year behind in math and reading at the end of the 2020-21 school year.

A statewide teacher survey last school year found that 74% of educators said their students were academically behind where they’d be in a normal year. More than three-quarters of teachers said they spent part of the 2021-22 school year reteaching material that students missed the previous year.

Schools are launching efforts such as intensive tutoring to try to help students get caught up.

Turnaround will take time

Deputy Superintendent Michael Maher said it was not unexpected that proficiency rates and graduation rates would go down while the number of schools designated as low-performing would go up.

Maher said it’s not a problem unique to North Carolina as he pointed to national results released on Thursday showing reading and math scores have declined.

“While these results are sobering, they are not unexpected,” Maher told the state board.

Maher said it could take four years for students to get caught up. But Maher and state board members argued against calling any schools as low performing, saying the formula is “unfair.”

“They’re designated based on a formula that prioritizes proficiency, and we are seeing lower rates of proficiency due to the pandemic,” Maher said. “It is not an accurate reflection of the efforts and progress of teachers and school leaders throughout this state.”

State board vice chairman Alan Duncan said the new results should be considered in the context of how the pandemic disrupted education the past three school years.

“For anyone who seeks to criticize educators based on the release of this data, you are wrong,” Duncan said. “That’s not right. You should not be saying that. We should be praising and encouraging our educators and lifting them up as the first responders.”