Student test scores improve in Wake, Durham, Johnston and Chapel Hill schools

Test scores improved in Triangle school districts last year, but passing rates remain largely below pre-pandemic levels.

New North Carolina results released this week show that Wake, Durham, Johnston, Orange and Chatham counties and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system all increased the percentage of students passing state exams in the 2021-22 school year.

Some districts also saw large numbers of schools meeting and exceeding growth targets on the state exams.

“We are quickly recovering,” Durham Superintendent Pascal Mubenga said in an interview Thursday. “That’s why I’m pleased with the results.”

The results come at a time when the state as a whole saw gains, increasing from 45.4% passing exams in the 2020-21 school year to 51.2% last school year. But state passing rates are still below pre-pandemic levels.

The state didn’t report test results in the 2019-20 school year due to the pandemic.

North Carolina reported passing rates in the 2020-21 school year but not whether schools met growth targets. The state also didn’t grade schools on their performance in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years.

District level scores

▪ Chapel Hill-Carrboro had the highest passing rate in the Triangle at 70.5% for all state exams. It was 61.8% in the 2020-21 school year and 75.5% in the 2018-19 school year.

▪ Wake County was the next highest in the Triangle with 61.4% passing rate on state exams. It was 55.4% in the 2020-21 school year and 65.2% in the 2018-19 school year.

▪ In Chatham County, the proficiency rate was 56.9% on all state exams. It was 47.9% in the 2020-21 school year and 62.4% in the 2018-19 school year.

▪ In Johnston County, the proficiency rate was 53.3% on all state exams. It was 42.7% in the 2020-21 school year and 52.9% in the 2018-19 school year.

▪ In Orange County, the proficiency rate was 48.4% on all state exams. It was 40.3% in the 2020-21 school year and 59.6% in the 2018-19 school year.

▪ In Durham the proficiency rate was 44% on all state exams. It was 33.8% in the 2020-21 school year and 49% in the 2018-19 school year.

The graduation rate fluctuated among the districts at a time when the state average dropped to 86.2%.

The graduation rate increased from 92.8% to 94.5% in Chapel Hill and from 91.1% to 91.7% in Johnston County. But the graduation rate fell from 90.3% to 89.5% in Wake County and from 87% to 84% in Durham.

‘Cause for celebration’

The Johnston County school system is celebrating moving ahead of where it was in 2019.

In addition to having a higher passing rate than three years ago, Johnston County Superintendent Eric Bracy said it was a “cause for celebration” how 33 out of 48 schools exceeded growth expectations. That’s compared to only 10 schools who exceeded growth in 2019.

Overall, 85% of districts schools met or exceeded growth. The statewide average was 70%.

“Reviewing this data filled me with pride,” Bracy said in a news release. “We set a sizable goal before our students and staff and they worked hard to work towards achieving it.

“They haven’t let excuses get in the way, did the work, and the results are speaking for themselves.”

Johnston has a goal of having every school receive an A, B, or C performance grade from the state by the end of the 2023-24 school year. Johnston had 37 schools reach that mark, up from 30 schools before the pandemic.

Recovery in Durham

State education officials have said it could take as long as four years for North Carolina students to recover from pandemic learning loss.

But Mubenga, the superintendent of Durham Public Schools, said he thinks that they can recover in as little as two years. He points to how the district’s passing rate on the latest state report was only five percentage points below the 2018-19 mark.

If not for the pandemic, Mubenga says he thinks Durham’s proficiency rate would be above 50% now on state exams. Durham has significantly more economically disadvantaged students than several neighboring school systems.

“We have a lot of disadvantaged students compared to Wake or Chapel Hill,” Mubenga said. “But we won’t use that as an excuse.”

Despite having larger numbers of challenging students, Mubenga points to how 86.5% of Durham’s schools met or exceeded growth. Durham also saw two-thirds of its schools exceeding growth targets, compared to only 35% of the schools in Wake.

‘A lot to celebrate’

Chatham County was celebrating how all of its elementary and middle schools and 89.4% of schools overall met or exceeded growth targets.

Some district schools saw gains of 10 to 20 percentage points in passing rates on exams.

Anthony Jackson, superintendent of Chatham County schools, said “we have a lot to celebrate.”

“Our students and staff really worked hard last year to provide students the opportunity to rebound academically from the impacts of the pandemic during the prior two school years,” Jackson said in a news release. “These data are a testament to the work of our student and staff and the partnership with their parents”

‘Low-performing’ schools

Like the rest of the state, the Triangle saw an overall increase in the number of schools labeled as low-performing. Schools receive that label if they have a D or F performance grade and are not exceeding growth expectations on exams.

The A through F performance grades are largely based on how many students pass exams at each school. Additionally, fewer schools met growth targets than in a non-pandemic year.

Among local school districts, there were 38 low-performing schools in Wake, 12 in Durham, five in Johnston, four in Chatham and two in Orange. But Johnson had 14 schools labeled as low performing previously.

State education officials have downplayed the increase in the number of schools designated as low performing. They point to how the designation is tied into passing rates that have dropped during the pandemic.

“Let’s all remember low-performing schools is a mathematical calculation,” State Board of Education vice chairman Alan Duncan said at this week’s meeting. “It’s a mathematical calculation that was formulated years before any pandemic happened. There’s no accounting for the pandemic with respect to that calculation.”

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