About half of North Carolina students tested at grade level last spring, a shift downward from pre-pandemic years.
The scores, released Thursday by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, are an indicator of the slowed pace of student learning since the start of COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused learning disruptions across much of the state.
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Department officials presented the data to the State Board of Education on Thursday.
The results show the state is not meeting the proficiency goals established in its plan to comply with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act by a few percentage points.
The results come a day after the state Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the 28-year-old Leandro education adequacy lawsuit. In that case, courts have ruled in favor of five lower-income school boards and their students who argue North Carolina is not providing a constitutionally required “sound basic education.” But a formal plan to resolve that dispute hasn’t been fully funded nor implemented.
Meanwhile, schools in the more than 20 counties in WRAL News’ viewing area have committed more than $300 million toward learning recovery efforts using temporary federal pandemic relief dollars. The efforts are designed to accelerate students’ learning and get them back on track. That includes small group tutoring, literacy coaches and other small tests to keep track of students’ progress.
During the spring, more than half of students passed 11 of the state’s 21 end-of-grade or end-of-course tests. That’s down from 19 of 21 tests during the 2018-19 school year. In total, about 51.4% of all tests were passed, compared to 58.8% in 2019.
In Wake County, the changes were less dramatic but still negative. The overall percentage of tests passed in 2022 dropped to 61.4%, from 65.2% in 2019. However, the biggest declines were in reading, where the tests themselves changed between the two time periods, so it’s unclear how much of the drop is the result of the test change or an actual decline in mastery.
The district typically performs above the state averages, and, like the state, it made significant improvements in Math 3. But the district stayed below average in Math 1, with just 30.8% of students passing. The district’s pass rate for all other exams ranged from 52.4% (in 8th grade math) to 79.5% (in 8th grade science).
The one exception to the negative trend across North Carolina: Math 3 test scores among high school students. Last spring, 53.4% of test-takers showed grade-level proficiency, compared to just 46.8% during the 2018-19 school year. At the same time, just 33.1% of Math 1 students passed their tests, down from 41.2%.
Graduation were about on part with pre-pandemic levels. About 86.2% of high school seniors graduated this spring, compared to 86.5% in spring 2019.
Board Member Amy White said she hopes the department looks for bright spots, including schools or school systems that defied negative trends.
“I personally want to know which schools killed it,” White said. The rest of the state could learn what worked and apply it to their own schools, she said.
“This is not the last challenge that our state will face… It is time to raise the bar,” White said.
State Superintendent Catherine Truitt noted the state is implementing a new method of teaching pre-kindergarten through fifth graders how to read. It’s a more phonics-based approach that, broadly, is increasingly being adopted nationwide in the hopes that it will yield better literacy rates.
Teachers began training on the approach last year and will continue to train for the next few years.
Truitt hopes it will change stagnant or declining reading scores, especially for older students, in North Carolina.
“I’m confident that in a couple of years we’re going to start seeing that trend reverse,” she said.
How North Carolina students fared compared to the rest of the nation isn’t known yet. In October, the federal government will release the National Assessment of Education Progress results for 2021. States often vary in the standardized tests they administer, but the NAEP tests are given and analyzed nationwide every two years.
Test scores from the 2021-22 school year can’t be compared to test scores during the 2020-21 school year, because test participation rates were highly variable school-to-school in spring 2021.
Most tests can be compared to the 2018-19 school year, the most recent year in which full school accountability measures were followed.
Not all tests can be compared to prior years, however. The state adopted new reading tests starting with the 2020-21 school year, so results from 2022 in reading cannot be compared to results from 2019 in reading.
A comparison to the 2018-19 school year would reflect more than two whole school years of pandemic-disrupted learning. While schools were largely in-person last year, pandemic precautions may have resulted in extended student or staff absences.