‘Raising expectations.’ Wake students’ proficiency rates rise again, new testing data shows

Wake County public school students continue to show improvement across subjects following declines during the learn-from-home Covid-19 pandemic era, according to state data released Wednesday.

2026-09-02

Two-thirds to three-quarters of Wake County Public School System students are testing proficiently on their end-of-grade and end-of-course exams, the data from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction shows. The data shows continued growth for Wake and the state, while Wake outperforms the state across subject areas. 

The data shows progress since the pandemic and associated remote learning initially tanked test scores in 2022. At the same time, many students affected by the pandemic are no longer students, with thousands of them graduating over the past several years.

Nearly two-thirds of Wake students were proficient in reading this spring and just more than two-thirds were proficient in math, up multiple percentage points since 2025. Three-quarters were proficient in fifth and eighth grade science, high school English II (up five points from last year) and high school Math 3 (up 0.6 percentage points). About two-thirds — 68.9% — were proficient in biology, up from 60.9% last year.

“These results show exceptional progress across our district and, most importantly, for our students,” Superintendent Robert Taylor said in a statement, noting gains seen across tests and student groups. “That progress reflects the hard work happening every day in our classrooms and schools. We also know there is more work ahead, particularly in closing gaps and ensuring every student has access to the instruction and support they need to succeed. Our focus now is on building on this progress and continuing to raise expectations and outcomes for every student.”

• In third- through eighth-grade reading, proficiency rose from 2025 in every grade level. The overall proficiency rate was 65.7%, the highest rate since at least 2018. Proficiency rates ranged from 64.8% to 67.5%, by grade.
• In third- through eighth-grade math, proficiency rose across all grade levels from 2025, with an overall proficiency rate of 68.8%, surpassing pre-pandemic levels by more than three percentage points. Passage rates ranged from 64% to 72.2%, by grade level.
• In fifth-grade science, the proficiency rate was 73.3%, up from 69% in 2025. In eighth-grade science, the proficiency rate was 75.9%, up from 69.1% in 2025.
• In biology, the proficiency rate was 68.9%, up from 60.9% in 2025.
• In English II, proficiency rose to 75.3% of students in 2026, from 70.3% in 2025. That’s several percentage points higher than prepandemic levels..
• In Math 3, for high schoolers, proficiency was 76.4% this spring, up from 75.8% in 2025.

At Knightdale Elementary School, proficiency rates transformed last year. At the historically low-performing school — where most students are more economically disadvantaged than other schools and where one-quarter of students are still learning English — most students are now passing their reading and math exams.

The school’s reading proficiency jumped from 42.8% among third through fifth graders in 2025 to 56.9% this spring. Math proficiency jumped from 43.6% to 57.9% during that period.

Principal Monica Noa made several changes last year, her first year at the school. They were centered around providing more one-on-one and small group support, using data to improve instruction. She asked teachers for their lesson plans. She created a rigid structure of when lessons using certain curricula would take place and how long they would last. Because their schedules are more rigidly built out, Knightdale Elementary teachers have more time built into their schedules to do small-group and individual sessions.

“It took some getting used to because they weren't used to that level of structure, but they caught on very quickly,” Noa said. “And I think after a while they actually appreciated that because it showed them what they were supposed to be doing with their time, whereas before they were interpreting how the district wanted time utilized, and so now it was crystal clear.”

The gains were proof that the teachers’ hard work paid off, Noa said.

“I was excited to see the gains, and I was excited to see that all that I told my teachers, ‘Give it,

give me a year, let's try this for a year,’” Noa said. “Because it was very different, having a new principal come in and say we're going to do all these things doesn't always feel good, and it's an adjustment.”

This year, Noa has assigned some of the most successful teachers to a subject area, rather than a grade, the way most elementary schools are set up.

Jennifer Wendt’s third graders had a 100% passage rate on their end-of-grade exams last year. So this year, she’s only teaching math and science, splitting half of the third grade with another teacher.

“It is a little bit more pressure on me to do the same, but I'm going to do the same things that I did last year, so I know it's going to be great,” Wendt said.

In her classroom Monday, Wendt taught multiplication to her third graders, using word problems and theoretical examples involving sports equipment. They were learning to master each step of the process for figuring out how many students were passing around eight basketballs, or how many tennis balls the coach would have if he has four cans. Wendt kept asking them to help her with every step and explain why that was the correct step.

“It's really important that they can explain their thinking, because then they definitely understand,” Wendt said after the lesson. “A lot of kids just want to rush to what the answer is, and a lot of times I say, ‘I don't care what the answer is, I want to know how you got there.’”

When one student guessed wrong, Wendt didn’t tell them so. She explained what they did last time and asked the class why they did it that way.

When one student guessed right but several classmates disagreed, Wendt tried both methods, so they could all figure out what worked and what didn’t.

They figured it out. If the coach has four cans of tennis balls, and each can has 10 balls, then the coach has 40 tennis balls.

“You just solved your first word problem in third grade,” Wendt said excitedly. “How do you feel?”

“Good!” the class said almost in sing-song unison.

Wendt is spending a lot of time at the beginning of the year leading students through the problem-solving. She expects to do less of that as the year goes on. The students will be mostly talking themselves through solving problems.

Down the hallway from Wendt, Lori McDonald had a similarly successful fourth-grade last year.

About 86% of her students passed their end-of-grade reading exam.

She’d never seen numbers like that before.

“It was a little bit shocking,” McDonald said. “But I knew that my kids had the potential to do it. It was like they just had to believe in themselves, and once they did, it was like they took off, and it was amazing.”

On Monday, she introduced students to their poetry unit, having them write down their thoughts about it and then asking them what they thought their next unit would be about. Students generally guessed it right. But McDonald wants them to eventually think a little deeper, already asking them at the end of the lesson what makes a piece of writing a poem and asking them what inspires someone to write poetry. She asked them what “inspire” means. Students gave examples.

“We did a lot of close reading,” McDonald recalled of last year. “So with all of our texts, you read it through one time, and then you go back, and you really pull out all of those details. And we look at vocabulary. And the more times you do that over and over, I think it became ingrained in them that when they're reading, they really have to be purposeful and make sure they're close reading all of their texts, and I think that helped.”

Wendt and McDonald noted the data they use that helps them see what individual students’ strengths and weaknesses are, so they can be addressed.

“We plan with intention, thinking about all of the students, and so we're able to group them and kind of meet them where they're at, and make sure all of the moves that we do are intentional, because learning is never an accident,” McDonald said.

McDonald’s students set goals for themselves throughout the year, and they assess whether they’re meeting them. She helps make sure the goals are reasonable to begin with. She asks them to be specific when reviewing their own progress. What, specifically, did they do well? What strategies helped them?

“The longer that we went, and they were in charge of their own reflecting and their own data, they were able to be proud of themselves, and they would work towards making sure they hit that goal,” McDonald said. “So whatever that goal was, they wanted it.”

Students walked into McDonald’s classroom timid and walked out proud, she said.

The one-on-one time, now better emphasized in teachers’ schedules, has been monumental for parents such as such as Mallory Bradshaw, whose son Noah needed that extra help in reading. He got that with McDonald as a fourth-grader last year.

“Miss McDonald would come up with new ways to teach him something,” Bradshaw said. “If the way she was teaching the class just wasn't clicking for him, she would think about it and pull Noah to the side, and she'd come up with this whole new teaching plan just to help him, and it he would get it. And he was like, ‘Oh!’”

Noah, now in fifth grade, told WRAL News that McDonald would pull him to the side to work out anything he wasn’t understanding, like visual models for division, which involved drawing boxes to do the math.

“It made me feel like I was cared about, and really made me feel happy,” he said.

McDonald emphasized perseverance throughout the school year.

“When he would start to shut down when something was hard in class, she would talk him

through it and not let him give up on himself,” Bradshaw said.

That’s a key part of teaching, Wendt said.

“I built relationships with students, so they knew that I care about them, and they knew that I believed in them,” Wendt said. “And so, usually, they're more willing to work through challenges and stay attentive and engaged in their learning.”