NC Public School Districts Fail Test

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NC Public School Districts Fail Test

Special Report - August 11, 2010
For the 2009-2010 school year, only six North Carolina public school districts met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) as established by the federal No Child Left Behind’s (NCLB) targets in reading, math, and language arts for various student subgroups. Of the 95 charter schools reporting, 73—76.8 percent—made AYP in the 2009-2010 school year. In order to meet AYP, all student subgroups (such as American Indian, Asian, Black, Hispanic, White, Economically Disadvantaged, etc.) must have at least 95 percent participation in statewide assessments, meet or exceed proficiency targets in reading and mathematics, and show progress on attendance or graduation rate. Statewide, nearly 83 percent of the AYP targets were met, but AYP’s pass-fail approach requires schools to meet 100 percent of the targets to be considered as having met AYP.

The AYP results were released by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction on August 5 as part of its report, The ABCs of Public Education: 2009-2010 Growth and Performance of North Carolina Public Schools, which also included data on the state’s own ABC method of evaluating school and student success. The ABCs of Public Education were developed by the State Board of Education “in response to the School-Based Management and Accountability Program enacted by the General Assembly in June 1996. The program focuses on strong Accountability, teaching the Basics with an emphasis on high educational standards, and maximum local Control.” School growth and performance are measured by End-of-Grade (EOG) and End-of-Course (EOC) test results along with other selected components. In 2003, the program was expanded to include NCLB requirements. AYP was adopted as a “closing the achievement gap component” of the ABCs.

Overall, more North Carolina schools were classified as Honor Schools of Excellence, Schools of Excellence or Schools of Distinction than in previous years. Eight percent or 200 of the state’s public schools had 90 percent or more of their students score at or above grade level and met AYP to qualify as Honor Schools of Excellence. The percentage of Schools of Excellence with 90 percent or more of students scoring at or above grade level and showing at least expected growth tripled from 0.2 percent last year to 0.6 percent in 2009-2010. Nearly 29 percent of the state’s public schools had 80 percent or more of students testing at or above grade level, which categorized those 716 schools as Schools of Distinction. The percentage of Schools Making Expected Growth (35.5 percent), Schools Not Making Expected Growth (12.1 percent), and Low-Performing Schools (0.6 percent) all dropped from their 2008-2009 figures of 41.5 percent, 19.1 percent, and three percent, respectively.

Related articles:
NC Schools 2008 Report Cards Released - January 29, 2009
Higher Standards Yield Lower Scores - November 10, 2008