It’s Time to Give NC Test Scores a Good, Long Look

• The DPI and public narratives around the release of North Carolina student test scores in September were optimistic but limited
• A closer review of recent test scores reveals more troubling trends, focused on disappointing results in reading and math
• Other problems include persistent declines in proficiency over time and lack of progress in boosting eighth-grade scores

In 2023–24, North Carolina spent about $10.7 billion on K–12 public schools. If you include money from federal and local sources, total spending for K–12 education reached over $18 billion. K–12 public education is the largest single budget expenditure in North Carolina — by far. It reflects the importance of the task of teaching the next generation, which is why policymakers need to be held accountable to spending that money efficiently and effectively to ensure that our children are learning.

So how are our schools doing? It depends on whom you ask.

One way — albeit an imperfect one — to help answer these questions is to look at test scores. Each year in early September, annual test scores in a variety of subject areas are released to help gauge the performance of North Carolina public school students in academic subjects and their growth toward stated goals.

With the release of this year’s test scores, the prevailing narrative emanating from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI), the state agency responsible for administering the state’s public schools, was moderately upbeat and optimistic: Test scores were improving in many areas and approaching prepandemic levels.

With regard to overall math testing, the DPI press release reported:

For the second year in a row, North Carolina students performed well in math, seeing an increase in students performing at both college-and-career readiness (CCR) and grade-level proficiency (GLP) in all grades from third to eighth, as well as in both NC Math 1 offerings. For students achieving grade-level proficiency in math, these areas saw increases up to 2.1 percentage points from the 2022-23 school year. There was a decrease in NC Math 3 scores, from 58.3% to 57.6% this year.

Do these narratives — written by the very government agencies that administer and distribute many of the services used by local schools — tell the whole story?

Gov. Cooper claims that private schools educating Opportunity Scholarship students are “unaccountable,” but where is the accountability for traditional public schools who continue to fail in even the most basic educational instruction?

As far as it goes, the DPI release is factually accurate. But that’s the problem. The release doesn’t really tell the whole story. The graphs below, from the state report, aid my point.

Figure 1. End-of-Grade Math Performance by Grade and Achievement Level for Academic Years 2021–22 Through 2023–24

Source: DPI

First, let’s do a cursory review of the math scores. Figure 1 listed above provides end-of-grade mathematics performance by grade and achievement level for academic years 2021–22 through 2023–24. The top graph shows math performance for Achievement Levels 4 and above (considered College and Career Readiness, or CCR), and the bottom graph shows Achievement Level 3 (considered Grade Level Proficiency, or GLP).

What’s the difference between the two achievement levels? Achievement Level 3 identifies students with grade-level knowledge and skills in the tested content areas sufficient to move on to the next grade. They may need additional support, however, to be on track for career and college readiness. Students at Achievement Levels 4 and 5 are students who are on track to graduate from high school prepared to enter college or begin a career. Level 4 and above is also referred to as the standard to gauge career and college readiness.

The DPI press release cheers the year-over-year improvement in scores at all grades and both achievement levels. The release however, fails to mention the general overall decline — with a few exceptions — in the percentage of students meeting both standards as grade levels increase. That is, as students go up in grade level, the percentage of students at Level 3 (GLP) or Level 4 and above (CCR) in math generally declined.

For example, the percentage of third-grade students performing at Level 4 or higher on third-grade EOG tests had increased to 41.1 percent of students. Unfortunately, by eighth grade, the percentage of students at those levels was down to 29.6 percent.

A similar decline was seen in students achieving grade-level proficiency. The percentage of students achieving Level 3 proficiency peaks in third grade (62.4 percent) and is in downward decline until eighth grade (46.7 percent). A decline of almost 16 percentage points over five years is more than troubling.

It’s also worth asking: What’s going on in eighth grade? Eighth grade is widely regarded as the gateway to further education, so the decline in eighth-grade scores is troubling. The highest proficiency level — 46.7 percent in 2023-24 — is lower than any of the proficiency levels for any grade of any year for all previous grades (third through seventh). 

Currently, more than half (53.7 percent) of eighth-grade students lack the skills, knowledge, or proficiencies to move on to the next grade level. That means that each year, thousands of students who don’t have the skills and competencies they need to perform higher-level work are getting passed on to the next grade level when they shouldn’t be.

Math wasn’t the only area where students struggled. What about state reading scores?

According to the DPI press release, EOG reading test scores for students in third and eighth grades saw slight improvements in both GLP and CCR, but students experienced declines in fourth and seventh grades. For students scoring grade-level proficient (Level 3 and above, the bottom chart), percentage scores increased by 0.8 percentage points for third grade and by 0.4 points for eighth grade, but decreased by 2.5 points for fourth grade and by 1.8 points for seventh grade.

Figure 2. End-of-Grade Reading Performance by Grade and Achievement Level for Academic Years 2021–22 Through 2023–24

Source: DPI

Again, a cursory look at EOG reading scores for grades three through eight for both standards reveals very modest improvements in all but two grades, fourth and seventh. Eighth-grade reading scores for GLP and CCR standards are modestly higher than the previous year, but they were essentially flat across all three years.

The bottom line: Almost half (48.7 percent) of North Carolina public school students cannot read at grade level by eighth grade, and more than 70 percent of them do not possess a comprehensive understanding of material, the kind they would need to be ready for college or a career.

Yes, third-grade reading scores have been trending up. Still, the increases have been modest. There is a lack of improvement in the percentage of students in third through eighth grades reaching Level 3 (GLP) or Level 4 and above (CCR) in EOG reading scores. There is also a troubling decline in proficiency levels in higher grades.

Moreover, eighth-grade students seem to be stuck, as the percentage of students reaching GLP or CCR standards has remained largely unchanged from year to year. Why are those numbers not moving? 

How is this acceptable? Roughly half of eighth grade students cannot read or perform math at grade level.

Who has been held accountable for these dismal results?  Gov. Cooper claims that private schools educating Opportunity Scholarship students are “unaccountable,” but where is the accountability for traditional public schools who continue to fail in even the most basic educational instruction?

North Carolina spends over $13,200 a year per student. Yet about half can’t even perform the most basic functions at grade level. How much should it cost just to teach a child to read?

These are important questions, yet they are largely ignored by the press.

In Part Two of this series, we will explore whether North Carolina has made any gains on closing the achievement gap and look into some of the reasons for these developments.

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