Thousands of people surveyed across the state agree that North Carolina needs to change the way it assigns School Performance Grades, but ideas on how to reform the system are still being discussed.
Pitt County Schools Director of Testing and Accountability Shannon Wainright told members of the Board of Education this week that North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt has solicited opinions on altering the state’s School Performance Grades. Nearly 20,000 people, mostly educators and parents, have offered input.
For the last decade, public schools in North Carolina have received report cards containing grades of A-F that are based mainly on student performance on end-of-grade or end-of-course testing.
“I think it has been acknowledged that our accountability measures and the way we handle end-of-grade testing is flawed in North Carolina,” Wainright said at Monday’s school board work session.
According to the 2021-22 state report card that was issued in September, about a third of Pitt County’s more than three dozen public schools scored a D or F, compared with about a fourth of the schools in the district in 2019. A state Department of Public Instruction report shows a similar trend across the state, with 34% of schools, or 864, designated as low-performing, compared with 488 prior to the coronavirus pandemic.
The work to redesign School Performance Grades is part of Truitt’s Operation Polaris, a four-year plan that aims to improve outcomes for public schools in the wake of the pandemic. State education leaders are looking at ways the school performance formula could be changed to include additional indicators that reflect school quality.
According to the survey, conducted in September and October, most participants agreed that some standardized testing is necessary, but many felt that measures of success should be different for elementary, middle and high schools. The majority of those responding agreed that the state Legislature needs to change the method for measuring School Performance Grades to include additional indicators beyond test scores and growth.
Some of the indicators being discussed for inclusion are high school graduate rate; durable skills such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity and persistence; courses offered outside of core academics, such as career and technical education; school climate; and safety. But some education leaders have questioned how such new indicators would be assessed.
Much of the criticism of the current School Performance Grades centers on a state law that requires that standardized test scores account for 80% of a school’s performance grade, while the remaining 20% is based on students’ academic growth.
“There’s lot of talk about 50/50,” Wainright said of an accountability model that would give test scores and academic growth equal weight. “If we were on a 50/50 model, I think we had 13 schools that would increase a letter grade.”
Pitt County Schools Superintendent Ethan Lenker said if the current model were reversed so that student growth accounted for 80% of the grade, the local district would have no schools that score below C on the state report card.
District 5 representative Anna Barrett Smith said that more local indicators need to be considered in determining School Performance Grades.
“When you look at district by district, it’s often comparing apples to oranges in terms of population, poverty,” she said. “We have certain challenges that make our grades, in my opinion, not indicative of what is actually going on in our schools.”
District 4 representative Don Rhodes said the state’s model does not take into account socioeconomic factors, which have been shown to influence student test scores.
“All kids are not going to achieve proficiency,” he said. “(But) every school in this county can have growth.”
State survey results will being examined by an advisory group beginning next month. Policy recommendations for new School Performance Grades criteria are scheduled to be shared with the General Assembly in January 2023.
At a special-called meeting following Monday’s work session, the board:
Approved a one-time supplement of about $220 for seven school nutrition employees who work in the district’s central office. Approved by the state’s Department of Public Instruction, the supplement is being paid from funds restricted to school nutrition employees. Workers, who must be employed on Nov. 27 to be eligible, are due to receive the bonus in December.
Approved the purchase of two buses for the pre-kindergarten program at a cost of $264,000. The buses will be purchased with Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds.
Approved a two-year contract for $110,365 for East Carolina University to provide athletic training advisement to the school district.
Approved contracts for roof replacement at Elmhurst and Wahl-Coates Elementary schools, Wellcome Middle School and J.H. Rose High School.
