Less than half of NC students passed most state tests last spring

Fifth and eighth grade science tests, as well as high school English II tests, yielded the best results, with 53.9% of fifth graders and 70.3% of eighth graders passing their tests. For English II, 58.9% passed, just slightly below the 59.7% who passed in 2018-19.

North Carolina Department of Public Instruction officials presented the results Wednesday to the North Carolina State Board of Education, describing the data as just the first nugget of insight into how effectively students learned during the COVID-19 pandemic. In March, the board will get a more comprehensive report on “learning loss” during the 2020-21 school year.

North Carolina is just the latest place to release standardized test results, which have shown declines across the nation.

The tests results are lower than those from the last tests given, during the 2018-19 school year. But the years can’t be directly compared. Some of the tests’ defined achievement levels were altered, some tests had been revised and a lower share of students took the tests than normal.

“The reporting of the data is to support local educators and parents in planning and targeting resources for the upcoming school year that were are now in,” DPI Director of Accountability Services Tammy Howard told the board. The tests results are not intended for accountability or to make comparisons, she said.

Still, the results may be used to evaluate teachers as a part of the annual Educator Value-Added Assessment System (EVAAS) data. The data are used to measure the impact a teacher had on students’ academic performance by comparing those students’ performance to DPI’s algorithmically projected performance for them, which is based on past performance.

State education officials will use a “gap year” analysis approach to evaluating teacher performance, pretending like the 2019-20 school year didn’t happen.

Officials will look at whether students who had the same teacher during that gap year had similar changes in performance the next year, and officials will have to explain any changes to a teacher’s score that may reflect the impact of a second teacher.

Accountability will be minimal for students, compared to normal years, depending on how a district has decided to handle the scores. The test results won’t be used to score schools or identify any a “low performing,” per federal and state reprieves from those requirements.

The U.S. Department of Education granted North Carolina a waiver from the requirement that they ensure at least 95% of students take their required standardized tests.

While Howard said the share of students testing was higher than expected — the tests were administered in-person only — it was still mostly below 95%. Of the 18 tests administered, only four had 95% participation rates. Participation otherwise ranged from 90% to 94%, with seven tests having 92% participation.

Board members didn’t discuss the presentation or test results for long.

Board Member Jill Camnitz called the test results “the first step” and noted pending future, more comprehensive, reports on student performance last year.

“I would urge everyone to do a deeper dive into the report itself,” she said.

"This data could be used to let us know the importance of letting our students be in the classroom with us," said North Carolina Teacher of the Year Eugenia Floyd. "I think that is a truly powerful thing of children having access to their teachers."

The board will vote Thursday on whether to accept the preliminary test results. After that, they’ll be double-checked for errors and presented in a final report in October.

Beyond the state’s standardized tests, the report showed some things haven’t changed, for better or worse.

The four-year graduation rate for this last year was 86.9%, which is about what it’s been for the last two years.

Another thing that didn’t change was 11th grade ACT test results — about 55% of students met minimum expectations.

The rate of students passing the state’s three science tests declined but, for the fifth grade and eighth grade tests, the rates remained much higher than other tests. For biology, only 45.6% of students passed.

Students who took the NC Math 3 standardized test also showed about the same level of grade proficiency and college and career readiness as in 2018-19, though still hovering around 45% and 25%, respectively.

Howard said staff were surprised by that, given that grade-level proficiency and college readiness declined on other tests.

Board Advisor Maureen Stover, a science teacher, said she wondered if changes to the math test a couple of years ago kept teachers from altering instruction much.

Teachers often use old test questions to guide what they teach in classes, she said. Without a prior test, teachers might not have changed what they taught, resulting in similar scores.

The test results will be used, in part, to help educators guide instruction this year, however they see fit.

In a news release Wednesday, DPI officials said the test results “are an indicators of the formidable challenges that students and educators across North Carolina faced during one of the most severe disruptions to public education the state and nation have ever confronted.”

The release noted that wide variety of ways students attended school last year — in-person, virtually or otherwise remotely.

Superintendent Catherine Truitt said the extreme nature of the 2020-21 school year means the test results shouldn’t be taken too seriously, by students or guardians or educators.

“To treat these scores as though they are valid indicators of future success or performance would not only be an improper use of these data, but also would be a disservice to our students, teachers, and administrators,” Truitt said.

The test results presented to the board Wednesday don’t explore possible correlations between scores and students’ primary modes of learning.

The vast majority of North Carolina students will be in-person this year, although the Delta variant of the novel coronavirus threatens increased quarantines, — and time outside of the classroom.

For the next few years, educators plan, using federal COVID-19 stimulus money, extra learning opportunities during the school year and summers to minimize the impacts of any gaps in learning.

Since students took those tests, school districts across the state offered unprecedented summer school programs to the students most at risk of not meeting state standards for their grade level or not progressing to the next grade level.

A WRAL News data analysis in March found that public schools considered about one in five of their students to be “at risk” — more than 200,000 of the state’s nearly 1.5 million public schoolchildren.

How successful that was remains to be seen, though summer school is rarely long enough to make a tremendous difference in assessment results.

Data obtained by WRAL News for a handful of counties, and their rates of enrollment and attendance varied pretty widely.

Educators and the public will have a better idea of the pandemic’s impact on the 2020-21 school year in March, when the “learning loss” plan is released. That will be a preliminary report of learning loss, not to be finalized until December 2022.

"I definitely us to make sure we're highlighting those [accomplishments] and amplifying those so students know that they have accomplished something," Floyd said.