How well did your school do? Look up 2023 test scores here

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction released standardized test data Wednesday showing signs of pandemic learning recovery.

How well did your child’s school do during spring tests? Check out our searchable tables on school performance grades and grade-level proficiency below, including a comparison to previous years’ test scores.

This spring’s tests were only the second tests administered to all students, without significant waivers, since the COVID-19 pandemic began. They reflect some academic declines since the pandemic but they show improvements compared with a year ago.

Funding. North Carolina schools have set aside hundreds of millions of dollars toward learning recovery efforts, using federal pandemic relief dollars. Those include direct help, such as “high-dosage” tutoring, summer school, after-school tutoring, instructional coaches and other interventionists.

“High-dosage” tutoring is one of the gold standards of learning recovery, involving one tutor and just one to three students for 30 minutes at least three times per week until the students have reached their benchmarks.

Schools have also spent money on indirect efforts that could help, such as hiring more behavioral health specialists to help students who are struggling with more than just their schoolwork.

The last of the pandemic relief dollars — except those set aside for facility upgrades — expire Sept. 30, 2024. Some schools are looking at ways to keep their interventions going but will need help from their counties or the state General Assembly to do so.

National recovery. The struggle to get students back to pre-pandemic achievement levels isn’t unique to North Carolina. Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress last school year showed math scores across the nation were still well below pre-pandemic levels. The test is a sampling of students, and data aren’t available by state or school system.

The pandemic affected all students. Almost every demographic group fell behind during remote learning, although some did worse than others. Overall, however, school performance grades — the measure by which the state decides if a school is “low-performing” or not — correlate with socioeconomic status of the students who attend the school. Educators argue that makes it difficult to tell the story of a school or to use the scores to figure out what schools are and aren’t doing well.