NC schools test scores rise again, make near post-pandemic recovery in math

North Carolina students are making big gains in math, though they remain behind the proficiency rates of 2018 and 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools, new data from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction shows.

Statewide test proficiency rates are still behind pre-pandemic levels across all subjects except for fourth-grade reading and fourth-grade math, the new data shows. The state is almost back to pre-pandemic levels in math, but not in reading. The improvements come even as federal funds designed to reverse pandemic-era learning loss have dried up.

Last year, proficiency rates hadn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels on any of the state’s 18 tests, tough they’d improved since their initial 2022 dips from remote learning loss.

Proficiency rates have improved to match or surpass pre-pandemic levels on many tests in some school districts, such as Wake County.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Mo Green said the data released Wednesday is a baseline that he’ll use to measure the success of his new strategic plan, Achieving Educational Excellence, approved and co-signed by the State Board of Education last month.

In particular, Green is interested in the state’s graduation rate — posted at 87.7% this spring, up from 87% in 2024, and ACT composite scores — which hit 18.2 this spring, up from 18.1 in 2024. The state is one of just a handful that requires all students to take the ACT.

The four-year graduation rate of 87.7% is the highest the state has had in at least 20 years, state data shows, and Green believes its the highest ever. For the 2005-06 school year, just 68.3% of students graduated in four years. That percentage has increased most years since.

“I’m proud of our students and educators who have worked hard to improve these metrics even as we acknowledge that our students are more than test scores,” Green said in a news release. “While the progress and growth shown in these reports deserves praise, we must continue our work to promote excellence for all students. Our plan is to Achieve Educational Excellence — for every child in North Carolina and to have the best public schools in the nation. I am eager to see this data continue to improve as we work to implement our strategic plan.”

Green wants a 92% four-year graduation rate and 20 average ACT score by 2030.

Green’s plan doesn’t include goals for statewide test score proficiency rates but includes goals for performance on national standardized tests that are given every two years. Those scores were not a part of Wednesday’s release.

"There is so much work to be done to get to a place where we are best in the nation by 2030," Green said.

The state’s results

The results were:

• In third- through eighth-grade reading, proficiency rose from last year for all but third grade. The overall proficiency rate was 52.5%, behind the 57.3% rate from six years ago. Proficiency rates ranged from 46.4% to 57.8%, by grade.
• In third- through eighth-grade math, proficiency rose across all grade levels from last year, with an overall proficiency rate of 56.7%, but proficiency remained just a bit behind levels from six years ago, when the overall proficiency rate was 56.1%. Passage rates ranged from 48.5% to 63.8%, by grade level, with higher passage rates for younger grades.
• In fifth-grade science, the proficiency rate was 62%. In eighth-grade science, the proficiency rate was 60%.
• In biology, the proficiency rate was 53.4%.
• In English II, proficiency stayed about the same, changing from 59.5% in 2024 to 59.4% this spring. That’s about the same as 59.7%, achieved six years ago.
• In Math 3, for high schoolers, proficiency was 66.4% this spring, up from a large dip to 34.1% in 2024. The test was not given in 2024.

What’s tested and new in 2025

Third- through eighth-grade students take math and reading tests. Fifth-grade and eighth-grade take science tests.

At the high school level, some students take Math 1, Math 3, English II and Biology.

Science tests changed last year, after the state updated its standards. North Carolina Department of Public Instruction officials say the new science standards are more rigorous and contain more expectations for student learning. That means the new science test results can’t be compared to the old results on an apples-to-apples basis.

Many of the state’s school districts were exempt from being a part of the school accountability program for the fall of 2024 state tests because they missed too many days of school in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Many of those districts also eventually lost students when their families moved to other counties, but DPI officials believe that number of students to be too low to also exempt their new school districts from the accountability program.

Loss of federal funding

Another change last year is that schools had fewer resources to work toward improving students’ proficiency. From 2021 until 2024, North Carolina’s public schools received more than $6 billion in federal Covid-19 relief dollars, more than $1 billion of which was set aside by the schools for learning recovery. That included tutoring, intervention teachers, learning coaches and other programs during the summer and after school.

The 2024-25 school year was the first post-pandemic without those dollars. Many of the employees were cut or reassigned back to more basic roles. So the work that powered increases in proficiency rates since 2022 isn't being done at the same scale anymore or sometimes even at all.

Green and other state leaders pointed to the continued rebound in test scores even within the funding as evidence that schools learned from the new things they tried with that extra funding -- and made cuts in the right places to sustain many of those efforts. That should be evidence that schools could benefit from more resource, Green said, noting that the state ranks toward the bottom nationally in per-student funding.

"Given the return on investment that has occurred here... what if we'd continued to receive that funding?" Green said. "We need additional resources I think to continue to make the progress we know can be made across the state."

Making changes

Last year, the state began working on some middle school math initiatives, after leaders became concerned about the results of the state’s seventh and eighth graders.

A $25 million grant from Golden LEAF Foundation is providing help to improve math instruction at 15 higher-needs rural middle schools.

State officials hope that lessons learned from that effort will help other middle schools.

When it comes to reading, state leaders said its progress is naturally slower.

"Reading is more difficult and takes more time," said Stacye Wilson-Norman, DPI's chief academic officer. Teachers have been receiving new training, and the state has aligned some but not all of its work to match those new reading techniques. "The structure is there for support, but we just need to align some of the other supports to really accelerate that progress. But reading takes a lot of time and a lot of training, and we've done the training, and now we want to align some of the other supports,"

The state is still in early implementation of its new research-backed reading instruction methods, which all teachers have now been trained on, but some for only about a year.

While third grade proficiency rates are still much lower than pre-pandemic rates, leaders believe rates will improve further next year, after this year's third graders have taken their reading exams. This year's third graders are only the second group of third graders to have learned reading from these new methods.

"So hopefully this time next year, we'll be having a different conversation," said Tammy Howard, DPI senior director of the Office of Accountability and Testing.