NC’s latest response to learning loss: Asking feds to let state hit the reset button

North Carolina’s test scores dropped so much after the pandemic that state education leaders want the federal government to let them hit the reset button for evaluating school performance.

In 2018, the State Board of Education set long-term goals of raising test scores by more than 20 percentage points over the next decade. Now the state board wants to revise the goals downward to reflect the new reality that test scores haven’t returned yet to pre-pandemic levels.

“The director of accountability will report to us about the pandemic’s impact on our 10-year ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) goals, which were set ambitiously high prior to the pandemic and now appear to be out of reach,” state board chair Eric Davis said at this month’s meeting.

The public will have a chance to weigh in on the proposed changes before the state board submits them to the federal government.

NC not meeting plan goals

Every state was required to submit to the U.S. Department of Education a plan for how it would educate students under ESSA. Approval was needed to continue to receive federal education dollars.

ESSA required states to administer standardized tests, but also gave them more flexibility to report other measures for holding schools accountable.

North Carolina’s plan used 2015-16 school year test scores as the baseline. One goal was to raise the reading proficiency rate for grades 3-8 by 20 percentage points to 65.8% by 2027. Another goal was to raise the math proficiency rate for grades 3-8 by 27.1 percentage points to 74.1% by 2027.

The state said it would also work to close achievement gaps by bringing up the performance of different student groups.

But test scores in North Carolina and nationally dropped dramatically after the pandemic. Scores are recovering but still remain below pre-pandemic levels.

The graduation rate for Asian students was the only one of the 51 ESSA plan goals that the state met in 2023.

“The impact of the pandemic has made it so that we have very few schools — and at a state level — meeting those interim progress targets for that long-term goal,” said Tammy Howard, the state Department of Public Instruction’s senior director of the Office of Accountability and Testing.

Will 2022 be the new baseline for scores?

DPI is in the process of drafting an amendment to the state’s ESSA plan. In December, DPI staff met with the U.S. Department of Education to talk about ideas such as resetting the long-term goals with the 2021-22 school year scores now serving as the new baseline.

Howard said other states are also looking at changing their ESSA plan due to the pandemic.

DPI plans to hold a statewide webinar on Jan. 25. A public comment period will be available in February.

DPI will present the details of the amended plan to the state board for a vote in March. This will include which school year to use as the baseline and what will be the new long-term goals.

The new goals will likely be less ambitious. The current plan calls for raising proficiency rates by two or more percentage points a year. Howard said they’d look now at up to a percentage point a year for growth.