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ABCs (and a Few Fs)

On August 7, the Department of Public Instruction issued its first annual school performance report for elementary and middle schools, listing student achievement data for every one of the state's K-8 schools. As one might expect, there was good news and bad news for the students, teachers, and administrators of the greater Triangle area's 290 elementary and middle schools (our statistics cover 15 counties: Alamance, Caswell, Chatham, Durham, Franklin, Granville, Harnett, Johnston, Lee, Moore, Orange, Person, Vance, Wake, and Warren).

Good news: For growth in student performance, 7 of the top 25 schools in the state are in our area. They are:

• Bonlee Elementary, Chatham County
• Clayton Middle, Johnston County
• Grey Culbreth Middle, Chapel Hill-Carrboro City
• New Hope Elementary, Orange County
• Silk Hope Elementary, Chatham County
• Weatherstone Elementary, Wake County
• Youngsville Elementary, Franklin County

  Bad news: There were 18 schools identified as low-performing, 9 of them in Durham, 4 in Vance County, and 1 each in Alamance, Harnett, Person, Wake, and Warren.

Good news: 37 schools were identified as schools of distinction, 13% of the schools in the area. 26 of these schools are in Wake County and 8 in Chapel Hill-Carrboro; of the remaining three, 2 are in Johnston County and 1 in Person County. However (and this veers into bad news), none of the 12 identified "schools of excellence" are located in our area.

Bad news: Exactly 30% of the schools in our area, 87 out of 290, failed to meet their expected growth targets for the year. Statewide, more than 43% of schools failed to meet expected growth) Five systems (Alamance, Caswell, Durham, Moore, and Warren) had more than 43% of their schools fail to make the grade in this category.

Good news: Almost half (134, or 46%) of our schools recorded exemplary progress during the year. Every system had at least one school showing exemplary progress. Statewide, only 32% of schools showed exemplary progress.

Bad news: Mathematics is part of the problem at many schools not reaching their goals. 85 schools (29%) had more than a third of their students test below grade level in mathematics.

It's difficult to generalize about the results, since the numbers for each school depend very much on events peculiar to that one school. However, there are a few phenomena which stand out.

• Overall, some of the best performance gains were recorded in the counties on the fringe of the metropolitan area. In Lee, Chatham, Granville, and Johnston Counties there were no low-performing schools at all and only three schools (out of 52) which failed to reach expected growth.
• The large metropolitan systems have some problem areas. Attention has focused on Durham, which had 19 of 36 schools not reaching expected growth, 9 of them identified as low-performing. But Wake County had its troubles, too, as 23 of its 87 schools failed to reach expected growth.
• There are also problems in some of the rural areas; we see these problems in Caswell, Moore, Vance, and Warren, where more than half the schools failed to meet their growth targets.
• High expectations work. In schools and school systems where there were serious efforts to raise the level of expectation, the results were generally excellent.
• Turmoil at the top does not work. Leadership change in Durham has been blamed for disappointing results there, and changes in leadership may have contributed to the failure to meet expectations at a number of individual schools.

For those of us involved in improving mathematics and science education, the performance report has some serious shortcomings.

• The report does not assess the quality of science programs, and in fact it may harm science instruction if schools choose to focus narrowly on reading, writing, and mathematics in order to improve their standing in the report. (The report does not assess the quality of social studies or arts instruction, either, and there are similar concerns expressed by those seeking improvements in those areas.)
• The report tended to reward intensive, short-term reform efforts and was not as rewarding of the more ambitious, longer-term efforts of some schools such as Poe Elementary in Wake County.
• The report ignores many aspects of school quality, including the nature of the instruction, the availability of resources within the school, and programs for children with special needs.

On the other hand, the report clearly has some strengths. For the first time, it provides a yardstick which measures schools in rich and poor areas in a relatively even-handed way. For the first time, it spotlights individual schools within school systems, revealing areas of strength and weakness.

It's hard to argue with the idea that children should make a year's progress every year. By adopting on a measure of success every parent can understand and support, the school performance report has focused public attention on the schools in a way which educators everywhere in the state will have to respect. There are certain to be some good effects of this attention, and there is a danger there might be some bad effects as well. The challenge now is to make a balanced and productive response to the report during the year to come.

Internet Sources

ABCs of Public Education

Official results from the NC Department of Public Instruction's InfoWeb site. Numbers are available for every school and school system, as well as background and summary information.

43% of Schools in N.C. Fall Short

Front-page coverage from the Raleigh News and Observer of August 8, 1997. Individual school results can also be obtained from this page through an interactive link back to the NCDPI site.

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Posted August 18, 1997. Features remain online as long as they remain current; they may be updated if new information becomes available.

Copyright © 1997, Center for Mathematics and Science Education. Teachers have permission to duplicate this page for use in teaching their own classes. All other rights reserved. You are welcome to link to this page, but do not copy its contents.

http://www.unc.edu/depts/cmse/MSEdNC/ABCs.html

Center for Mathematics and Science Education
CB # 3500, 309 Peabody Hall
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3500

PHONE: voice (919) 966-5922; fax (919) 962-0588