Results from North Carolina’s state exams won’t be released until September, but the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board on Tuesday discussed preliminary reports that show only 9.4% of the district’s high school students earned a college-and-career-ready score on the Math I exam this year.
That’s a tad above the 8.2% who hit that mark in 2022 but well short of the district's 16.5% goal.
“So of course it is disappointing. That is a really low number,” Superintendent Crystal Hill told the board.
The report is part of the board’s regular updates on its academic goals, which include increasing Math I results for high school students and third-grade reading scores for Black and Latino students. The board focused on its weakest areas, and the reports have created a steady drumbeat of grim numbers — which Hill has tried to offset by recognizing students who are making gains.
Tuesday’s report was the first since students took 2023 year-end exams. The state will collect test scores from all public schools and provide a chance to “scrub the data” for errors before releasing scores, growth ratings and school performance grades in the fall. Those scores will provide a new snapshot of the state’s effort to recover from pandemic setbacks and reduce racial disparities.
Charlotte’s low scores reflect other factors as well. Most strong math students take Math I — what used to be called algebra — in middle school, so the high school scores reflect students who have struggled. And CMS would have looked better if the board focused on basic proficiency, instead of the more challenging mark that indicates readiness for higher education and work.
Hill said long-term success on Math I exams depends on building stronger skills in earlier grades for students who aren’t on the advanced track. She told the board she believes CMS will hit its target of having 25% of next year’s Math I students hit the college/career mark. But she said this year’s eighth-grade math scores show a slump, which indicates incoming freshmen will have more ground to make up.
“All the data that we have right now is showing that we are going to have a bigger jump to make,” Hill said.
The report presented Tuesday says summer math camps, better professional development for math teachers and yearlong Math I courses are among the strategies for boosting scores in 2024. It also notes that almost 6,000 students who took the exam in 2023 were projected to score below proficient, based on their previous math scores. But more than 1,500 of them exceeded that projection to earn at least a proficient score, including 300 who were labeled college- and career-ready.
Hill, who was sworn in as superintendent earlier this month, is working with the board to craft new long-term goals. The district is currently polling the public about what goals for 2029 should include.
