Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools leaders have in recent years celebrated what they describe as historic academic gains.
CMS cracked the top 10 districts in North Carolina for academic growth during the 2024-25 school year and removed a record number of its schools from the state's low-performing list. District leaders have also hinted at strong results when new test scores are released this fall.
Still, in recent months, some CMS board members have questioned the district’s progress in closing longstanding achievement gaps among student groups.
“The Latino community — I’m just going to be outright and I’m going to say this — … we’re still so freakin’ behind, so ‘historic’ for who?” board member Liz Monterrey Duvall said at a June board meeting.
Her comments reflect a broader concern: Achievement gaps persist among racial groups and between students from higher- and lower-income households, even as overall performance improves.
In an interview with WFAE, Monterrey Duvall said she was not trying to downplay the district's progress.
“My point is that we still have gaps,” she said. “And I understand that is the way it is, but we're here to change things.”
The share of Hispanic CMS students who scored at the college- and career-ready level on state reading tests was 15 percentage points lower than the districtwide rate. In math, the gap was 14 percentage points. The disparities are even larger when Hispanic students are compared with white or Asian students.
Monterrey Duvall, the first Latina elected to the CMS board, noted that many Latino students need additional support, including language instruction and services for students who are new to the country. She highlighted the district’s PACE program, which provides specialized support for immigrant and refugee students. She said the challenge is figuring out how to provide those services consistently across the district.
Monterrey Duvall said she will be watching this fall's results to see whether last year's immigration enforcement operation, known as Operation Charlotte's Web, affected student performance.
“I think it’s like a culture shift, as Charlotte has been historically Black and white for a long time,” Monterrey-Duvall said. “So now, all of a sudden, we have this critical mass of Hispanic students — 30%. A good portion of those are newcomers that … need a different type of … service delivery model.
“And so I think we're trying to adapt to that. And then, also innovate in that space. And then, we also get hit by constant political bombs that derail the progress.”
Monterrey Duvall also said not all students have the same needs. Some may be learning English, while others may be fluent in English but struggling academically.
Similar double-digit gaps in reading and math exist for other groups — Black students, economically disadvantaged students, English learners and students with disabilities — in both CMS and statewide.
Before being placed on leave in June, CMS Superintendent Crystal Hill argued that while the gaps remain large, historically underserved students are making progress.
“The gaps were huge, but I just want to remind everyone that they've been historically huge,” Hill said. “What you haven't seen in the past is all the arrows going up.”
A recent report from Stanford University's Education Scorecard showed CMS outperforming demographically similar schools in closing gaps.
Both can be true
So is CMS making progress, or are achievement gaps still a major problem?
“They're both true,” said Ethan Hutt, an associate professor in the School of Education at UNC Chapel Hill.
Hutt said that improving students across the board is a difficult and “meaningful” achievement that should be celebrated. But that doesn’t mean achievement gaps aren’t a problem. He argued gaps have been around for almost as long as education itself, and the causes are complex. More recently, there’s the added impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which disproportionately affected minority and low-income students.
“It's like a steady accrual of a bunch of different factors [and] over time we see pretty substantial gaps that can develop,” Hutt said. “Some of them exist prior to school, and some of them actually accrue in the system as a student moves through it.”
Experts told WFAE that disparities are often visible when children first enter school and reflect unequal access to opportunities before kindergarten, including pre-K programs, healthcare, stable housing and time for parents to engage with their children.
Inside schools, inequalities can deepen. Lower-income schools are more likely to employ less experienced teachers working under probationary licenses. Students of color and economically disadvantaged students are also more likely to be chronically absent — a problem exacerbated by the pandemic and by factors such as parents’ work flexibility, transportation inequities and whether students feel safe or like they belong in school.
Some experts and a recent case study credited CMS for its efforts to standardize a high-quality curriculum and expectations across schools.
Frank Barnes, a faculty member at Harvard Graduate School of Education and a former CMS administrator, said some districts make the mistake of setting lower expectations based on students' past performance.
“The research shows that when you teach to the high standards, regardless of students' past performance or their income level or background, students rise to the occasion and make the largest gains,” Barnes said.
Skills beyond classrooms
Munro Richardson, executive director of Read Charlotte, said closing achievement gaps requires more than classroom instruction.
He pointed to the difference between what researchers call “constrained” and “unconstrained” skills. Constrained skills, such as letter recognition or multiplication facts, are typically taught in schools and measured on tests.
Unconstrained skills, including vocabulary, reasoning and comprehension, are more abstract, more difficult to teach and harder to assess. Richardson said disparities in these skills often drive achievement gaps because they are frequently developed through experiences outside the classroom.
Richardson said deeper dives into the data suggest that gaps in constrained skills often show signs of closing, while gaps in unconstrained skills remain. He said that trend is also reflected in state testing data.
For example, Richardson pointed out, third grade reading has been stubborn in recent years. He said that is due in part to third grade being the first year students take state end-of-grade tests, which focus more on comprehension than K-2 assessments. Those earlier assessments focus more on phonics, letter recognition and other constrained skills.
“Kids who come from households who get the opportunity to experience the world and learn about the world in these various ways – in formal programs, after-school programs, extracurriculars, visits to zoos and aquariums and libraries – they get the opportunity to practice building these skills,” Richardson said.
Not all students have equal access to these critical opportunities.
Expanding opportunities
One effort aimed at narrowing those gaps is Freedom School Partners (FSP), a tuition-free summer program designed to help students avoid academic setbacks during summer break.
Dozens of students at Allenbrook Elementary School recently gathered to celebrate the end of the program.
Nikki Keith, CEO of Charlotte-based Freedom School Partners, said the nonprofit provides enrichment experiences that can help build unconstrained skills.
“We're creating opportunities for children to experience something new that will continue to expand their mind,” Keith said.
Freedom School Partners serves about 600 students. Keith estimates that FSP and similar programs collectively serve a few thousand students — far fewer than the number who could benefit.
Among those attending the celebration was Joyce Bradley, whose granddaughter, Blessing, participated in the program. Bradley said Blessing learned about Black history, visited the zoo and took a trip to Discovery Place.
“They get to be a part of something that they wouldn't have if they didn't have the [FSP] program,” Bradley said. “If I can't afford to take her all these different places, being here gives her that outlet and the opportunity.”
For families like Bradley’s, the hope is that those experiences will help prepare students for a successful start to the school year later this month.
