The long-awaited N.C. public school performance report cards — now featuring letter grades — were released Thursday at a state Board of Education meeting, showing that schools with higher poverty rates tended to receive lower letter grades.
About 70 percent of schools made above a C, while 23 percent of schools received a D and 6 percent received an F.
More than half of students live in poverty at all of the schools that received an F and at 97.9 percent of schools that received a D. Schools that received As and Bs were far more likely to have a lower poverty rate.
Legislation requiring School Performance Grades was passed in 2013. Policymakers created this system to provide more transparency of school performance. North Carolina is one of 16 states to have an A-F grading system.
The N.C. General Assembly wanted to put an A through F system in place for transparency, said Dr. June Atkinson, state superintendent.
“This is a way to identify where resources need to go. I know for a fact that resources matter,” Atkinson said.
Gov. Pat McCrory said in a statement on Thursday that the report is a positive step toward transparency for parents, communities and policymakers.
“When a school is struggling, we need to work together to provide it the support it needs. When a school is excelling, we need to learn from and spread that excellence, so that every child, regardless of circumstance, has the opportunity to reach their potential.”
The report also highlights the fact that 75.4 percent of schools meet or exceed expected growth — a statistic that many critics think should be weighted more heavily.
