This week the North Carolina State Board of Education is meeting at UNC Charlotte for their fall work session retreat.
The State Board immediately began by reviewing their “Strategic Plan.” The updated plan included the 2013-14 data. Almost a year ago, the State Board assigned proposed percentage targets to measure whether their goals were being achieved. Some of the goals were met; others were exceeded, while others fell far behind the suggested target.
The graduation rate of 83.8 stands out as an achievement, but the room was quiet when a board member asked questions about the quality of the “credit recovery” classes. Credit recovery comes about when a student fails a class and is given the opportunity to take the class another way in order to receive credits needed for graduation. This pathway has become more popular in recent years, but the agency does NOT disaggregate the data to show HOW many students graduate with “credit recovery.” This begs the question whether more students are graduating the traditional way – when you fail a course you take the course again – OR the rate is increasing because of the quick on-line credit recovery pathway? No one knows.
Another point of contention came when the 20% target of schools having a “performance composite at or above 60% and meeting or exceeding growth,” was met with an actual result of 16.4%, and the goal for next year being 30%. Some suggested the goal for 2014-15 being too high, and the state board would need to be “more realistic” in their targets. The board is considering lowering their goal in light of the very poor “actual” performance of schools. Currently the goal is to have 50%, (HALF) of the state’s schools meeting at least 60% of students at a college and career level, and meeting growth expectations by 2017. Wonder how much you can lower that percentage and still “save face?”
After the review, Dr. Atkinson, State Superintendent, began her segment (20 power point slides) asking the members what their aspirations were for their children when they were born. All good, “fuzzy,” feel good conversation starters, and then gave NAEP (National Assessment of Education Progress) data, comparing state, national, and regional results. Members asked about the disparity of cut scores, and definition of proficient. Dr. Atkinson ended the discussion by stating that interpreting testing data is “murky.” WELL, it is murky because of the testing regime developed by the agency. If the state board decided to do an independent national normed achievement test, testing interpretation would not be ‘murky.”
The rest of the day consisted of the agency justifying their existence with 54 power point slides, and accompanied videos. This three-hour infomercial covered every possible activity of the agency, and comes a day before the State Board discusses budget priorities, and their legislative agenda. I guess the agency may be concerned since the Senate wanted to cut their budget 30% in the last session, but the actual budget decrease ended up being only 10%.
