It’s New York City redux.

Stealing a page from ex-Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s corporate playbook, the North Carolina State Board of Education on Feb. 5 released A–F letter grades for all of the state’s public schools.

A little more than two-thirds — 71 percent — of schools received a C or better, while 23 percent received a D and 6 percent got an F.

Eighty percent of the scores are based on students’ performance on standardized tests. The remaining 20 percent are based on their academic growth.

The results reveal a strong correlation between poverty and school performance. More than half of students live in poverty at all of the schools that got an F and at 98 percent of those that received a D. The schools that scored best were far more likely to have lower poverty rates.

“They’re not as bad as many thought they would be, and they’re not as good as we want them to be,” State Superintendent June Atkinson said of the scores.

But Atkinson also cautioned that the grades only show part of the picture.

“One letter grade cannot reflect all of the positive things happening in a school,” she said.

The Daily Tar Heel, Feb. 9
ABC Eyewitness News, Feb. 5