Accountibility Results

Davie County Schools Show Strong Growth

On September 5, 2018, the North Carolina State Board of Education heard the accountability results for the 2017-18 school year. Davie County Schools showed strong growth results. Almost three quarters of Davie County schools met or exceeded growth expectations in 2017-18, with almost half exceeding their growth expectations, compared to 27% of schools that exceeded growth statewide.

The 2017-18 school year marked the first year of implementation for the new state accountability plan under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. The new plan changes existing accountability measures to fit federal guidelines and adds new measurements to report. Because of these changes, school performance grades and growth cannot be compared to previous years. Calculations that determine Grade Level Proficiency (GLP) or College and Career Readiness (CCR) remain the same as in previous years.

One new feature of the accountability model is the inclusion of English Learner (EL) Progress. EL Progress is how our students identified as English Learners progress each year as measured by an English proficiency test.

All components of the accountability model are reported for each school, both as a whole and broken into any subgroup that has 30 or more members. Subgroups include all racial subgroups as well as students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged and EL subgroups.

The new accountability plan for NC includes School Performance Grades and Long Term Goals, as well as reporting the Grade Level Proficiency (GLP) and College and Career Ready (CCR) calculations for all tests. School Performance Grades, in existence before 2017-18, were altered to meet federal guidelines by adding in English Learner Progress and applying business rules to the data. Long Term Goals are new in 17-18 and established unique goals for each school in reading, math, graduation rate, and English Learner progress. They are meant to improve performance in all subgroups and reduce any performance gaps that might exist between them.

School Performance Grades are calculated using specific accountability indicators based on the grade levels of the school. Elementary and middle schools’ indicators include ELA, Math and Science End of Grade Tests, Math I End of Course tests, and EL Progress. High schools include English II, Math I and Biology End of Course tests, EL Progress, Graduation rate, Higher Math Course Completion, and a college and career ready indicator. The grade level proficiency of these indicators is the primary component for school performance grades, counting 80%, with student growth on academic tests counting only 20% of the final grade.

The growth measure included in the school performance grades is calculated by comparing students with similar testing histories across the state and measuring the rate of increase. There are three categories of growth for schools – Does Not Meet Expected Growth, Meets Expected Growth, or Exceeds Expected Growth. Of the Davie County schools that receive a growth designation, 45% exceeded expected growth, 27% met expected growth, and 27% did not meet expected growth. In the state of North Carolina, 27% of all schools exceeded expected growth, 45.7% met expected growth, and 27.3% did not meet expected growth.

To achieve grade level proficiency, students must score at least an achievement level three (on a scale of 1-5) on an End of Course or End of Grade test. This year, grade level proficiency on all tests taken in Davie County Schools saw a dip from 63.9% to 62.5%. This trend was also seen at the state level, which moved from 59.2% GLP in 16-17 to 58.8% GLP in 17-18. For Davie County Schools, both math and reading in grades 3-8 also saw slight decreases from the 16-17 to the 17-18 school years. North Carolina saw a slight increase in math and a slight decrease in reading in grades 3-8. High school test data decreased to 58.5% GLP in both North Carolina and Davie County Schools, down from 60.8% GLP and 62.7% GLP respectively.

Both growth and proficiency are combined to produce the school performance grades, a letter grade of A-F. In the state of North Carolina, 22% of schools earned a D or F – in Davie County, there were no schools that received a grade of D or F. In Davie County, 9% of schools earned an A, 27% earned a B, and 64% earned a C.

The second part of the NC accountability plan, long term goals, are established for each school and subgroup within a school based on baseline data. Davie County Schools met 47.2% of all targets, whereas North Carolina met 33% of all targets. Davie County Schools and the state performed similarly with the white subgroup, meeting 41% and 40% of goals respectively. Davie County Schools, however, met 50% of targets for black students, 48% of targets for economically disadvantaged students, and 63% of targets for students with disabilities while the state met 0% of their goals for each of those groups.

Also part of the report to the NC State Board of Education earlier this month was the cohort graduation rate. This rate measures the percentage of students that graduate high school in 4 years or less. For the third year in a row, Davie County Schools had a graduation rate of 87.3% in 2017-18. The state cohort graduation rate for 2017-18 was 86.3%.

All 2017-18 accountability results are available online at www.ncpublicschools.org/accountability/reporting/