North Carolina academic growth measure shows Coulwood middle school is anything but average

From WFAE, October 4, 2022, by Ann Doss Helms

According to North Carolina’s school performance grades, Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s Coulwood STEM Academy is average. The middle school in northwest Charlotte was graded C for the past school year, based mostly on an overall pass rate of 52% on state reading, math and science exams.

But that grade doesn’t tell the full story.

“I don’t think there’s anything average about us,” says Principal Janet Moss.

You’d expect a principal to say that. But Moss has the proof — specifically, a calculation that shows how much academic growth students made over the course of a school year.

Pass rates strongly reflect factors outside a school’s control. Low-poverty schools with large numbers of white and Asian students tend to top the list.

The growth measure gives a shot to schools like Coulwood, a high-poverty Title I school where 90% of students are Black or Hispanic.

North Carolina crunched numbers for 2,532 public schools. Only one, a K-12 charter school located north of Raleigh, came in higher than Coulwood.

Coulwood had the state’s highest rating for growth in math and for English language learners in all subjects combined.

Read the full article…

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