RALEIGH — Student achievement, education funding, universal school choice and parental rights were all major topics for North Carolina K-12 education during 2023.
Student Achievement
North Carolina reading scores for students in K-3 released in early January showed signs of rebounding after historic drops following the pandemic.
State Superintendent Catherine Truitt shared data with the State Board of Education showing gains in reading. Out of the more than 454,000 students assessed at the beginning of the 2022-23 school year, 27,970 more K-3 students were performing at or above benchmark levels compared to the previous year.
Truitt credited the ongoing implementation of the reading program “LETRS” which is based on the “Science of Reading,” a method that prioritizes phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
By April, mid-year testing data released by the N.C. Department of Public Instruction’s (NCDPI) showed continued literacy gains with the percentage of K-3 students performing at or above the benchmark score for the 2022-23 school year being higher than the assessment results from the beginning of the school year.
Truitt reported in August that literacy screening tools used by the state showed “incredible gains” for K-3 students.
Truitt, who is running for reelection, told North State Journal that the next student achievement battle will be increasing achievement in math, a subject which already had issues predating the pandemic.
“In order to tackle math, we have to shed some legacy thinking around the importance of math,” said Truitt. “I would never say to you as an adult, ‘I’m not a very good reader,’ but it’s perfectly acceptable for someone to say, ‘I’m not I’m not good at math.’ That has to change.”
Student Enrollment Challenges
Enrollment figures for school choice options continued to rise across the state while traditional public school districts continued to struggle to reach pre-pandemic levels.
Public charter schools reported 139,985 students; a 4.9% increase from the previous year. The gains continue a trend seen in 2022’s data where Charter enrollment increased 6.4% over the previous year and has shot up over 19% since the 2019-20 school year.
K-12 public school Average Daily Membership (ADM) numbers for the first month of the 2023-24 year showed 1,358,003 students; a 0.4% decline from the previous school year and an overall decrease of 3.6% for the period prior to the pandemic.
Homeschooling has seen explosive growth following the pandemic, jumping almost 104% between the 2020-21 and 2019-20 school years. Data from the Department of Nonpublic Education (DNPE) shows 94,154 homeschools and 152,717 students for 2022-23.
Private schools have also seen an increase in enrollment and in the number of schools. DNPE reports 126,768 students across 884 schools for 2022-23. Private school numbers are expected to continue to grow following the expansion of school choice by lawmakers this year.
Universal School Choice
The General Assembly this year enacted the largest expansions of school choice the state has seen to date.
The move toward universal school choice began as companion bills were filed in both chambers and ended with the language being inserted into the state budget.
Under the new legislation, the popular Opportunity Scholarship Program is extended to all students in the state and is funded using a sliding scale of household income level with funding priority going to the families with the lowest income.
Eligible students will get at least an amount of up to 45% of the average state per-pupil allocation for average daily membership in the prior fiscal year, which currently would be $3,458.
Gov. Roy Cooper declared an “Education State of Emergency,” and placed a corresponding banner opposing the expansion on the official website for the governor’s office which still persists as of the publication of this article.
Parental Rights
As parental rights movements swept across the country, a bill codifying a dozen rights for parents to oversee the education, health, mental well-being, and upbringing of their children was enacted by the legislature this year.
The Parents’ Bill of Rights also included measures for increasing transparency by school districts in the areas of materials and curriculum as well as a complaint and appeals process with the ability to take district grievances to the state board level.
Various provisions of the new law also appeared in the state budget, in particular, giving a deadline of Jan. 1, 2024, for the creation of a “parent guide to student achievement” by the State Board of Education.
Leandro
The long-running education funding case known as Leandro saw additional activity in 2023 following a 2022 ruling by the N.C. Supreme Court.
A 2022 ruling by the then Democratic-controlled Supreme Court upheld a trial court’s funding order and remanded the case back to the lower courts to finalize the dollar figure when landed at $677.8 million.
The former Supreme Court’s ruling was split down party lines and was issued just days before the 2022 general election, after which the court ended up with 5-2 Republican majority.
Defendants in the case, which include Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Eden) and House Speaker Tim Moore (R-Kings Mountain), filed motions this past September to appeal the $677.8 million funding order issued in April by Superior Court Judge James Floyd Ammons, Jr.
The request was granted on Oct. 20.
Departures and Appointments
At the May State Board of Education meeting, board member Amy White announced her resignation and cited wanting to retire to “refocus my passion my energy and my time on the Christian Ministry that I lead.”
Another State Board of Education member, James Ford, resigned his seat at the Sept. 7 meeting. Ford said “five years was enough” out of his seven-year term which began with his appointment on Oct. 2018 by Cooper and was replaced by retired Wake County Public Schools Superintendent Catty Moore.
Protecting Students
A law was enacted increasing penalties for educators convicted of taking indecent liberties with a minor or who engage in sex acts with a student.
House Bill 142 raises the criminal punishments for those offenses from a Class I to a Class G felony. A Class I felony has a sentence of three to 12 months whereas a Class G felony can be an eight to 31 months prison sentence.
The new law also has a provision forfeiting pension benefits for education employees convicted of such crimes and makes it a felony for school officials who fail to report sex offenses and related disciplinary actions to the State Board of Education.
