MECKLENBURG COUNTY, N.C. — There's an early look at state testing scores in math for high school students at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, and the results aren’t great.
The results show less than 10% of high school students tested were considered career-or-college-ready based on math scores.
“It is disappointing. That is a really low number," CMS Superintendent Crystal Hill said to board members Tuesday night.
The scores are typically not released by the state until fall but were released for CMS on an unofficial basis to compare results to previous years.
It’s not enough for CMS high schoolers to be competent in high school math, the district wants students’ math skills to rise to a level that makes the college and career level.
According to preliminary state math scores, only 803 of the roughly 8,500 students tested this year have reached that level.
"What do you think is the root cause of our students our high school students struggling so much in math?" Elyse Dashew, CMS Board Chair, asked Hill during board questions on the results.
Board members spent more than an hour questioning Hill about why the district isn’t the moving needle further.
Hill expressed problems from multiple levels including early education.
"Where are we having gaps from the early elementary grades all the way up to high school math, and making sure that we're strategically addressing those gaps before students get to high school,” Hill said.
There was some progress on the 2023 school year math scores — the number of career-and-college-ready students went up by just over 1% from the last year.
Two years ago the number of career-and-college-ready students was just 4.5%.
Concerns were also expressed around long-term substitutes and guest teachers in CMS classrooms during the year.
Some high school math students didn’t have a traditional teacher during the year. They had a guest teacher who is not required to have a teaching license, college degree, or specialty in the subject.
According to CMS staff, there were approximately 450 guest teachers that worked in CMS. A review of class assignments showed there were two guest teachers assigned to Math 1 classes in high school.
"If our guest teachers are going to be here, in order for them to be effective, especially since they're not traditional teachers, we need to be providing them with professional development, at at least to the same level, if not more than our other traditional teachers," Hill said.
COVID-19 relief funds, which were used on resources to help increase scores, are also set to expire in a few months.
Hill said her team is reviewing how they will compensate for this.
“We know that we're going to have to make tough decisions. We just don't know where those tough decisions are right now," Hill said.
The district’s hopes of reaching a 2024 goal of at least a quarter of math students being career-and-college-ready in math may be unattainable if the slow progress continues.
Contact Shamarria Morrison at smorrison@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.