GUILFORD COUNTY — Guilford County Schools leaders said they were pleased with the results of a report released Wednesday that’s dubbed the nation’s report card on student performance.
Fourth- and eighth-graders in county school system are performing better than, or as well as, students from large city districts across the nation in reading. Guilford eighth-grade students also posted significant gains in math.
The report wasn’t broken down by student performance at individual schools.
County leaders were spotlighting local student performance in the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, report. The results show that in reading, Guilford fourth-graders performed better than their peers in large city schools, and on par level with other public school students nationally. Guilford fourth-grade students scored better than 18 urban districts in reading, school system leaders said.
Guilford eighth-graders performed better than their peers in large city schools and higher than 14 other urban school districts in reading. Only one other urban district outperformed Guilford eighth-graders in reading.
“The NAEP results indicate that our strategic investments in curriculum, instructional materials and supplies and professional development for educators, particularly in English and language arts, are gaining traction in our schools, but we still have significant work to do,” said Superintendent Sharon Contreras.
In math, fourth-graders performed as well as their peers in large city schools but lower than students in public schools nationally. Eighth-graders performed better in math than students from 21 urban districts, and scored on par with students in public schools nationally.
While eighth-grade student math scores decreased 1 point among public schools nationally, Guilford posted a four-point gain from 2017 to 2019 in math – the third-largest increase among urban districts. Overall, Guilford eighth-grade students performed better than 21 other urban school districts tested.
The county mirrored national trends regarding score gaps between student groups. In general, score gaps in Guilford between black and white students are similar or less than gaps in large cities but greater than gaps for North Carolina and public schools nationally.
Similarly, score gaps between Hispanic and white students in Guilford are narrower than gaps posted by their peers in large city districts and public-school students nationally, except in fourth-grade math. Guilford significantly reduced the gap between Hispanic and white students in eighth-grade math from 37 points to 25 points, school system leaders said.
Link to Original Post: https://hpenews.com/news/11973/school-leaders-pleased-with-report-card-results/
