Wake schools has a plan. Can it get over 90% of students passing tests and graduating?
The Wake County school system has set ambitious goals of having nearly every student pass state exams and graduate from high school in the next five years.
The Wake County school board unanimously approved on Tuesday the seven “bold” goals of a five-year strategic plan aimed at raising student performance and well-being as well as family and school employee satisfaction. This includes having a 98% high school graduation rate and 90% passing rate on state exams by 2028.
In addition, Wake wants to eliminate “disparities by race, ethnicity, gender and socio-economic status” that see some some groups not doing as well as others. The plan was developed after more than a year of meetings.
“This was good work and productive work as it was,” said school board chair Lindsay Mahaffey. “The real work now begins with the approval of this and the accountability piece.”
For a quarter-century, the school board has set different five-year goals, usually based around raising test scores or graduation rates to try to rally the community.
Wake’s seven goals
The seven goals to be completed by 2028 are:
▪ WCPSS will annually graduate 98% of students prepared to “reach their full potential and lead productive lives in a complex and changing world.” By 2028, WCPSS will eliminate graduation rate disparities by race, ethnicity, gender and socio-economic status.
▪ 90% of WCPSS students will meet or exceed grade level proficiency. By 2028, WCPSS will eliminate proficiency disparities by race, ethnicity, gender and socio-economic status.
▪ 90% of WCPSS schools will exceed the state-wide average for growth and 100% of student subgroups will exceed the state-wide average growth.
▪ WCPSS will ensure 95% of all students are in attendance at least 95% of their days and will eliminate disparities by race, ethnicity, gender and socio-economic status.
▪ 90% of WCPSS students will demonstrate the “social-emotional competencies of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision-making and eliminate any disparities by race, ethnicity, gender and socio-economic status.”
▪ 95% of families surveyed will indicate low barriers to engagement and positive school climate. By 2028, WCPSS will eliminate any disparities along lines of race, ethnicity, gender and socio-economic status.
▪ A percentage of WCPSS employees will respond “agree” or “strongly agree” to select questions associated with employee satisfaction, engagement and wellness and will eliminate any disparities identified along lines of race, ethnicity, role and gender in the percent of employees responding “agree” or “strongly agree” to the same questions.
Wake says the percentage for the final goal will be set after the district starts an employee engagement survey for all staff.
Overcoming racial and economic gaps
The performance goals come after test scores dropped sharply in Wake and the rest of the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Performance is rebounding but still below pre-pandemic levels in many subjects.
Last school year, Wake had a 61.4% proficiency rate on state exams. The gaps between demographic groups are especially wide-ranging, from proficiency rates of 87% for Asian students and 77% for white students to 37% for Black students and 33% for economically disadvantaged students.
Wake is closer to reaching the growth targets among the seven goals. Last school year, 80% of Wake schools and 80% of school subgroups met or exceeded growth targets on state exams.
But the district will face challenges in raising the four-year graduation rate, which is now at 89.6%, to 98%. Wide gaps exist among different groups with the graduation rate being as low as 78.4% for economically disadvantaged students and 76.9% for Hispanic students.
The school board had looked at setting a goal of having 100% of students graduating high school in four years, but it was not considered feasible. Some students will take five years to graduate.
Addressing equity in strategic plan
Equity is a big part of the strategic plan. Last fall, the school board adopted a new equity policy.
For instance, one of the aims in the plan is to “eliminate over-representation in Special Education and under-representation in advanced coursework by race, ethnicity and gender.”
Black and male students are disproportionately identified more for special education in Wake than other groups. At the same time, Black and Hispanic students are represented at lower levels in advanced courses compared to other groups.
The plan also aims to “eliminate over-representation by race, ethnicity and gender in student discipline referrals, suspensions and absences.” Like in the rest of the nation, Black, Hispanic, low-income and special-education students are suspended at much higher rates than their share of the school population.
School board member Wing Ng suggested revising the goal to add the word “inappropriate” before the word “over-representation.” Ng said he wants to make sure principals can act when a student does something wrong.
“If someone did something wrong, I want to make sure that person has appropriate discipline addressed and not be misidentified,” Ng said.
But school board member Tara Waters said she didn’t think leaving the goal as it’s written would limit principals in any way.
“This is a problem that is backed up by data, and so being able to address different discipline outcomes for Black and brown children is something that is important to me, and I feel like putting another word in there could be a way to justify the status quo,” Waters said.
This story was originally published May 17, 2023 at 9:00 AM.
