BEST NC Launches Updated Per Pupil Expenditure Data Explorer Tool (2018-19 to 2020-21) BEST NC is pleased to announce the update of its Per Pupil Expenditure (PPE) Data Explorer and landing page, designed to facilitate the understanding and exploration of North Carolina’s school-level spending data and its relationship to other key education indicators. The updated tool features school-level and district-level expenditure data from the 2018-19, 2019-20, and 2020-21 school years. Charter school expenditure data has also been added. Additionally, the tool now offers the ability to examine longitudinal changes in spending at the school level and the ability to view COVID relief fund expenditures at the district level. About the Tool The federal Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 requires each state education agency to release school-level per pupil expenditure data. The 2018-19 expenditure data were released in 2020, marking the first time spending data were made available at the school level in North Carolina and uncovering trends that have been masked by district-level data. BEST NC’s web-based Per Pupil Expenditure Data Explorer allows education stakeholders to explore per pupil funding trends across individual schools, within districts, and across districts in North Carolina. Educators, school leaders, parents, policymakers, advocates, and other members of the public can utilize this tool to examine education spending and student outcomes for similar schools based on size, grade level, geography, percent students with disabilities, poverty, and more. By comparing schools with similar characteristics, school leaders and other education stakeholders can identify schools with strong student performance at varying levels of funding and/or relative to the characteristics of their student body. Promising or innovative practices from these schools might then be examined to help improve teaching and learning in similar schools. Note: Student performance metrics are unavailable for the 2019-20 school year, as all end-of-year tests were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, in 2020-21, students took end-of-year tests, but North Carolina was granted a waiver from federal accountability requirements, meaning that student proficiency numbers are available, but other school-level metrics – such as School Performance Scores, School Achievement Scores, and School Growth Scores – are not. These data will be available for the 2021-22 school year. The Per Pupil Expenditure Interactive Data Explorer can be accessed on BEST NC’s PPE landing page, alongside summary analyses (see below) and additional resources. Insights and Trends from the Per Pupil Expenditure Data Explorer: Key Findings About North Carolina’s Public Schools With the release of school-level expenditure data, and with the help of BEST NC’s Per Pupil Expenditure Data Explorer, North Carolinians can now explore trends in school spending at the school level, instead of being limited to district-level metrics. Several school-level insights are highlighted on the PPE landing page. Examples of these findings include: Generally, total per pupil expenditures in North Carolina are higher in schools with greater numbers of economically disadvantaged students. In 2020-21, about $3,100 – 32% – more was spent per pupil in the highest poverty schools (schools where 76-100% of students are economically disadvantaged), compared to the lowest-poverty schools (schools where 0-25% of students are economically disadvantaged). In a school with 500 students, this equates to around $1.6 million in additional resources. In this way, North Carolina defies national trends in which lower income schools generally receive less funding than more affluent schools. In general, expenditures of local funds, even within an individual district, appear to be uncorrelated with poverty, so funding equity in most districts is a function of state and federal funding allocations. Total per pupil expenditures (including state, federal, and local funds) increased by $726 per pupil, or 7.5%, over the three-year period from 2018-19 to 2020-21.* $524 of this increase was due to an influx of federal COVID relief dollars. *The 2018 North Carolina state budget was passed in June 2018. Partially due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was not another comprehensive state budget bill passed into law until November 2021, though some smaller appropriation bills were passed that funded education items. Since March 2020, North Carolina’s K-12 public schools have received over $6 billion in COVID relief funds from the federal government. Schools and districts spent $90 million in COVID relief funds during the 2019-20 school year, $660 million during the 2020-21 school year, and over $2 billion during the 2021-22 school year. Schools have until September 30, 2024 to spend the remaining COVID relief dollars. While COVID relief fund expenditures are not available at the school level (but are embedded in the state and federal fund amounts), district-level data reveal that more COVID relief were spent by districts with higher percentages of students identified as economically disadvantaged. This is likely because COVID relief funding was allocated according to the federal Title I funding formula which is designed to support schools with high concentrations of students in poverty. An in-depth analysis from the 2022 Facts & Figures guide found that districts in the highest poverty quartile received 79% more COVID relief funding, per pupil, than districts in the lowest poverty quartile, and the 10 highest-poverty districts received 163% more COVID relief funding, per pupil, than the 10 lowest-poverty districts. In 2020-21, average per pupil expenditures were $10,623 in traditional public schools and $8,765 in public charter schools. Charter schools, meanwhile, tended to serve students with lower levels of poverty: 54% of charter schools had less than one quarter of their student population living poverty, compared with 15% of traditional public schools. Rural schools in North Carolina (as identified by the U.S. Department of Education) spent about as much, per pupil, as non-rural schools in 2020-21. Local funding for rural schools was lower than non-rural schools by 33%, but state and federal funding for rural schools is higher than in non-rural schools by 7% and 16%, respectively, making up most of the difference in per-pupil funding. North Carolina has the second largest population of rural students in the country, behind only Texas. By prorating school-level per-pupil expenditures at the school level according to the proportion of students in each racial/ethnic subgroup, it is possible to calculate per-pupil expenditures by race/ethnicity. In 2020-21, per pupil expenditures were highest for American Indian and Black students, and lowest for Asian/Pacific Islander and White subgroups. We encourage state, district, and school leaders to examine these data and look for […]
2022 Spotlight On Series: Student Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT BEFORE AND AFTER THE PANDEMIC In March 2020, education in North Carolina changed dramatically as schools across the state were temporarily closed and then moved to remote learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Summative assessments were eliminated in 2019-20, but 2020-21 assessment data, compared with the pre-COVID 2018-19 data, give us a glimpse into the impact of these significant learning disruptions. As expected, student proficiency rates fell for students in all grades and in almost every subject. Declines in student achievement varied across student subgroups and were greatest amongst the most at-risk students, including those who experienced homelessness and economically disadvantaged students. Meanwhile, high school students’ achievement appeared to be impacted somewhat less than their elementary and middle school peers. Scores on high school End-of-Course assessments and ACT scores declined, but not as much as in the lower grades. Note: The ACT is a cumulative test that measures learning across several years. THE IMPACT OF LOST INSTRUCTIONAL TIME In March 2022, NC DPI’s Office of Learning Recovery and Acceleration released the COVID-19 Impact Analysis of Lost Instructional Time report, which assesses the extent to which students’ learning trajectories were altered by factors related to teaching and learning during the pandemic. In the charts below, a negative effect size indicates that students made less progress than expected in a typical year of schooling. Student progress was negatively impacted at all grades and in all subjects, except English II, which is typically taken in 10th grade. Following the initial Lost Instructional Time Report, NC DPI issued a report that quantifies the interventions necessary for students to fully recover learning from the pandemic. Using research-backed methods that allow for the conversion of test score differences to units of school time, DPI estimated the number of months of intervention it will require students to recover learning lost during the pandemic. The additional learning time necessary ranged from 2.25 to 15.25 months and was higher in math than in reading. THE IMPACT OF LOST INSTRUCTIONAL TIME BY STUDENT SUBGROUP While the learning of all groups of students was diminished by the pandemic, some groups saw greater impacts than others, including American Indian students, Black students, and economically disadvantaged students. Students attending high-poverty schools were also disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. THE IMPACT OF REMOTE LEARNING Students who returned to the classroom for face-to-face learning earlier performed better than students who experienced higher numbers of remote learning days. The negative impacts of remote instruction were broad and pervasive, but most severely affected learning in grades 3 and 4 reading and in middle grades math. In August 2022, DPI issued a separate report examining the effect of home Internet access on student learning. DPI found that, in 2017-18, students with greater access to the Internet at home were more likely to meet or exceed growth expectations than students with less home Internet access. In 2020-21, the positive impact of home Internet access was greater in magnitude, signaling that reliable Internet access played a more prominent role in student success during the pandemic. AND THERE’S MORE To learn more about the impact of the pandemic on student learning, as well as DPI’s efforts to assess those impacts, check out these links: NC DPI’s Impact Analysis of Lost Instructional Time full report. A video that explains effect size. A primer summarizing the key findings of the Impact Analysis of Lost Instructional Time report. NC DPI Office of Learning and Recovery and Acceleration Research and Recovery Roundup blog. A white paper interpreting the results of the Impact Analysis of Lost Instructional Time report. A white paper quantifying necessary interventions for students to recover learning. A white paper highlighting the impact of home Internet access on student progress in English-Language Arts during the pandemic. Sources: NC DPI Accountability Data Sets and Reports, NC DPI COVID-19 Impact Analysis of Lost Instructional Time, NC DPI White Paper: Recovery Interventions Require Effects Equivalent to Months of Additional School Time, NC DPI White Paper: Rural-urban differences in ELA progress and home internet access during pandemic
2022 Spotlight On Series: Enrollment and Attendance During the COVID-19 Pandemic ENROLLMENT The percentage of North Carolina’s school-aged children attending traditional public schools has declined over the last 15 years, from 88% in 2005-06 to 79% in 2019-20. Meanwhile the number of students attending charter schools and homeschools has increased substantially. During the 2020-21 school year, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, school enrollment trends experienced an accelerated shift, with homeschooling seeing a sharp uptick, and significant but less dramatic increases in private and charter school enrollment. The net result was a substantial decline in traditional public school enrollment, which rebounded somewhat in 2021-22 but has not returned to pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, the rapid rise in homeschooling seen during the first year of the pandemic has not persisted – approximately 63% of the growth in the homeschool enrollment seen in the 2020-21 school year was lost during the 2021-22 school year. Sources: DPI Statistical Profile; North Caroline Private School Statistics; North Carolina Home School Statistical Summary ATTENDANCE Attendance became more difficult to track during the pandemic because of the variety of instructional delivery methods used, intermittent school closures, and quarantine requirements. As a result, the percentage of students reported as chronically absent in public schools fluctuated relative to pre-pandemic levels (see Figure 2 below). Source: North Carolina School Report Cards State Highlights Report In addition to being substantially higher than pre-pandemic years, documented chronic absenteeism in 2020-21 varied significantly across student subgroups. Source: North Carolina School Report Cards State Highlights Report Attendance policies for remote and hybrid learning during the 2020-21 school year were set by local school districts and varied greatly across the state. Variability in (or lack of) district attendance policies for remote instruction had some effect on documented chronic absenteeism amongst traditional public school students. Source: EdNC and Public Impact Relatedly, districts provided varying amounts of in-person and remote instruction during the 2020-21 school year. Students of color were more likely to receive remote instruction than White students. However, certain at-risk student populations – such as homeless students, students in foster care, and students with disabilities – were as likely as the average student to receive remote instruction. Source: DPI Operational Status Dashboard AND THERE’S MORE For more information on student enrollment and attendance, here are a few more resources: DPI Statistical Profile – includes North Carolina traditional public and charter enrollment information. North Carolina Homeschool and Private School enrollment information. North Carolina School Report Card State Highlights Report – highlights notable patterns for students, educators, and schools in North Carolina. EdNC and Public Impact reporting on Fall 2020 School Reopening Plans. DPI Operational Status Dashboard – DPI tool used to track live, remote, and hybrid instruction during the 2020-21 school year.
2022 Spotlight On Series: Students with Disabilities in North Carolina The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) guarantees students with disabilities a free and appropriate public education, guided by an individualized education program developed by educators in partnership with the student’s parent/guardian. Federal funding for students with disabilities exceeds $350 million annually. The state of North Carolina allocates $4,550 per special education student, for an additional $965 million. Under North Carolina’s existing policy, funding can be allocated for up to 13% of a school district’s or charter school’s average daily membership. In 2020-21, the percentage of students receiving special education services ranged from 7.6% in Clinton City Schools to 19.8% in Haywood County Schools and Watauga County Schools (see Figure 1 below). In some cases, state and federal funding do not cover the full cost of providing special education services for each child. This occurs most often with students who have severe disabilities, as their necessary special education services are more expensive to provide. In order to remedy this problem, a 2010 report prepared for the North Carolina General Assembly recommended that state allotments for students with disabilities be organized into three tiers based on the severity of the child’s disability, but the changes have not been enacted. Students are most often identified as requiring special education services between the ages of 6 and 9 (between first and fourth grade). The population of students receiving special education services peaks during the middle school, before falling slightly in the early years of high school, and more significantly as students approach the end of their high school careers. One requirement of IDEA is that students receiving special education services be educated in the least restrictive environment for that student, meaning, to the greatest extent possible, students are educated in regular classrooms with peers who do not receive special education services. During the 2020-21 school year, 69% of North Carolina students receiving special education services spent 80% or more of their day in a regular classroom, while less than 2% required an placement outside of a traditional school setting. The percentage of North Carolina students in K-12 traditional public schools receiving special education services has remained consistent at around 14% from 2005 to 2020 (nationally, 15% of students receive special education services); however, the percentage of students within each disability category has shifted significantly. Sources: DPI Statistical Profile Tables 1 and 9 NC DPI Federal Child Count Reporting National Center for Education Statistics Annual Reports: “Students with Disabilities”
BEST NC Launches North Carolina School-Level Per Pupil Expenditure (PPE) Data Summaries and Interactive Tool BEST NC is pleased to announce the launch of a new Per Pupil Expenditure (PPE) interactive tool and landing page designed to facilitate the understanding and exploration of North Carolina’s recently released school-level per pupil expenditure data and its relationship to other school and district-level data. The federal Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 requires each state education agency to release school-level per pupil expenditure data beginning with the 2018-19 academic year. This is the first time per pupil expenditure data have been made available at the school level in North Carolina. This web-based per pupil expenditure interactive data tool allows education stakeholders to explore per pupil funding trends across individual schools, within districts, and across districts in North Carolina. For the first time, educators, school leaders, parents, policymakers, advocates, and other members of the public can look at spending and performance for similar schools based on size, grade span, geographic locale, percent students with disabilities, and poverty. By comparing like schools, individuals can identify potential best practices around the state and pinpoint opportunities for targeted intervention. For example, a school leader could look at similar schools across the state to find inspiring results that might help them curate best practices for their own school. Similarly, a district leader may look for spending trends in their district as compared with other districts. The School-Level Per Pupil Expenditure (PPE) tool as well as summary analyses and additional resources can be accessed on the PPE landing page. New Data, New Insights: Key Findings About North Carolina’s Public Schools For the first time ever, North Carolinians can explore per pupil expenditures by school type, instead of being limited to district-level metrics. These data have allowed for new insights, which are highlighted on BEST NC’s School-Level Per Pupil Expenditure landing page, within the interactive PPE tool, and in our 2020 Facts & Figures guide. Some examples of these findings include: Generally speaking, total per pupil expenditures in North Carolina are higher in lower-income schools (see scatterplot). A deeper analysis in the 2020 Education Facts & Figures guide finds that about $2,800 more is spent per pupil in the highest poverty schools than in the lowest poverty schools. In a school with 500 students, this equates to around $1.5 million in additional resources. In this way, North Carolina defies national trends in which lower income schools generally receive less funding than more affluent schools. In general, expenditures of local funds, even within an individual district, appear to be uncorrelated or negatively correlated with poverty, so funding equity in most districts is a function of state and federal funding allocations. Student academic growth does not seem to be correlated with spending, with schools that exceeded growth spending about the same per pupil as schools that did not meet expected growth. Schools in the middle – those that met growth – spent about $300 more per pupil than other schools. Per pupil expenditures by race/ethnicity indicate about $700 more in per pupil spending for Black students than white students, validating the 2019 finding by EdBuild that North Carolina is one of just 14 states in which predominately nonwhite districts receive more funding than predominately white districts. Per Pupil Expenditures in the highly successful Cooperative Innovative High Schools are lower than in other high schools by about $700 per student. As with any large data set, we encourage caution in making causal assumptions. This tool is intended to be a starting point for robust conversations about best practices, wise investments, and – most importantly – how to ensure student success. In the months ahead, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic will be far-reaching for K-12 public schools, including the potential loss of funding due to decreased revenue. As state and district leaders consider adjustments to school spending, we encourage them to examine these data and look for inspiration and best practices from schools in our state that are succeeding with fewer resources and/or with higher populations of disadvantaged students. BEST NC, in partnership with the Collaborative for Student Success and HCM Strategists, will host a series of webinars designed to help key audiences learn how to use this interactive tool. If you are interested in attending one of these sessions, please email info@BESTNC.org. Also, additional data will be incorporated, and updates will be made to the tool over the next few weeks. If you have suggestions on how to improve this tool, please email using the address above. About BEST NC BEST NC (Business for Education Success and Transformation in North Carolina) is a nonprofit, non-partisan coalition of more than 100 business leaders who are committed to improving North Carolina’s education system through policy and advocacy. Our vision is that every student in North Carolina will graduate with the knowledge, skills, and behaviors to succeed in a competitive global economy. Our mission is to unite an engaged and informed business perspective to dramatically transform and improve education in North Carolina.
Spotlight On: Rural Students in North Carolina (Updated for 2021) North Carolina has the second largest rural student population in the United States (after Texas), with 524,955 rural students in 2018-19, 36% of all K-12 students. Eighty of North Carolina’s 100 counties are rural, defined as a county with an average population density of 250 people per square mile or less.
Spotlight On: National Board-Certified Teachers (Updated for 2021) The National Board Certification process, offered by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, recognizes high-quality teaching. The certification process uses rigorous standards to evaluate teaching practice through performance-based assessments. Correlational studies have consistently found that students taught by Board-certified teachers learn more than students taught by other teachers. At 23,090, North Carolina ranks #1 in the nation with the most National Board-Certified Teachers. Approximately 10% of all teachers in North Carolina Traditional Public Schools districts are Board-certified, but employment is lower in high-poverty schools. North Carolina is one of 25 states that provide additional compensation for teachers that are Board-certified, including seven in the Southeast.
Spotlight On: Career and College Promise (Updated for 2021) In 2019-20, 70,801 public high school students participated in the Career and College Promise (CCP) program, which offers qualified high school students the opportunity to enroll in community college and university courses that provide pathways to a certificate, diploma, degree, or state- or industry-recognized credential. Enrollment in these courses is free for students and many courses county for both high school and college credit. CCP Pathways: College Transfer – Requires completion of at least 30 semester hours of college transfer courses, including English and mathematics. Career and Technical Education – Requires completion of courses leading to a certificate or diploma aligned with a high school career cluster or leading to a state- or industry-recognized credential aligned with a high school career cluster. Cooperative Innovative High Schools (CIHS) – Often located on college campuses, CIHSs provide opportunities for students to complete an associate degree program or earn up to two years of college credit within five years, e.g. Early College High Schools. In 2020, North Carolina was one of just 10 states that have enacted specific legislation to create and/or sustain early college high schools, the most common type of Cooperative Innovative High Schools (CIHS) across the state. CIHSs have significantly higher college acceptance rates than traditional, charter or private students.
Spotlight On: per Pupil Expenditures (PPE) (Updated for 2021) More than $13 billion dollars was spent on K-12 traditional public education in North Carolina in the 2018-19 school year, including funding from local, state, and federal sources. Beginning in 2019-20, the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires all states to report school-level per-pupil expenditures, by funding source, for the preceding fiscal year. The availability of school-level data allows a new level of transparency for the public, educators, and policymakers. This spotlight features analysis that is now possible with these new data. Additional data/tools can be found at www.BESTNC.org/PPE201819 as well as on the North Carolina School Report Cards. Average per pupil expenditures for high-poverty schools are about $3,000 more per pupil than low-poverty schools.
Spotlight On: myFutureNC (Updated for 2021) Throughout the 2020 edition of Facts & Figures, the myFutureNC icon indicates key education performance measures directly tied to North Carolina’s education-to-workforce continuum and the state goal of increasing educational attainment to 2 million by 2030. For more information visit: myfuturenc.org. In 2017, North Carolina was just one of nine states that had not yet set a goal for educational attainment. The myFutureNC Commission was formed to develop a vision for attainment across North Carolina, from early childhood through postsecondary education. In 2019, the myFutureNC Commission announced a new statewide goal to help build a cross-sector, coordinated approach that tackles systemic challenges and barriers across the education continuum: On the current trajectory, myFutureNC estimates that North Carolina will fall short of individuals with the skills needed to fill our state’s projected 2030 jobs needs by at least 400,000 people. Increasing educational attainment will help North Carolina attract and retain businesses, while improving the livelihood of individuals and families across the state. Higher education is associated with higher earnings: