N.C. Superior Court Judge Howard Manning hauled state education officials into court last week to ask them what the N.C. Department of Public Instruction is doing to improve low-performing schools.
The N.C. Supreme Court chose Manning to oversee to oversee compliance with court orders that the state meet its constitutional responsibility to provide all students with the “opportunity to receive a sound basic education” in the wake of the Leandro case brought by the parents of children in poorer school districts in the 1990s.
Manning wanted an explanation for why end-of-course and end-of grade tests show that more than half the students scored below grade-level expectations.. He also chided changes made to the evaluation process that he said watered down the definition of grade level achievement and is helping to slowly erode academic standards.
Education officials had few answers for the judge, saying they are working on a plan that would revamp the end of grade tests for third- through eighth-grade students.
Those proposed changes are what brought the officials before the judge last week in the first place.
In his efforts to monitor the state’s progress in abiding by earlier court rulings, Manning puts a lot of focus on the results of end-of-grade and end-of-course testing. He seems understandably dubious as to how changing those tests will help put the state on a path toward improving low-performing schools in low-wealth counties.
And so far, state officials have been unable to provide him with any answers.
