With targeted resources to low-income schools, our state can help ensure that kids learn to read. These data visualizations show exactly which public schools and districts need the most support.
A new data tool launched by The North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation brings attention to gaps in our state’s public school third-grade literacy rates. According to data in the Equity Focused Early Literacy Dashboards, economically disadvantaged children and high poverty schools need more educational resources to catch up from the pandemic. It is important to note that, as shown in the 10-year trend in Dashboard 1, these disparities have existed for a long time.
Achieving reading proficiency by third grade is a nationally recognized benchmark for educational success for all students. These new dashboards examine North Carolina’s third-grade reading proficiency scores through the lens of race, ethnicity, and economic disadvantage. When using the benchmark of economic disadvantage, shown in Dashboard 2, users can see that both low-poverty schools and high-poverty schools need to do more to help economically disadvantaged children succeed.
Some districts and schools with the highest levels of wealth and reading proficiency across the state are also the districts and schools with the most significant disparities. Wealthy districts like Chapel-Carrboro City Schools count only 30% of students as economically disadvantaged, but has one of the largest reading proficiency disparities between economically disadvantaged and not economically disadvantaged students. Less wealthy districts like Avery County Schools, where 63% of students are economically disadvantaged, also has one of the largest disparities.
“Our state is missing the mark for children experiencing poverty,” said Theresa Roedersheimer, Executive Director of The North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation. “This data pinpoints which districts and schools need more support. We can close the gap for these children through targeted supports.”
The 10-year trend in Dashboard 1 shows that we are on the right course for our children, but children in poverty, Black, American Indian, and Hispanic students still need significant support. “As we will have a new administration in North Carolina, it will be vital for them to take action quickly for our children,” said Roedersheimer. “We need to speed recovery while narrowing disparities.”
The public is encouraged to use the Equity Focused Early Literacy Dashboards to monitor racial, ethnic, and economic disparities through easy-to-understand data visualizations. The dashboards are designed to be both user-friendly and information-rich. The set of three Dashboards enables transparent public exploration of the data at state, district, and school levels.
Legislators, educational policy leaders, and school administrators can use these visualizations to drive more equitable decision making and strong investments to support every child’s success.
The dashboards were created from the publicly available data in the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s School Report Cards. Reorganizing this data so it could be viewed through an equity lens took eight months of data analysis, design, and vetting by the NCECF team. Project lead Dr. Micere Keels, NCECF Policy and Practice Leader, worked with Columbia Data Policy interns Tongyao Jiang and Cynthia Chen to complete this project.