UPDATE: This story has been updated to reflect corrected information regarding the grades issued by state education officials to “Ivest Collegiate,” which referenced the Charlotte charter school Invest Collegiate Transform, not Invest Collegiate Imagine, a charter school located in Asheville. It also has been updated to reflect the scores of Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy, which is located in Rutherford County.
On Thursday, the state Department of Public Instruction released school-wide letter grades for every public school — which includes charter schools — located in North Carolina. Known as the School Performance Grade, the A-F letter grades were based largely on student achievement, which makes up 80 percent of the grade. Student growth comprised the remaining 20 percent.
It is the first time the state’s educational agency has issued letter-based grades to the public schools. The grades showed that, overall, more than half of North Carolina’s more than 2,400 public schools earned a grade of C, D or F for the 2013-2014 school year. The data also showed that 132 North Carolina schools earned an A — the highest grade possible. More schools — 146 exactly — earned an F, which is the lowest grade possible.
Carolina Public Press analyzed the grades for all public schools located in the 18 westernmost counties of the state. The results showed that among the region’s 235 schools, 33 percent earned a grade of A or B. Both Haywood and Henderson counties were home to two schools earning an A grade — the most located in any single school system. Many of the schools earning As were early college programs.
However, 13 of the region’s 20 school systems had no schools earning an A at all. The only school earning an F in Western North Carolina was a charter school located in Avery County.
(For the purpose of this regional analysis, all charter schools were grouped together, though they operate independent of one another.)
Below, find the results for every school in the region, grouped by school system. For an executive summary explaining how the grades were calculated and their context, please go here [PDF].
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