Cumberland County schools report narrowing race gap in student test scores, Fayetteville Observer

August 2012

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Cumberland County schools are closing the achievement gap between white and black students, a school administrator said Tuesday.

Ron Phipps, associate superintendent for evaluation and testing, talked to the school board’s Student Support Services Committee about the county’s test scores. He showed how the difference in the percentage of white and black students passing the tests in the county compared with the state and other large school systems.

The gap between white and black students in the county was 15.6 percent in 2011-12, Phipps said. State records show that 89.4 percent of white students and 73.8 percent of black students passed end-of-course tests.

Phipps said the state’s achievement gap was 20.4 percent. All four other large school systems – Charlotte-Mecklenburg County and Guilford, Wake and Forsyth counties – were at 21.7 percent or higher, his presentation showed.

Board member Carrie Sutton said school officials from other systems likely will be contacting Cumberland County about how to increase their scores.

“We have had some calls,” Phipps said.

Cumberland County’s achievement gap was 16.1 percent in 2009-10 and 18.2 percent in 2010-11, he said.

Phipps showed how the county scores compared favorably with the larger systems in nearly every subject area. The one noticeable difference was in math scores in third to eighth grades. The percentage of students passing in the county was 80.1 percent, lower than the state rate and each of the other four systems.

The county also is narrowing the difference in the graduation rates of white and black students, Phipps said. The difference in the percentage of students graduating four years after they start high school is 3.1 percent. The state’s gap is 9.8 percent.

Phipps said the difference in the five-year graduation rate is 1.5 percent in the county and 8.2 percent in the state.

“That probably astonished me more than anything,” Phipps said. “It shows we’re reaching all the students.”

In other action at school board committee meetings Tuesday, school officials said that New Century International Middle School will not be completed by the start of the school year.

Tim Kinlaw, associate superintendent for auxiliary services, said the New Century students will start the year in classrooms at John Griffin Middle School and move to the new school after Thanksgiving.