It's difficult to generalize about the results, since the numbers for each school depend very much on events peculiar to that one school. However, there are a few phenomena which stand out. Overall, some of the best performance gains were recorded in the counties on the fringe of the metropolitan area. The large metropolitan systems have some problem areas. But Wake County had its troubles, too, as 23 of its 87 schools failed to reach expected growth.
High expectations work.
In schools and school systems where there were serious efforts to raise the level of expectation, the results were generally excellent. Turmoil at the top does not work. Leadership change in Durham has been blamed for disappointing results there, and changes in leadership may have contributed to the failure to meet expectations at a number of individual schools. For those of us involved in improving mathematics and science education, the performance report has some serious shortcomings. The report does not assess the quality of science programs, and in fact it may harm science instruction if schools choose to focus narrowly on reading, writing, and mathematics in order to improve their standing in the report.