Spotlight: North Carolina School Districts with Greatest Growth by Subject, 2025 to 2026

Top five school districts with the greatest improvement between 2025 and 2026 in overall proficiency* in ELA (top) and math (bottom)  for students in grades 3-8 among non-charter public school districts.

STATE NOTE. Results reflect the state standardized assessment administered to grades 3-8 only, the EOG Edition 5; 2026 data accessed 9/2/26.
*PROFICIENCY. North Carolina currently reports 4 achievement levels: Not Proficient, Level 3, Level 4, and Level 5. In this figure, we use the state's College-and-Career Ready (CCR) proficiency rate, which is defined as Achievement Levels 4 & 5 (top 2 levels); this is the narrower of the state's two rates and the one NCDPI leads with in its own reporting. Grade Level Proficiency (GLP), the state's broader rate, is defined as Achievement Level 3 and above and is also used in some reporting.
DISTRICT INCLUSION. Districts included in this figure are public non-charter regular school districts, as defined by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). A district's grade 3-8 proficiency rate is the state-reported grade 3-8 total where the state provided one, and otherwise aggregated across the grades with reported (non-suppressed) results.
GRADE 8 MATH. Math results for Grades 3-8 follow NCDPI's own definition, which includes students in Grade 8 who take the NC Math 1 high school end-of-course exam in place of the Grade 8 math EOG.
GROWTH. Growth is defined here as the percentage point change between district performance in spring 2025 compared to spring 2026. Growth figures are calculated from unrounded values and therefore may not equal the exact difference between the rounded figures shown for each year.
DATE. This figure was published 9/3/26 by the Education Data Center (EDC).

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Chart: Education Data CenterSource: North Carolina Department of Public InstructionGet the data