Part seven

The state's own data said the same thing

In April 2019, as districts were being told how to implement the new law, NCDPI presented its own numbers on who was actually sitting in 8th grade Math 1. Two slides from that presentation:

NCDPI slide: 31,170 students in Grade 8 had an NC Math 1 assessment score in 2017-18, broken down by their Grade 7 Math EOG levels: 5: 17,179, 4: 10,724, 3: 1,010, 2: 992, 1: 375
NCDPI, Supporting the Implementation of HB 986, April 2019, slide 8.

Read the right-hand box. Of the 31,170 eighth graders taking Math 1, 17,179 had scored Level 5 in 7th grade. 10,724 had scored Level 4. Another 2,377 had scored Level 3 or below. More than a third of the students already in the accelerated course were not at the top level, and nobody was raising an alarm about them.

Who was in 8th grade Math 1 in 2017-18, by their 7th grade score

NCDPI's own breakdown, one year before the law took effect

Source: NCDPI, Supporting the Implementation of HB 986, April 2019, slide 8. 890 students had no Grade 7 Math EOG score. The same classroom is counted twice in the state's own figures: 31,170 here, from linked student records, and 31,063 in the assessment file, which counts students tested. Same year, 107 students apart. This page quotes the slide's 31,170 when describing the slide, and uses the assessment file's 31,063 in the ratio further down, where the other figures also come from that file.

NCDPI slide: 20,440 students made a Level 5 on the Grade 7 Math EOG in 2016-17; 17,179 had an NC Math 1 score in 2017-18, of those 17,108 were proficient; 2,652 did not have an NC Math 1 score, of those 2,519 were proficient
NCDPI, Supporting the Implementation of HB 986, April 2019, slide 9.

And the next slide closes the loop. Of the 17,179 Level 5 students who did take Math 1 in 8th grade, 17,108 were proficient. That is 99.6%. Another 2,652 Level 5 students had no Math 1 score that year, and 2,519 of those were proficient in whatever course they did take. The state had, in its own slide deck, the evidence that the students it was leaving out could do the work.

The two groups on that slide do not quite add up. 17,179 plus 2,652 is 19,831, which leaves 609 of the 20,440 unaccounted for. The Department does not explain the gap. It is almost certainly students who moved into or out of North Carolina public schools between the grade 7 test in 2016‑17 and the grade 8 course year in 2017‑18.

What that 20,440 is now

Hold on to the number at the top of that slide. 20,440 seventh graders made Level 5 on the grade 7 mathematics test in 2016‑17. That is the pool the law's 7th-to-8th grade rule was written to serve, and it is the number the Department was working from when it built these slides in April 2019, four months before the State Board moved the cut score.

Same test, same grade, same state. The pool is 6,095 students smaller, a fall of 30%, and the share of seventh graders reaching it went from about one in five to about one in eight. The cohorts are almost identical in size, 107,174 seventh graders then and 114,761 now, so this is not demography.

Now put that against the size of the room it feeds. In 2016‑17, 20,440 seventh graders were entitled to 8th grade Math 1, and 31,063 8th graders took it the following year. Two thirds of that classroom was there by right. In 2023‑24, 13,042 seventh graders were entitled and 35,713 8th graders took the course the following year, so the entitled share is 37%. More students are sitting in 8th grade algebra than ever, and fewer of them than ever are there because a rule said they had to be. The rest are there because somebody decided, on grounds nobody writes down.

Two grade 7 counts appear on this page and they do different jobs. 14,345 is the most recent year, 2024‑25, and is the figure for the fall in the pool itself. 13,042 is the year before, 2023‑24, and is the figure for the ratio above, because that is the cohort which feeds the 2024‑25 eighth grade classroom. Both are correct and neither contradicts the other.