DPI marks first year of Green’s plan with pre-plan results

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI) marked the first anniversary of Superintendent of Public Instruction Mo Green’s five-year strategic plan on Aug. 5 by launching a public dashboard and pointing to four record results as evidence of progress.

But all four came from the school year that ended before the plan began — a point the department made to the State Board of Education that same morning.

“A year ago, we made a promise to the students, families and educators of this state: that we would hold ourselves accountable, in the open, for building the best public school system in America,” Green said in a press release. “This dashboard is one way we are satisfying that promise. It shows what we said we would do, what we have done and what comes next.”

The release lists four results it calls the highest recorded in state history: an 87.7% four-year graduation rate, a 72.1% pass rate on Advanced Placement exams, 382,964 industry-recognized credentials earned by Career and Technical Education students, and 54% of graduates passing a college-level course while still in high school.

It also reports that nearly 2,000 parents applied for 20 seats on a new Parent Advisory Council, roughly 400 people applied for 20 seats on an Innovation Leadership Council, and more than 6,000 residents have joined the NC Education Champions Network.

The State Board unanimously approved the plan in August 2025, following Green’s “Mo Wants to Know” listening tour. Its stated goal is for North Carolina to have the best public school system in the nation by 2030.

Geoff Coltrane, DPI’s director of government affairs and strategy, presented the same four figures to the board and told members where they came from.

“Of course, these were amazing results that we saw, but this was all results that happened before the strategic plan launched,” he said. “This was the year before the plan launched, but of course create a tremendous stepping stone for the success we hope to see.”

The figures come from the 2024-25 school year, which ended before the plan took effect, and were released in September 2025. The press release does not note the timing.

Coltrane also walked the board through the rollout. The plan’s 110 actions begin on a staggered schedule, and 41 had launched as of July 31 — matching the number due to start by then.

“From August of last year till July of this year, 41 of our 110 actions have launched,” Coltrane said. “So work is underway on those 41 actions. And in the next year of the plan, so this month through July of next year, there’ll be 53 more actions that’ll launch.”

The tracker behind the dashboard listed the other 69 as not started when it was pulled Aug. 3. The release describes the dashboard as a window into “the 110 actions underway.”

Proficiency target

The release cites four numbers. The dashboard tracks 14, and none of them measures how students score on state tests.

Those scores appear further down, among the measures for the plan’s first pillar. Last year, 55% of students scored at grade level on End-of-Grade and End-of-Course exams, up from 54.2%. The plan’s targets climb a single point a year to 60% in 2030 — a finish line that leaves two of every five students still below grade level.

Some measures are moving the wrong way. Public school enrollment fell from 83.9% of school-aged children to 83.4%, against a 2030 target of 89%. Beginning teacher retention dropped from 87.1% to 85.3%.

The dashboard uses four tags: “Record High,” “Approaching Target,” “Baseline Year” or “Data coming soon.” None describes a measure that fell. Public school enrollment, down from the year before, is tagged “Baseline Year.” Beginning teacher retention carries no tag at all.

North Carolina’s fourth-grade reading score on the National Assessment of Educational Progress fell about eight points between 2019 and 2024, dropping the state from above the national average to even with it. The plan calls for a 12-point gain by 2030. No state gained more than six points over that stretch.

Coltrane told the board the measure set remains incomplete. “Not all of the pillar measures yet are on the dashboard,” he said. “We’re still working to identify data sources.”

Questions about the pillars

Critics have questioned the plan’s academic focus since before the board adopted it. The first-year data shows the pillars advancing at sharply different rates.

The seventh pillar, “Celebrate the Excellence in Public Education,” has nine of its 11 actions in progress and two not started — the highest share of any pillar in the plan. The first pillar, which covers academics and college and career readiness, has 15 of its 21 actions not started. The eighth pillar, focused on building public support and investment, has 11 of 12 not started.

Robert Luebke, director of the Center for Effective Education at the John Locke Foundation, questioned the plan’s accountability when it was released last year. “Our shelves are filled with plans to improve the schools,” he said at the time. “And what happened when those plans failed? Nothing.”

Bryce Fiedler, director of the Carolinas Academic Leadership Network at the John Locke Foundation, told Carolina Journal last year that the plan contained “no yearly targets for raising state test scores” and cautioned against leaning on graduation rates, citing research finding North Carolina’s rate rising while proficiency stayed flat.

Shifting dates

Coltrane told the board that 18 actions have had their launch dates pushed back, in some cases by nearly a year, and that the public dashboard reflects the new dates rather than the ones the board approved.

“While the launch dates in the published strategic plan that you approved is there, this has the updated launch dates on it,” he said.

Board member Olivia Oxendine raised that risk at the Aug. 6, 2025 work session, questioning the plan’s description as a living document. “If we’re constantly changing, we lose our sense of a plan,” she said.

Preliminary 2025-26 accountability results go to the State Board in September. Those will be the first figures on the dashboard produced by a full school year under the plan.

“DPI marks first year of Green’s plan with pre-plan results” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.