New NC scores show dramatic growth for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. See 2024-25 grades
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools saw marked improvements in student performance last school year, outpacing the state as a whole, according to new state accountability data.
The state’s Department of Public Instruction on Wednesday released school performance grades, which are calculated from testing data that includes end-of-grade exam scores and academic growth students made during the previous school year. This year, state education officials released data for the 2024-25 school year, the fourth post-pandemic academic year.
About 56% of CMS students were proficient on statewide exams this year — 3 percentage points better than last year. That just surpasses the state average of 55%, which is up almost a point from last year.
A student is considered “proficient” if they demonstrate “sufficient understanding” of grade-level knowledge and skills, according to the state. That requires a score of three out of five or higher on end-of-grade exams. While CMS’ proficiency rate has improved significantly since the 2020-21 school year, it still has not reached its pre-pandemic rate of 59.8%.
CMS Superintendent Crystal Hill hinted at gains for the district in this year’s results at a news conference in August.
“I am really excited about all of the hard work that this district has done, that our students have done, and I cannot wait for Sept. 3,” Hill said, alluding to the release date of this year’s state accountability data. “The proof is in the pudding, so I’m really excited about that.”
On Wednesday, Hill sang a similar tune.
“I’ve had this data for about three weeks, and I still walk around randomly screaming I’m so excited about it,” Hill told reporters.
The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction assigns letter grades to each school based on student performance on standardized tests (about 80% of the grade calculation) and whether schools meet their targets for student improvement from one year to another (about 20% of the calculation).
Approximately 39% of CMS schools received A or B performance grades, an increase of 7 percentage points over the 2023-24 school year. Twenty-nine CMS campuses received an A.
The percentage of schools receiving D or F grades decreased by 11 percentage points, from 40% after the 2023-24 school year to 29% after the 2024-25 school year.
CMS Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer Beth Thompson touted the gains CMS made across categories as “historic.”
“Across proficiency, growth, school performance grades and low-performing school designation, CMS beat the GPS,” Thompson told reporters Wednesday afternoon. “We made history last year.”
CMS saw a total of six F-rated schools in the 2024-2025 data. Thompson and Hill said the goal for this school year is clear: no F-rated schools in 2025-26.
Find school performance grades for CMS and surrounding school districts in the table below.
CMS growth gains and low-performing schools
Around 61% of CMS campuses, or 113 schools, exceeded their growth targets. Last year, that figure was just above one-third.
In total, 90% of CMS schools met or exceeded growth goals, surpassing the state average of 71%.
NCDPI defines growth as “the amount of academic progress that students make over the course of a grade or class.” It sets targets for each school and monitors progress using a model with data from end-of-grade and end-of-course assessments, career and technical education state assessments and NC Final Exams.
CMS also saw a sharp decrease in the number of schools on the state’s low-performing list, from 56 schools in 2023-24 to 32 schools in 2024-25. That’s a decrease of 43% and falls below pre-pandemic numbers from the 2018-19 school year, when 42 CMS schools were on the list.
A school is considered “low-performing” if it received a D or an F accountability grade from the state and did not exceed growth. So, while 52 CMS schools received grades of D or F, not all of those schools are considered low-performing, since many of them exceeded growth targets for this year.
This story was originally published September 3, 2025 at 10:11 AM.
