A recent Harvard and Stanford University study concluded that the Alamance-Burlington school system is more than a full grade behind in reading and math in grades three through eight – ranking near the bottom of more than 10,000 U.S. school systems.
The 2026 “Education Scorecard,” was produced in collaboration between the Center for Education Policy Research (CEPR) at Harvard University and the Educational Opportunity Project (EOP) at Stanford University, as well as faculty at Dartmouth College.
The report examined performance on state standardized tests in math and reading – only for grades three through eight – among public school students in 43 states during the three years that followed the Covid-19 pandemic, from 2022 to 2025. (The researchers lacked complete data from all U.S. states due to several reasons, according to a release they issued with the 2026 Education Scorecard in mid-May.)
The researchers found that ABSS ranked near the bottom nationally based on scores on state tests in math and reading between 2022 and 2025.
The researchers noted the in a press release that accompanied their analysis of all N.C. public school systems that ABSS students “continued to slip” and were more than a full grade behind their pre-pandemic achievement levels in both reading and math between 2022 and 2025.
Grade three through eight math performance
Between 2022 and 2025, ABSS was nearly two full grade levels behind the 2019 national average achievement level in math in grades three through eight, joining other N.C. public school systems such as Gaston and Buncombe County schools, where the researchers found that performance in math also continued to trail 2019 levels.
Statewide, average student performance on math tests in grades three through eight was .41 grade equivalents (or about a third of a school year) behind that for 2019, the report states. (On the Education Report card, the grade-level measurement is used to show how far behind or ahead students performed between 2022 and 2025, as compared to average performance prior to the pandemic.)
Between 2022 and 2025, ABSS ranked in the 18th percentile for math performance in grades three through eight. In other words, 82 percent of students analyzed (across 10,205 U.S. school districts) performed better than ABSS in math in grades three through eight between 2022 and 2025, according to the Education Scorecard.
Grade three through eight reading performance
ABSS joined the Rowan-Salisbury and Winston-Salem/Forsyth school systems in trailing the 2019 national average performance levels in reading by more than a full grade equivalent, according to the release that the researchers issued with the 2026 Education Scorecard.
Statewide, average student performance on math tests in grades three through eight was .69 grade equivalents (or more than two-thirds of a school year) behind that for 2019, the report states.
In third-grade reading, approximately 64.6 percent of ABSS students were not performing at grade level, based on end-of-grade test scores in reading for the 2024-25 school year, based on the latest annual report that the state Department of Public Instruction submitted to the General Assembly for all 115 N.C. public school systems in December 2025. The annual report is required to be submitted under legislation that the General Assembly passed in 2012, creating the “Read to Achieve” program, which is intended to ensure all K-12 public school students are reading at grade level by the end of the third grade.
By comparison, 53.1 percent of all N.C. public school students in the third grade were not grade-level proficient in reading by the end of the 2024-25 school year, according to the state’s annual report on Read to Achieve.
The Excellent Public Schools Act that the General Assembly passed in 2021 (an update to the Read to Achieve legislation passed in 2012) requires all K-3 teachers to be trained in the “Science of Reading,” through an additional 160 hours of professional development that covers phonics and other essential elements of language comprehension.
For the three years immediately following the pandemic, ABSS ranked in the 12th percentile for reading performance in grades three through eight.
In other words, 88 percent of students analyzed (across 10,076 U.S. school districts) performed better than ABSS in grade three through eight reading/language arts between 2022 and 2025, according to the Education Scorecard.
North Carolina ranked 9th out of 38 states for expected performance in math and 22nd out of 35 states for growth in reading. (Some states lacked complete data for reading and math scores.)
However, the statewide average performance in math and reading tests for grades three through eight between 2022 and 2025 was approximately one-third of a full grade behind the 2019 national average in overall performance on math and reading tests, the report states.
Chronic absenteeism in grades three through eight
The researchers also examined chronic absenteeism rates, defined as students missing more than 10 percent of a school year, between 2022 and 2025, as compared to the pre-pandemic rates in 2019.
The statewide average chronic absenteeism rate declined from more than 32 percent in 2022 to approximately 25 percent in 2025 but continued to hover at around 10 percentage points higher than the rate for 2019, according to the Education Scorecard.
However, the trend in chronic absenteeism rates among ABSS students in grades three through eight was the opposite of the trend for the state as a whole.
This marks the fourth year that the researchers have released the Education Scorecard to inform education policy discussions about the impact of federal Covid-19 stimulus funding for K-12 education and how to mitigate the “learning loss” that followed the global pandemic.
North Carolina received approximately $5.60 billion in federal Covid-19 relief funding for K-12 public schools through the three stimulus packages that Congress passed between March 2020 and March 2021, representing $3,700 in per-pupil funding that N.C. public school systems received in addition to annual state and county appropriations, the report states.
ABSS received $95.6 million in Covid-19 relief funding from the three federal stimulus packages, according to the school system’s finance department.
To view the results for ABSS and other N.C. public school systems, visit: https://educationscorecard.org/states/north-carolina/
