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The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) marked the one-year anniversary of Achieving Educational Excellence, the state's 2025-2030 strategic plan, with the public launch of a new online dashboard tracking the plan's progress. The announcement came during the August meeting of the State Board of Education.
The dashboard gives families, educators and community members a direct window into the plan's eight pillars and the 110 actions underway to make North Carolina's public schools the best in the nation by 2030. Visitors can explore each pillar, track measures the state has committed to publicly and see which actions have already launched in classrooms and communities across North Carolina.
Alongside the dashboard launch, NCDPI highlighted examples of the ways many North Carolinians have stepped forward over the plan's first year to help carry it out. Nearly 2,000 parents applied for 20 seats on the state's new Parent Advisory Council. Roughly 400 educators and community leaders applied for 20 seats on the Innovation Leadership Council. More than 6,000 North Carolinians have joined the NC Education Champions Network. And school districts across the state are increasingly building their own local strategic plans modeled on the state's approach.
“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,” said North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction Maurice “Mo” Green. “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. It also serves as an invitation for every North Carolinian to celebrate the successes of our public schools and to support us as needed.”
A Year of Historic Results
Soon after the strategic plan’s implementation, the North Carolina public school system announced four historic achievements, each the highest recorded in state history:
- An 87.7% four-year graduation rate
- 72.1% of Advanced Placement exams earning a qualifying score for college credit, surpassing the national average
- 382,964 industry-recognized credentials earned by Career and Technical Education students
- 54% of graduates passing a college-level course while in high school
A Year of Action
Since the plan's launch in August 2025, NCDPI and its partners across the state have moved dozens of strategic plan actions from planning into implementation, including:
- More than 23,000 public high school seniors have accepted direct admission offers from North Carolina colleges and universities through NC College Connect
- Partnering with the Golden LEAF Foundation to transform mathematics instruction in rural middle schools
- Launching a statewide Parent Advisory Council to bring family and community voices directly into DPI's decision-making
- Implementing new guidance on wireless devices in schools to protect focused learning time
- Identifying and sharing effective practices to reduce chronic absenteeism and strengthen student attendance
- Successfully transitioning the state's student information system to Infinite Campus statewide, with minimal disruption to schools
- Establishing the Innovation Leadership Council to identify, pilot and scale promising practices across schools
- Standing up two State Board task forces to redesign school accountability and modernize educator licensure
- Growing the NC Education Champions Network, recruiting parents, business leaders and community members to advocate for and invest in public education
- Preparing to launch the 10 Million Book Challenge, a statewide effort inviting North Carolina students to read 10 million books together
“These are not just checkmarks on a plan. These actions represent the intensive work done by many educators, community members and students," said Green. “The story of the first year of the strategic plan is that people chose to go further, together. Our job over the next four years is to keep building on this momentum, and to keep showing our work while we do it.”
The dashboard will be updated on an ongoing basis as additional strategic plan actions launch and new data becomes available. NCDPI encourages educators, families and community members to explore the dashboard and follow the plan's progress.
About Achieving Educational Excellence
Achieving Educational Excellence: 2025-2030 is the shared strategic plan of the North Carolina State Board of Education and the North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction, organized around eight pillars aimed at making North Carolina's public schools the best in the nation by 2030. The full plan is available for download at dpi.nc.gov.
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