Providing an Equal Opportunity for a Sound Basic Education in North Carolina's High-Poverty Schools: Assessing Needs and Opportunities. Sound Basic Education for All: An Action Plan for North Carolina

To inform the "Leandro v. State of North Carolina" Action Plan, the Learning Policy Institute examined the within-school and out-of-school barriers to obtaining a sound basic education facing students who attend North Carolina's high-poverty schools. High-poverty schools are schools where 75% or more students are at risk because their families' low incomes qualify them for federally subsidized free or reduced-cost meal programs at school. Because of the concentration of at-risk students at high-poverty schools, these schools deserve focused attention as the state seeks to remedy its failure to provide all students with a constitutionally required opportunity for a sound basic education. The primary goal of this study is to understand the experiences of students attending high-poverty schools. This report provides dozens of findings about the challenges to obtaining a sound basic education experienced by students attending high-poverty schools in North Carolina. Several overarching themes emerge from these findings that form a coherent narrative into which the specific findings and recommendations should be placed and interpreted. [For the research brief, "Adequate and Equitable Education in High-Poverty Schools: Barriers and Opportunities in North Carolina," see ED614422.]