Local

Charlotte area's top public high schools for ‘college and career readiness'

Florida's state school board has passed a new mandate requiring mental health education in all public schools, beginning in sixth grade. It's unclear when the policy goes into effect.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The grades are in: The N.C. Department of Public Instruction has rated North Carolina schools using a "college and career readiness" standard.

DPI's most recent release breaks down the performance of 104 high schools in the Charlotte area — including public and charter high schools in Cabarrus, Gaston, Iredell, Mecklenburg and Union counties. For this report, the Charlotte Business Journal analyzed data for schools with grades nine and higher.

[ALSO READ: Ranking the Charlotte area's best public elementary schools for 2020]

The data is based on end-of-course performance tests, focusing on biology, English and mathematics. After end-of-school assessments, students are graded and placed in one of five categories. Levels three and above meet the state proficiency standard. Levels four and above meet the college and career readiness standard. The score in each of the levels is the percentage of students that scored at that achievement level.

Union County is home to four of the top 10 Charlotte-area public high schools by this standard. Almost 54% of Union County Public Schools students in grades 9-12 met the college and career readiness standard. That is the highest percentage of any school districts in the local counties analyzed. Forty percent of high school students at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools achieve that measure.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has two schools in the top 10.

to see where the Charlotte area's high schools rank and what percentage of students met the college and career readiness standard in all end-of-grade and end-of-course assessments, as well as in the subjects of biology, English and math.