How Speak Agent Aligns with North Carolina’s Math Strategy

This article describes the strategic plan and legislation driving education policy in the State of North Carolina and explains how Speak Agent supports both the plan and the state LEP allotment.

North Carolina’s 2025-2030 Strategic Plan
Limited English Proficiency (LEP) Allotment
NC Senate Bill 167

Strategic Plan

What’s the Plan?

Achieving Educational Excellence | 2025-2030 Strategic Plan for North Carolina Public Schools. North Carolina’s 2025-2030 strategic plan aims to make the state’s public schools the best in the nation across eight pillars of excellence. Key goals include raising graduation rates, increasing EOC and NAEP scores, expanding AP participation, reducing achievement gaps, and supporting Multilingual Learners (MLs) in advanced programs. The plan emphasizes equity, evidence-based practices, and strengthening North Carolina’s prior achievements in STEM education and dual language immersion programs.

Pillar 1: Prepare Each Student for Their Next Phase in Life. This pillar is arguably the most relevant to mathematics instruction. Specifically, Pillar 1 aims to increase the average scale score on the 8th grade math NAEP assessment from 276 to 283 by 2030, as well as to increase the AP exam pass rate from 65% to 75% by 2030.

How Speak Agent Aligns to the Plan

Speak Agent strongly aligns with North Carolina’s strategic plan, particularly Pillar 1. The program has demonstrated statistically significant growth in math proficiency for learners at all levels. In a large-scale, independent study (N = 46,929) in 1,597 middle school math classrooms, students who used Speak Agent for the recommended dosage experienced a mean increase of 10.3 percentile points on the district math assessment.

• This type of accelerated learning will be critical to support North Carolina’s goals to increase NAEP and EOC scores by 2030.
• In addition, Speak Agent supports student readiness for success in AP courses by providing preparatory Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II courses that integrate academic language mastery with core North Carolina math content. These courses will help build a pipeline of students ready to succeed at AP math courses.

Equitable Access to Advanced Learning. North Carolina’s plan emphasizes reducing disproportionality in advanced programs (AIG, AP, IB, CTE), which impacts ML students’ access to rigorous coursework.

• Speak Agent directly addresses the academic language barrier that too often prevents MLs from thriving in math and other STEM subjects. Speak Agent’s Math + Language framework helps MLs build the foundational skills needed to succeed in AP and IB courses.
• Furthermore, Speak Agent ensures equitable access for multilingual learners and students who experience poverty by using research-based learning supports to accelerate outcomes, beginning with the middle grades.

Limited English Proficiency (LEP) Allotment

What Is the LEP Allotment?

LEP allotment funds are provided by the State of North Carolina. School districts may spend the funds to support staff or purchase of classroom materials and resources needed to effectively serve LEP students. Any North Carolina district with at least 20 English learners or at least 2.5% of their student population designated as LEP may qualify for funding. In the 2025-2026 fiscal year, the state appropriated an additional $16.2 million in recurring funds to enhance the LEP allotment.

How Speak Agent Aligns to the LEP Allotment

Speak Agent directly addresses a primary barrier to success for LEP/multilingual students in both math and science content areas: content-based academic language proficiency. Speak Agent’s Math + Language and Science + Language programs are WIDA-correlated and not only improve outcomes in the content areas, but also have shown a significant impact on ACCESS for ELs scores.

Students meeting the recommended dosage of Speak Agent, completing 10 learning activities per month (no more than 30 to 60 minutes per week of time on task), experienced an average increase of 17 points on the ACCESS scale score, with significant improvements in all language domains.

NC Senate Bill 167

What’s in the Bill?

The bill Revise, Study, and Fund LEP Allotment addresses support for students with limited English proficiency (LEP) in North Carolina through several key provisions. For the 2025-2027 fiscal biennium, the State Board of Education will allocate funds to local school administrative units and charter schools based on their percentage of LEP students.

How Speak Agent Aligns to the Legislation

• Twin Outcomes. Speak Agent is the only program to show independent evidence of gains on both third-party mathematics assessments and ELD assessments (ACCESS) with a single implementation.
• Direct Mission Alignment. Speak Agent provides an evidence-based solution that maximizes the effectiveness of LEP funding investments as North Carolina works to reform its LEP allotment system.
• Addresses Current Funding Challenges. Speak Agent helps districts to achieve stronger outcomes with existing LEP resources. Currently, NC’s LEP allotment caps funding at 10.6% of district enrollment and provides only about 12% of base per-pupil funding. Speak Agent demonstrates how to maximize impact of limited LEP dollars.