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Which sentence best states the central take-away from newly released D.C. high school test scores?

A.) 25 percent of students in the District are tracking to be “college and career ready” in 10th grade English and 10 percent are tracking to be “college and career ready” in 10th grade geometry

B.) The D.C. Public Schools outperformed the Public Charter schools in both English and math

C.) Scores are from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), a new assessment, so comparing these numbers to past years is an apples-and-oranges situation

D.) White students in D.C. are more than four times likelier to be proficient in English and 10 times likelier to be proficient in math than black students.

E.) All of the above

If you guessed E.), congratulations!

(Image courtesy of the Office of the State Superintendent of Education)

D.C. joined eleven states in developing PARCC, which aligns with the Common Core standards. 10th Grade students took it in the spring of 2015. The city switched from the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System, the test used for the previous seven years. City officials have been bracing for low results, acknowledging the relative rigor of PARCC as compared to D.C. CAS.

“Today’s release of PARCC high school scores is nothing to cheer about,” Councilmember David Grosso, chairperson of the Committee on Education, said in a release. “When the District of Columbia transitioned to the PARCC assessment, we knew that the test would be more difficult. But we also knew that it was important for us to raise our standards.”

The assessment employs a five-point grading scale. Scoring a four or five means a student has “met or exceeded expectations.” The D.C. State Board of Education set level four as “proficient” for federal reporting requirements.

Overall, only 25 percent of students in the District are tracking to be “college and career ready” in English and 10 percent are tracking to be “college and career ready” in math.

The results demonstrated a large achievement gap by race/ethnicity. While 82 percent of white students were deemed “college and career ready” in English II, only 20 percent of black students and 25 percent of Hispanic students were.

(Image courtesy of the Office of the State Superintendent of Education)

In math, 52 percent of white students were deemed “college and career ready,” as compared to 4 percent of black students and 8 percent of Hispanic students.

“The PARCC scores show that DC Public Schools still has a lot of work to do to prepare every student for a successful future in college and a career,” Chancellor of D.C. Public Schools Kaya Henderson said in a release. “This year’s test serves as an important baseline from which we will work to help prepare all students.”

Results from grades 3 through 8 will be released in November and students will receive their individual scores via mail in December.

To see a full breakdown of the results, look at this presentation