(Photo by Krissy Venosdale)
In spite of a rocky year in the central office, students in D.C. Public Schools showed steady gains on the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), the exam that measures college and career readiness. But despite improvements, the tests also showed that achievement gaps persist between demographic groups in the city’s schools.
Scores for DCPS students have increased by 8.5 percentage points in English-Language Arts and 7.3 points in math since 2015. Although this year’s tests show that only about one-third of students in the District are considered college-ready based on their test results, that number is rising. It’s up nearly 3 percentage points in English-Language Arts and 2.5 points in math since last year.
“We are excited to see fewer students, in the lower levels, in levels one and two, on PARCC,” said State Superintendent Hanseul Kang. “This means that not only are students getting to the level that we want them to, but all of our students are moving in the right direction.”
Kang and Interim Chancellor Amanda Alexander credit a strong curriculum, clear standards and the work of classroom teachers for the consistent improvement in scores.
“Over the years we have built really strong systems and routines for data analysis,” Alexander said.
Achievement gaps, however, remain between demographic groups. The performance gap between black and white D.C. Public Schools students increased by just over 1 point in math. While the gap decreased by 2.6 points in English, the drop was due to a combination of black students doing better on the tests, and white students doing worse.
Charter school students generally improved their scores, but the size of the achievement gap between black and white students did not change, remaining at 50.5 percentage points. The gap for English Language Learners in math also rose, as scores decreased about half a percentage point.
Charter schools in the District have shown mixed results on PARCC. This year, two schools, Excel and Democracy Prep, announced that they were closing their doors because of a lack of improvement on student scores. Scott Pearson, executive director of the Public Charter School Board, says that student achievement comes down to leadership.
“The quality of the principal and the ability of the principal to build a team where everybody is on the same page, everybody shares the same goals, everybody has bought into the school systems and curriculum, so students are experiencing consistency,” Pearson said, noting that Democracy Prep had four different school leaders over four years.
He says that the portfolio of charter schools in the District will improve over time as efforts are made to support and grow higher-performing schools and closing others that are less successful.
This story originally appeared on WAMU.
