@StanfordCEPA released a new dataset today to include additional years of student achievement data, spanning from 2007-08 through 2017-18, and the results for DC don’t track with all the talking points. https://edopportunity.org/ 

In terms of how much students learn on an annual basis, overall, DC tracks about at the average compared with all the (geographically determined) school districts in the US. The red marker is DC.

When looking at annual learning for Black students only, Black students in DC are learning at rates equivalent to about the national average for all students. Black students in DC do better than in most other districts, but DC is also not a top performer for Black students.

And annual learning rates for white students only, which are higher than average nationally. Note also that whites in DC are also among the wealthiest in the US.

When looking at annual learning rates for Latino students only, annual learning rates are about average.

Annual learning rates for “poor” students are about average. And annual learning rates for “non-poor” students are higher than average.

Now let’s look at improvement in test scores (not rates of learning) over time. This is going to be influenced by where students start academically-speaking in the school year, and not solely about how much students learn in a given year.

For all students, test scores have improved over time, and more so than in most other school districts. All student racial/ethnic groups appear to have improved test scores over time as well. That’s good but…

What’s crazy is how much test scores have improved over time for the “non-poor” group, which is likely due to (a) more affluent people sending their kids to DC public schools AND (b) DC serving affluent students well.

And, if all kids attending Title 1 schools count in the “poor” group, the improvement for the “non-poor” group is probably even higher.

In summary, DC is about average in terms of how much students learn each year, and scores have been improving over time. But white and affluent students are doing great! Hardly a convenient story for “the darling of education reform.”