More Public Charter School Students are Career and College Ready

Deputy Director Naomi DeVeaux takes a closer look at student performance on the PARCC results.  

By Naomi Rubin DeVeaux

Earlier this week, the state released the PARCC results for school year 2015-16 and focused on the improvements made from 2014-15 to this year. I, along with DC Public Charter School Board Vice Chair Don Soifer, presented the the charter sector results during the press event.  We celebrate that the city’s public charter schools saw improvements in virtually every student population, especially for African American and Latino students. But, for public charter school’s this improvement is just one piece of the story, the other piece is achievement.

The PARCC results show us that a higher percentage of students attending DC’s citywide public charter schools are career and college ready, scoring a 4 or 5, than students attending a traditional public school in DC. This is true for every student population on the PARCC English language arts (ELA) test and in virtually all populations on the Math test. We are proud of this accomplishment, which continues a decade-long trend of out performing the city’s traditional schools.

Data Source: http://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/publication/attachments/2016%20OSSE%20PARCC%20Presentation.pdf (Slides 24-27)

Additionally, the achievement gap between African American students scoring at career and college ready, scoring a 4 or 5, at a public charter school and a traditional public school is 9% for ELA and reaches double digits (10%) in Math. The achievement gap between economically disadvantaged students attending DC’s citywide public charter schools and the traditional public school system is more than 8%. While the achievement gap between White students and African American and Latino students remains, we’re pleased to see it narrowing and expect the trend to continue.

This year marks the 20th year of public charter schools educating students that live in every Ward of the city, which are free and open to all.  More than 90% of the public charter school students taking the PARCC assessment are African American and Latino and more than 80% are economically disadvantaged. And another 19% receive special education services.

These results tell us that when students are able to choose a school with the right climate, curriculum and teaching methods that are the right fit for the student they’re more likely to succeed academically. 

Naomi Rubin DeVeaux is the Deputy Director at the DC Public Charter School Board.