Why We Produce School Quality Reports

Dear Families,

There are 120 diverse public charter schools educating more than 43,000 students in the District of Columbia. Our job at the DC Public Charter School Board is to hold every public charter school to high standards so that they provide a quality education to every student.

An important way we evaluate the quality of a school’s program is through our annual School Quality Report. This report measures the performance of every public charter school and provides data about this performance in a detailed but easy-to-understand format.

While every public charter school is unique, and the specific measures vary for different school grades, the same four categories of performance are used for all schools: Student Progress, Student Achievement, Future Educational Success (called “Gateway”), and Environment (i.e., attendance and re-enrollment rates, which help us measure your satisfaction with the school). More information about these categories can be found here.

The common metrics in these reports allow us to rate and evaluate all schools on an equal level giving each school a rating of Tier 1, 2, or 3, with Tier 1 being the best. This allows families like yours to easily compare schools and assess schools’ academic performance.

If you are new to public charter schools, we invite you to look through our website, and learn more about them. More importantly, we hope you will visit the schools you are interested in and have a firsthand look at what the school has to offer you and your child(ren). We encourage you to talk to other parents, teachers, and alumni of any school to hear their stories of achievement. If you are a current public charter school family, you can use this report to better understand your school’s successes and challenges.

Choosing a school that is best suited for your child is hard work. We hope this School Quality Report can help you make this important decision.

Sincerely yours,
Scott Pearson
Executive Director of the DC Public Charter School Board

Scott Pearson, Executive Director of the DC Public Charter Board, explains why the Board creates and distributes the School Quality Reports.