(Washington, DC) – Mayor Bowser today announced that students in the District continue to gain in educational achievement for the third consecutive year, as measured by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) assessment results for 2018. These gains in both English language arts (ELA) and math show that more students in DC are on track for college and career readiness, and fewer students are scoring at the lowest levels of PARCC.
“Three years of steady improvement on the PARCC assessment shows we are making real, meaningful advances and that our students are rising to meet the high expectations we’ve set for them,” said Mayor Bowser. “These results are good news and we are moving in the right direction, even as we still have more work to do.”
The District of Columbia has seen continued, steady increases on the PARCC assessments for the third year in a row – up 8.5 percentage points in ELA and 7.3 percentage points in math since 2015. Each year, the District has seen an increase in PARCC scores across both subjects. In 2018, the percentage of students scoring level 4 or 5 in ELA increased 2.8 percentage points, increasing from 30.5 percent in 2017 to 33.3 percent in 2018. The percentage of students scoring level 4 or 5 in math increased 2.5 percentage points, increasing from 26.9 percent in 2017 to 29.4 percent in 2018. During the Bowser Administration, the District not only increased the number of students who are on track for college and careers, but reduced the number of students in the lowest two levels of performance by 7.4 percentage points across both subject areas.
In addition to overall gains, students with disabilities, English learners, at risk students, Black/African-American students, and Hispanic/Latino students have all shown improvements in PARCC assessment performance.
“The PARCC results today demonstrate that the investments Mayor Bowser has made over time are working, and are a testament to the talented and hardworking educators we have in the District,” said Superintendent Hanseul Kang, Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE). “We look forward to making connections across schools and deepening our conversations as educators to accelerate our progress, particularly for the students who are furthest behind.”
The PARCC assessment, administered in the spring of each school year, measures students’ performance in math and English language arts (ELA) in grades 3-8 and high school. The test has five performance levels, with level four and level five indicating that a student is on track to be ready for college and career pathways after high school. The number of students in grades 3-8 who scored at or above level four increased by 3 percentage points in ELA and 2.5 percent in math, and the number of students in grades 9-12 increased by 2 percentage points in ELA and 0.7 percentage points in math.
Schools will receive individual student reports by the end of this week, and will then distribute them to families. The Office of the State Superintendent of Education has prepared a suite of resources, available at osse.dc.gov/parcc, to help schools, parents, and teachers understand the assessment and results.
To view the full report, please visit the OSSE website: http://results.OSSE.dc.gov.