Fourth graders in District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) performed above average in math and reading compared to students in other large cities last year, the latest national test results show.
The results of the Nation’s Report Card—a national assessment of educational progress given to a sample of students in every U.S. state and D.C. every two years—came out earlier this year, indicating that DCPS students have largely either returned to their pre-pandemic levels of achievement or remained the same in 2024, despite the fact that average student scores in the United States continue to lag behind in reading and math.
Schools Largely Struggling To Recover
These results, from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which conducts the assessment, come as U.S. schools have seen pandemic school closures, a youth mental health crisis and elevated rates of chronic absenteeism, according to the Associated Press.
“We are not seeing the progress we need to regain the ground our students lost during the pandemic,” Peggy Carr, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, tells the AP.
But that trend did not seem to extend to DCPS, which stood out among other public schools in cities of its size to show resilience in the wake of these external factors. In 2024, the average math score of 234 for fourth graders in DCPS was higher than the average score of 231 for students in large cities.
And DCPS showed not only progress from its prior testing year but overall growth over the last couple of decades. The DCPS 2024 average is 10 points higher than its average score in math in 2022 and significantly higher than its score of 205 in 2003.
In reading, DCPS fourth graders also performed above average. Though only a two percentage-point jump from 2022, DCPS’ 36% of fourth graders at or above NAEP proficiency is significantly higher than its 10% in 2002.
DCPS students have pulled ahead of other districts and large cities in reading scores since 2017 and continue to maintain a gradual increase.
Eighth graders scored the same average as students in other large cities, but it was a record high for DCPS, indicating that eighth graders are bouncing back from academic challenges brought upon by the pandemic.
Why Is D.C. Different?
The D.C. Policy Center has an educated guess for why student performance has been high.
Chelsea Coffin, director of the think tank’s Education Policy Initiative, looked at factors such as student attendance, tutoring, how comfortable students feel talking to their teachers, self-confidence in skills, availability of teachers and teachers’ expectations for students.
For fourth graders in DCPS, “Students who did not miss any days in the last month were more likely to be in the 75th percentile compared to those who missed [three] or more days, and “regardless of achievement level, the majority of students felt comfortable talking to their teachers, thought their teachers expected them to do well and said teachers were available when needed,” Coffin reports.
Room for Improvement
There were, however, still areas with room for improvement for DCPS. Its average math score for eighth graders was lower than the average for large cities—though still higher than that of six other districts, including Baltimore City and Philadelphia public schools.
This reflects a slight increase from its average score in 2022, showing a comeback after a sharp downward trend since 2019.
Despite a below-average math score, eighth graders in D.C. are making progress compared to previous years. The percentage of D.C. eighth graders who performed at or above the NAEP Proficiency level, 22%, is a five percentage point increase from its 17% in 2022.
But achievement gaps between student groups persist. In 2024, Black fourth graders had an average reading score that was 69 points lower than that of white students, and Hispanic fourth graders had an average that was 50 points lower.
Black eighth graders had an average score that was 65 points lower than that of white students and Hispanic eighth graders had an average that was 62 points lower.
However, the largely positive trends of DCPS students overall reflect the DC School Report Card, which found that late elementary English language arts and middle school math saw the most progress from 2022-23 to 2024. Any decreases in percentages of students who achieved or exceeded proficiency levels were by fractions of a percentage, thus negligible.
“These results show that we are seeing some student growth, and we look forward to sharing our best practices,” says Interim State Superintendent Dr. Antoinette S. Mitchell in an August news release.
