Today, the District of Columbia’s Office of the State Superintendent released 2015-16 scores for all D.C. schools’ performance on PARCC, the state assessment administered to all public school students. On average, KIPP DC students outperformed students from DCPS and other public charter schools on both Math and English Language Arts assessments.
“We are incredibly proud of the gains that our KIPPsters demonstrated on this year’s PARCC assessment,” said Susan Schaeffler, executive director of KIPP DC. “We have some of the brightest students and hardest working teachers in this city, and their efforts have led KIPP DC schools to be among the top performers in the District. While we are pleased with our progress, our focus continues to be on individual students’ growth and we know there is still much work to be done.”
Highlights from KIPP DC’s 2016 PARCC Results:
- Though the city showed moderate gains, KIPP DC students’ growth outpaced the overall D.C. average in English Language Arts (10 percentage points growth vs. state average of 2 percentage points) and Math (5 percentage points growth vs. state average of 3 percentage points).
- Our students have consistently been among the city’s top performers in Math proficiency rates in recent years, and we were pleased to see solid outcomes again this year (39% proficiency vs. state average of 25% proficiency).
- We saw exceptional growth in English Language Arts across our schools, due in part to the many investments in curricular alignment and literacy coaching we made in the 2015-16 school year.
- Students at our high school, KIPP DC College Preparatory, doubled proficiency rates from 18% to 35% in English Language Arts, and continue to perform in the top 5 of all high schools in D.C. in Math again this year.
- Students at Quest Academy, our first restart school in only its second year, doubled proficiency rates in Math and tripled proficiency rates in English/Language Arts – the most improved of any public charter school in Washington, D.C.
- Promise Academy, Lead Academy, Heights Academy, and KEY Academy continue to be some of the strongest schools in the city – particularly of those educating at-risk students – and we continue to see positive momentum at all of our other schools.
This is only the second year that students in the District of Columbia have taken this Common Core-aligned assessment, which was designed to be far more challenging than our previous assessment (the DC CAS) and aligned to KIPP DC’s mission of preparing students for college and career.
“PARCC has started an important dialogue in D.C. about college and career readiness, and it is one of the many data points that we use on the road to college,” Schaeffler said. “Challenging coursework, dynamic extracurricular options, and access to unparalleled guidance and counseling all determine how prepared KIPP DC students are to get to and through college and on to meaningful careers.”
KIPP DC, the largest public charter school network in Washington, D.C. and second largest LEA behind DCPS, has been operating high-quality schools in the District for 15 years and currently educates more than 5,700 students in grades PreK-3 through 12 at 16 schools.
For more information, please contact Tom Clark.
