A Closer Look at DC’s CAPE Scores in the Context of Bold Goals
The DC Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) recently released the 2024 results for the statewide assessments in math and English Language Arts (ELA). This assessment, known as the DC Comprehensive Assessments of Progress in Education (DC CAPE), replaces the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC) and keeps the test structure and high bar for meeting or exceeding grade level expectations the same.
Standardized testing has long been a key measure of student academic performance. In DC, PARCC fulfilled this role from 2015 until last spring, when it was replaced by the DC CAPE assessment. The DC CAPE assessment evaluates students in math and ELA from third to tenth grade, retaining the same structure and number of questions as PARCC. The key change is that DC teachers now create the test questions rather than a national panel.
Performance on the 2024 DC CAPE assessment shows nominal changes in performance, with a 0.7 percentage point increase in math from 2023 and a 0.3 percentage point rise in reading. This apparent stagnation might lead to the perception that our system and teacher were unable to improve student outcomes. However, a more detailed analysis of the data and impact of the pandemic’s abrupt shift to virtual learning reveals a different story that underscores the importance of setting and pursuing bold educational goals for all students.
CAPE Results and the Impact of the Pandemic on Student Academic Performance
Looking at the Spring 2024 results, 34% of students in the District met or exceeded expectations in ELA, while fewer than 23% did so in math.
Middle school students are leading the improvement in math, with a nearly two-percentage-point rise in proficiency. This contrasts with elementary and high school students, who showed minimal or no gains. In ELA, elementary students performed slightly better than their older peers, though overall proficiency declined slightly for middle and high school students. These results highlight both areas of progress and ongoing challenges, particularly in enhancing ELA outcomes across all grade levels.
Although these percentages represent improvements—less than one percentage point—in both subjects compared to the previous year, they also show that students have yet to return to pre-pandemic proficiency levels. For context, in 2019, 37% of students read at or above grade level, and 31% passed the math exam.
With this in mind, it's essential to consider how students at different grade levels were affected by virtual learning back in 2020 and 2021. Some of the aggregate stagnation in performance can be partly attributed to the fact that the students who were most impacted by the limited success of the abrupt shift to virtual learning now constitute a large majority of the tested population. Those who were in kindergarten through fifth grade during 2020 and 2021 experienced the most significant drop in achievement. As these students move through the school system, their earlier struggles continue to influence overall data.
Measuring Outcomes of Historically Underserved Students
The EmpowerK12 DC CAPE Dashboard helps reveal state results and some important insights into how historically marginalized student groups—such as students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged students, and English learners—are experiencing different outcomes compared to their peers.
How Students are Doing in Math
Economically Disadvantaged Students
Status: Off Track
Analysis: Math scores for economically disadvantaged students are lower than pre-pandemic levels and show no signs of growth. This indicates a significant need for targeted support.
Students with Disabilities, English Learners
Status: Improving
Analysis: These groups show improved outcomes in math scores, though they haven’t fully returned to pre-pandemic levels. The positive trend suggests recovery is underway but slow.
How Students are Doing in ELA
Economically Disadvantaged Students
Status: Off Track
Analysis: ELA scores for economically disadvantaged students remain below pre-pandemic levels with no improvement, highlighting ongoing challenges.
Students with Disabilities, English Learners
Status: On Track
Analysis: These groups have surpassed their pre-pandemic ELA results, showing that focused support can yield positive outcomes.
Positively, we are excited to report that across nearly every subject, proficiency metric, and priority student group, EmpowerK12’s 18 Local Education Agency (LEA) partners demonstrated higher improvements than their non-partner counterparts. Without these gains, the state’s overall 3+ proficiency rates would have declined—highlighting the substantial impact of the collaboration between EmpowerK12 and LEAs to turn data into action that leads to student success.
Leveraging EmpowerK12’s DC CAPE Dashboard for Bold Educational Goals
Reflecting on the 2024 DC state assessment results, it’s clear that while some progress has been made, the effects of virtual learning during the pandemic continue to profoundly impact student achievement (see detailed discussion of the data below). What’s needed—especially for those who faced significant challenges during the 2020-21 virtual school year—is a shift towards bold goals and a more collaborative, data-driven approach to education.
To truly support our students, LEAs must work better together, identifying the tools needed and ensuring they are accessible to all students. As we look to the future, leveraging EmpowerK12's DC CAPE Dashboard plays a role in this effort. This tool allows educators, administrators, and parents to dive deep into the CAPE results, uncovering trends and identifying areas for improvement.
Our public data dashboards offer a comprehensive view of student outcomes across the District, while our detailed assessment dashboards for school partners enable data-driven decision-making. These insights allow users to make data-driven decisions and bold educational goals.
Further Insight: A Closer Look at the Numbers with EK12’s Founder and Executive Director, Josh Boots
Were gains nominal or were they muted by other factors hidden underneath overall numbers?
At the state level across grades 3-10, proficiency gains in ELA and math were nominal from 2023 to 2024. This is certainly a concern and an indicator of the long-term magnitude of the pandemic on student’s academic preparedness for their enrolled grade level. Third graders in the 2024 tested population were in kindergarten during the 2020-21 virtual year, and there is plenty of evidence that DC’s youngest students received a fraction of the effective instructional hours compared with a typical in-person year. Students who were in elementary school during the virtual now make up a larger proportion of the tested population, and they are significantly behind academically. We find significant differences in elementary school grade level achievement rates compared to 2019 levels for all students and priority student groups.
Change in percent of students meeting or exceeding grade level expectations from 2019 to 2024 by subject area, grade level, and HS test
Because a greater proportion of the 2024 tested students were in elementary school during the virtual year, any student-level cohort proficiency gains could be muted by the addition of more students in tested grade levels who started 2023-24 well below expectations. Additional student growth data that OSSE will publish on the 2024 School Report Card can help answer this question. We also encourage OSSE to publish current and historical proficiency data for students who are new to DC schools and those who have tested for multiple consecutive years in the future to better assess the long-term impacts of our system on student achievement.
Is DC making progress toward a rapid academic recovery?
At present rates of improvement on state tests since 2022, student performance is another 2-4 years away from recovering to 2019 performance levels in ELA and another 5-7 years away in math. For some priority student groups, the road to recovery is longer. Positively, the performance of students with disabilities (SwD) and English learners (ELL) in reading exceeds 2019 levels for similar students.
Years remaining to full pandemic recovery to 2019 performance levels at current post-pandemic improvement rates
Is DC making progress on academic inequality?
The District of Columbia has one of the most equitable school funding formulas in the country, providing additional financial resources to local education agencies serving high percentages of economically disadvantaged students. In fact, the 2024-25 budget proposed by Mayor Bowser and approved by Council included a significant increase in the number of dollars provided to schools that serve a high-poverty student population. EK12 looks at several data points to judge how our system is progressing towards equality of opportunity.
First, we examine how performance gaps between priority student groups and their more advantaged peers change over time. In 2024, the gaps in ELA and math performance remained similar to prior years for both performance levels we track: CAPE/PARCC 3+ (percent of students approaching, meeting, or exceeding expectations) and CAPE/PARCC 4+ (percent of students meeting or exceeding expectations). Below, we highlight the gaps between four key groups in 2019, 2022, and 2024.
Another key metric to monitor is the correlation between the percentage of economically disadvantaged students a school serves and the performance of their students. For this metric, DC schools have made some progress since 2019 and 2022 for the performance key priority groups. This indicates that there are some bright spot schools that are helping historically underperforming students make gains. EK12 will dig further into the data to highlight these Bold Performance schools in a report due for release in November.
R-square correlations between the performance of individual student groups and school-level socioeconomic status
How did the 2023 Math Bright Spots perform this year?
In March, we published a report on DC’s highest growth schools for math in 2022-23 as part of the DC Math Hub citywide initiative. The elementary and middle schools we recognized continued to outpace the rest of the state with gains of 3 percentage points for key student groups, compared with statewide gains of around 1 point.
Percent of students approaching, meeting, or exceeding expectations in math at 22-23 Bright Spot Schools for Math
How are EK12 partner LEAs’ performing compared with non-partners?
In 23-24, EK12 provided direct support via data tools and training to turn data into action for 18 public charter LEAs in DC. For nearly every subject, proficiency metric, and priority student group combination, our 18 LEA partners collectively demonstrated higher gains than non-partners. We know every school wants better results, and there is certainly more hard work ahead to reach bolder goals for all students.
Change in CAPE/PARCC proficiency from 2023 to 2024 by subject, metric, and EK12 partnership status
