DC PARCC Dashboard
LAST UPDATE: AUGUST 2023
Welcome to the 2023 EmpowerK12 DC PARCC/MSAA state assessment results dashboard with updated formatting that allows users to see results for multiple years. Our default student group view is set to "students designated as at-risk" as the performance and improvement of those students is central to our mission. We also default the PARCC metric to percent of students achieving at levels 3 and above (PARCC 3+), representing students who are approaching, meeting, or exceeding expectations, a metric displayed in the DC School Report Card. This is different from OSSE’s focus on PARCC 4+ in their reporting.
Why the focus on PARCC 3+?
While we believe all students should have the opportunity to graduate high school and successfully complete college-level coursework without remediation, which is the standard that PARCC 4+ represents, we also believe it is important to ensure that all students have an adequate command of the English language and math to succeed in life regardless of postsecondary pathway, the standard that PARCC 3+ more closely represents. In fact, before PARCC level 3 was named “Approaching Expectations" (related to “college-ready expectations” by the PARCC Governing Board), it was originally called “Adequate Command of Content” in the development process to reflect “career-ready expectations.”
Also, the effects of the pandemic were more acutely observed when looking at the PARCC 3+ proficiency rates with larger proficiency rate declines for 3+ than 4+ and achievement gaps that widened more at 3+ than 4+. Monitoring improvements for both proficiency rates help us track whether all of our students are improving, not just higher performers. The good news is that DC schools demonstrated gains for both proficiency measures in 2023.
Read our detailed analysis of the results
To use this dashboard, begin by making selections from the filters at the top for the student group and proficiency metric you want to explore. Additional details about dashboard elements below.
2023 PARCC/MSAA Assessment Dashboard
1 Percent of tested population who are students designated as at-risk. Some schools with a very high or low percentage of the tested student population designated as at-risk may have had data for the Students Designated At-Risk group suppressed. In that case, we utilize the school’s entire enrollment population in 2021-22 as the “% At-risk".
Low At-Risk = Schools with 0-30% of tested or enrolled population are students designated as at-risk
Avg At-Risk = Schools with 30-70% of tested or enrolled population are students designated as at-risk
High At-Risk = Schools with 70-100% of tested or enrolled population are students designated as at-risk
In 2023, OSSE switched from reporting “At-risk” to “Economically Disadvantaged” student groups. The universe of students in these two groups nearly overlaps. The only difference are the few students in high school who were overage for their grade and not economically disadvantaged. The number of students in that group is too small to affect citywide rates, so we continue to use the “at-risk” label. It is possible that at a select few high schools the difference could be more significant.
Another key change is that OSSE suppressed actual results when the proficiency rate was less than 5%. Aggregated values for results by ward utilize a weighted average of school level results of unsuppressed data, which provide an estimate of the ward level proficiency rate. Grade band data utilizes a weighted average of results by enrolled grade from the state level data file.
2023 State Assessment Performance Gaps Dashboard
Additional Dashboard Notes
DC schools did not administer the state assessments due to virtual COVID-19 schooling in 2019-20 and 2020-21
The default assessment view is for “PARCC only” which includes only scores from the math and English language arts (ELA) PARCC tests. Data for “all state assessments” will also include the subset of students with significant cognitive disabilities who complete the alternate portfolio assessment (MSAA). When the DC State Science test data is released, we will add it under “all state assessments” and a third subject option for “science” will appear.
OSSE publishes two different proficiency metrics for PARCC: “4+” which is the primary on-track for college readiness benchmark that gets reported and includes students Meeting or Exceeding Expectations on the test; “3+” is considered a “progress measure” and adds students who are approaching expectations in with the 4+ students.
“Students designated as at-risk” are students whose family receives SNAP or TANF benefits, is homeless, or is in the foster care system. High school students who are overage for their grade level are also considered at-risk in years 2015-2022. Those students moved to a separate funding category in 2022-23, so now OSSE only reports “Economically Disadvantaged” students. Given the overwhelming overlap between those two categories, we continue to include them as “at-risk” in our dashboard.
Due to new OSSE reporting and data suppression rules, the proficiency data for some smaller groups starting in 2021-22 has been suppressed even though the student group meets the minimum n-size requirements for reporting.
Dashboard gauges compare latest result with the pre-pandemic average. We define that as the average proficiency from 2019, the last year of results before COVID. At times the latest result may appear to be the same as the 2019 data, but the values presented are rounded. Hover over the whole number value to see its decimal point.
Data Sources
OSSE state assessment raw data files that power dashboards can be found here