Center City PCS

The Center City PCS district in Washington, D.C. operates 6 public charter elementary schools serving grades PK-8, with student populations ranging from 189 to 260. While the schools show significant variation in performance, a few standouts emerge, including Center City PCS - Congress Heights, which ranks 32nd out of 126 D.C. elementary schools and earns a 4-star rating, and Center City PCS - Brightwood, which consistently ranks in the top half of D.C. schools and earns a 3-star rating.

The data reveals that Center City PCS - Congress Heights has the strongest test scores, with 45.5% of 3rd graders and 42.3% of 4th graders proficient or better in English Language Arts, and 27.3% of 3rd graders and 38.1% of 5th graders proficient or better in Mathematics. In contrast, Center City PCS - Capitol Hill and Center City PCS - Trinidad perform below the district average. The schools also vary in their racial compositions, with the percentage of African American students ranging from 52.46% to 93.17%, and the percentage of Hispanic students ranging from 2.65% to 42.21%.

The analysis suggests that simply increasing funding may not be the sole solution to improving student outcomes, as the school with the highest spending per student, Center City PCS - Trinidad, has the lowest overall performance. This highlights the importance of disaggregating data and identifying the unique needs of each school community, as well as the opportunity for the higher-performing schools to share their successful strategies and practices with the lower-performing schools to raise the overall quality of education across the Center City PCS network.