Today, Mayor Vincent Gray, DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson, and State Superintendent Hosanna Mahaley announced the preliminary results of the 2011 District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System (DC CAS), the District’s annual student achievement assessment system.

The results show solid growth in secondary math and strong improvements in grades 7 and 8, with secondary reading scores and elementary reading and math scores remaining comparable to last year. In particular:

• Secondary scores have risen steadily for four consecutive years    
  • 46.4% of secondary students scored proficient in math. This is up 2.7 percentage points over last year, and almost 19 percentage points over four years
  • 44.2% of secondary students scored proficient in reading. This is up 0.9 percentage points over last year, and just over 14 percentage points over four years

• Elementary scores show positive growth over the past four years
  • 42.3% of elementary students scored proficient in math. This is down 0.9 percentage point from last year, but up 13 percentage points over four years
  • 43.0% of elementary students scored proficient in reading. This is down 1.1 percentage point from last year, but up 5.5 percentage points over four years

Congratulations to DCPS on this important progress. While it is noteworthy, much work remains to be done. You can read more about the results and DCPS’ plans in the attached press release and letter from Chancellor Kaya Henderson.

We thank the philanthropic partners whose generous donations have made the improvements to date possible. Moving forward, the Education Fund will continue to help accelerate reforms in DCPS. In particular, we will:

•  Continue to support DCPS’ efforts to recruit, develop, reward, and retain great teachers, including:
  • A robust professional development platform,
  • A rigorous performance-based compensation system, and
  • Our annual A Standing Ovation for DC Teachers celebration, which recognizes and elevates high performing teachers.

• Continue to transform and improve a specific subset of schools with the highest level of need.
• Identify and pilot promising, next generation technology-based learning models.
• Support components of a new academic strategy, including training staff across the system to consume and act on data.

We will share more as we head into the 2011-2012 school year, and look forward to deepening our partnerships with each of you in support of this exciting transformation process.

To learn more about DC-CAS click here.