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A new District of Columbia Council bill mandating training for public charter school boards, while well-meaning, fails to address the real problem in D.C.’s public schools: the city’s large, growing racial student achievement gap. 

The yawning chasm between academic achievement of Black and white D.C. students has widened since school year 2015-16, from a 54.5% deficit in reading and math standardized test scores to 60%. On this year’s citywide standardized tests, 73.5% of white students met expectations in math, but only 11.8% of Black peers did. In reading, the results were 81.7% versus a mere 23.5%.

Public education in the District is provided by both D.C. Public Schools, the traditional system, and independently run charter schools that educate nearly half of the District’s public school students. D.C.’s 29-year-old public charter school legislation and 15 years of mayoral control of the school district are widely credited with higher test scores, graduation rates and college-acceptance rates in both sectors. However, both sectors operate schools that are failing the most disadvantaged students.

One solution is offered in a recent comprehensive national study of charter and traditional public schools by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes. CREDO’s research matched five years of performance data for 1,853,000 charter students in 32 states, including the District, with a demographically identical “virtual twin” in the comparable system school.

The researchers found that, “Charter schools produce superior student gains despite enrolling a more challenging student population than their adjacent [traditional public school]. They move Black and Hispanic students and students in poverty ahead in their learning faster than if they enrolled in their local [district school].”

In D.C., the study found that, based on their academic proficiency, students attending one of the District’s public charter school networks — those with three or more campuses — received the equivalent of 50 more instructional days of math and 12 more of reading than peers in district schools. Children educated at the District’s four largest and longest-operating networks — Center City, DC Prep, Friendship and KIPP DC — did better still, averaging 83 more days of academic growth in math and 21 in reading compared with district enrollees. Together, these well-established networks educate almost one-third of DC charter school students. 

By contrast, kids learning in stand-alone charters — those with one or two campuses — performed only marginally better than district-enrolled students, adding six days of reading annually but losing six in math.  

Providing students with the equivalent of more instructional days is essential to narrowing the expanding achievement gap. Stanford found “nationally, Black students in charter management organizations received 41 more days reading in learning and 47 more in math compared to traditional public schools.” In D.C., 88% of charter school students are Black or Latino.

Charter networks in other states and cities did even better than those in the District. New York City charter network students recorded 114- and 62-day gains in math and reading, respectively, compared with students in NYC public schools. New York City’s Success Academy, serving over 20,000 students at 57 charter schools, added the equivalent of an astounding 107 extra days in reading and 260 in math.

The CREDO research makes clear that the scale and size of large charter networks provides many advantages over stand-alone schools: building a brand to better attract philanthropic funds, students and top teachers; attracting, training and sustaining strong leaders; and more effectively researching and replicating best practices.

This is particularly important because, according to a report released in November by Bellwether, “from FY22 to FY 2025, DCPS received $7,713 more per student, per year than charter schools.” That means that many charters, particularly stand-alones, struggle to match school-system teacher salaries and benefits. 

To better serve the most vulnerable students, D.C. education decision makers must find the political will to enable more underperforming and underenrolled charter and district schools to remodel or partner to improve or shutter. Vacant and underutilized school system buildings should be made available to higher-performing charter networks.  

The city’s charter board should continue to encourage high-performing stand-alone charters to replicate and successful charter networks to grow. And it should attract proven out-of-town providers to bring their educational programs to the District.

America’s public schools can be the great equalizers the nation’s most underserved students urgently need — if policymakers follow the evidence to build on what works.

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