It seems like a tale of 2 school systems. Washington, D.C., has actually become the fastest-improving school system in the nation, according to a significant brand-new analysis of student test scores launched recently by scientists at Stanford, Harvard and Dartmouth.
The Education Scorecard analysis, which compares more than 5,000 school districts throughout 38 states, discovers that most of the nation has actually been stuck in a reading economic downturn– a decade-long slide in accomplishment that precedes the pandemic. Between 2022 and 2025, just 5 states and the District of Columbia showed meaningful gains in reading. The nation’s capital published the strongest growth of all and likewise led in mathematics enhancement.
Related: Kids are in a ‘reading economic downturn,’ as test scores continue to decrease
Washington trainees in both public and charter schools gained roughly two-thirds of a grade level in math and about a 3rd of a grade level in reading over that duration, according to the analysis. A grade level represents approximately a year’s worth of learning, which indicates that 8th graders in 2025 were about six months ahead in math compared to 8th graders in 2022.
However the gains should not obscure a grimmer truth.
In 2025, only 26 percent of Washington trainees met grade-level requirements in math and only 38 percent excelled in reading, according to a different report from the D.C. Policy Center, an independent local think tank. Simply 16 percent of high school juniors and seniors were considered to be college or profession prepared.
A school system can improve quickly and still leave most kids behind. The contradiction is sustaining an important politically and emotionally charged debate in education: Should schools be judged by how many trainees excel, or by just how much students improve each year?
Critics of public schools are taking upon the low proficiency rates.
“Gains of any magnitude are an advantage, but when most students– approximately two-thirds to three-quarters when it comes to D.C.– are not working at grade level, this is absolutely nothing to praise,” said Steven Wilson, a previous education policymaker in Massachusetts and charter school leader. “Most students are still being stopped working by the system.” (Wilson’s 2025 book, “The Lost Decade,” slams recent school reform efforts.)
Even before last week’s national data release, Washington school leaders were commemorating the gains. Paul Kihn, deputy mayor for education, trumpeted the strength of the schools after 2025 yearly tests revealed a tremendous 3.6 percent enhancement in reading and math, comparable to the grade-level increases that the Education Scorecard team computed. “Our scholastic achievement is unparalleled in the country in terms of growth,” Kihn said in a March 2026 blog post.
Tom Kane, a Harvard financial expert and one of the authors of the new Education Scorecard report, discussed that there is a long-running debate in the field of education about whether to focus on efficiency or growth. In this report, he stated, the research team picked growth in order to “fight” what they view as an overly downhearted story about public education.
“We’re trying to highlight that something great is occurring in a few of these locations,” Kane stated. “And ideally, if we can, restore the general public sense of agency with respect to public education.”
In addition to highlighting Washington’s development, the research group also launched a list of 108 “districts rising”: school districts where math and reading gains exceeded those of similar districts in their state. Washington was not included because there are no equivalent districts within the city. But its gains are similar to numerous districts on the list. And, like Washington, the majority of those districts still have large shares of students below grade level.
In theory, if a district’s scores keep growing by outsized quantities each year, students ought to capture up and ultimately reach grade level. But public school critics like Wilson mention that even if a school system improves by one or two percentage points a year, it might take years for most of trainees to get a decent education. In the meantime, the students who are currently in the system lose out. They can’t await that progress. Wilson worries that shining a light on a school system where most kids are far behind grade level can misguide the public and possibly trigger school leaders to embrace the incorrect policies.
“Let’s take the klieg light and move it to the school systems that are informing nearly all of their students, instead of a 3rd of their students,” stated Wilson.
Wilson points to individual schools or charter school networks, where really high portions of low-income students are at or going beyond grade level. It’s much harder to replicate that success with low-income trainees across a whole large school district.
Income is a huge factor in this argument. If the general public and policymakers focus just on efficiency, affluent suburban areas tend to dominate the outcomes. High-income districts frequently seem the most successful, not necessarily due to the fact that their schools are more efficient, but because trainees from wealthier households begin far ahead.
That concern has actually prompted researchers to focus on growth-based steps of school efficiency over the past couple years. A commonly cited example came from research study by Sean Reardon, a Stanford sociologist and co-author of the existing report, who a years back discovered that Chicago was running the most reliable schools in the nation based on trainee growth, even though lots of trainees were behind grade level. (Illinois was not among the 38 states in the most recent analysis due to the fact that of modifications to its state assessment, so it’s unclear precisely where Chicago stands today.)
Still, lots of moms and dads would most likely rather register their kids in a school system where most of the trainees are on grade level, even if yearly enhancements are little or nonexistent, than a school where only a little share of students are on grade level but the school is reversing and enhancing.
Harvard’s Kane agreed that getting more students over the proficiency line is essential too. For the team’s next Education Scorecard report, scientists are planning to include a brand-new data point showing the share of kids who excel compared to other districts with similar demographics.
The argument persists since the two steps answer various questions. Development records whether students are learning more than they used to. Efficiency captures whether they have actually discovered enough.
That is what makes Washington such a revealing case. It shows how a school system can publish a few of the greatest gains in the country and still fall short by the many fundamental step of success: whether students can check out and do mathematics at grade level.
Contact staffauthor Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or [email protected].
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