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Since 2015, D.C. schools have required students to take the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career test, more commonly known as PARCC — a yearly standardized exam that tracks students’ progress in reading and math.

Now, that test is out. D.C. is joining states across the country that have ditched PARCC in recent years. Its replacement, the D.C. Comprehensive Assessments of Progress in Education (DC CAPE), is already being used this spring. Here’s what to know about the new exam.

For years, D.C. worked with dozens of states to administer the PARCC exam. The group came together after states embraced Common Core academic standards, which were designed to increase the rigor of public education nationwide, and needed a standardized test to see if students were meeting those expectations.

In recent years, however, more and more states have defected from the PARCC consortium amid criticism about its length and cost, as well as pushback against Common Core. Finally, D.C., which by last year was the only place still administering the full PARCC exam, had to create a test of its own.

Officials say students will be tested on the same content, and that there is no more variation between DC CAPE and PARCC than between the last two years of the old test. Like PARCC, the new exam will be administered by the testing company Pearson. Students can expect the same number and types of questions, including multiple-choice and written answers.

The biggest changes are the name and who reviews the questions. In the PARCC era, teachers across the country weighed in on test questions. Now, a panel of D.C. teachers helps determine which questions are asked.

Can this year’s results be compared with previous years’?

Yes, and this will be crucial as schools continue tracking how students are recovering from the pandemic. Test scores<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/08/24/dc-test-parcc-scores-pandemic/" target=_blank> improved last year</a> after a pandemic-era plunge that saw overall math proficiency drop from 31 percent in 2019 to 19 percent in 2022, the lowest level ever recorded in D.C. By 2023, 22 percent of students across the city could do grade-level math. (Students were not tested in 2020 or 2021 because of the pandemic.)

Reading scores also took a hit when children returned to physical classrooms for the 2021-2022 school year. Thirty-seven percent of the District’s students could read at grade level in 2019; by 2022, just 31 percent could. Last year, the figure rebounded to 34 percent.

Students in third through 12th grade take math and reading tests online each spring. (A different science test, called the DC Science Assessment, is given to given to fifth- and eighth-graders, as well as students taking high school biology.)

The results are intended to give teachers an idea of how students are progressing and mastering the skills they need to know before graduating high school, such as how to understand a complex passage of text or multiply fractions.

The Office of the State Superintendent of Education distributes federal dollars to the city’s lowest-performing schools and helps them craft plans that outline how they can improve. Some of those schools, however, have continued to struggle. In January, the D.C. Council<a href="https://lims.dccouncil.gov/Legislation/B25-0540" target=_blank> passed a law</a> that tasked the education agency with creating an office dedicated to giving those schools more resources and coaching.

Students’ test scores are also used, among other criteria, to grade teachers. The city’s traditional public school system uses an evaluation system known as IMPACT, which has produced academic benefits but was also <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/dc-teacher-evaluation-system-impact-study/2021/08/13/d24066e2-fbb0-11eb-9c0e-97e29906a970_story.html" target=_blank>found to be racially biased</a>. The system has undergone some changes in recent years, but critics still say it penalizes teachers who work with children at historically underserved schools.

American University, MA journalism and public affairs

American University, BA public relations and strategic communication 

Lauren Lumpkin is a reporter at The Washington Post covering local schools. 

Lauren Lumpkin

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D.C. is done with PARCC. Meet DC CAPE, the city’s new annual exam.

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