Summary:
This data set covers a single high school, Richard Wright PCS for Journalism and Media Arts, a public charter school in Washington, DC serving grades 8 through 12 with 300 students. The school operates as its own local education agency within the Richard Wright PCS for Journalism and Media Arts district, meaning the school and district profiles are identical. It currently ranks 13th out of 36 DC high schools, placing it at the 64th percentile with a 3-star rating, and its ranking has been stable over the past three years, hovering between the 64th and 66th percentiles.
Academically, the school shows a sharp divide between English and math. ELA proficiency stands at 34.9%, just 4.7 points below the DC average of 39.6%, and English II end-of-course results (36.2%) nearly match the state (38.0%). Math, however, is a severe concern: only 2.3% of students tested proficient in math versus 28.2% statewide, a gap of nearly 26 points. End-of-course exams tell the same story, with Algebra I proficiency at 6.0% and Geometry at 5.3%. Year over year, ELA improved from 29.6% to 34.9%, but math declined from 3.5% to 2.3%. The graduation rate of 77.6% is just below the DC average of 78.7%.
The school is well-resourced, spending $32,581 per student with a favorable 11.7:1 student-teacher ratio. Despite this investment, math outcomes remain critically low, raising questions about resource allocation and instructional strategies in mathematics. With only 300 students across five grades, cohorts are small, so individual student performance can have an outsized impact on proficiency rates and rankings. Free and reduced lunch data is not available for 2024-25, which limits context on the school's economic demographics. Overall, Richard Wright PCS for Journalism and Media Arts is a stable, mid-to-upper-tier DC high school with solid literacy performance but an urgent and persistent mathematics deficiency that demands attention.
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