Rocketship Education DC PCS

The Rocketship Education DC PCS district in Washington, DC consists of three elementary schools serving grades PK through 5, with a total enrollment of 1,197 students, and is ranked in the bottom 4th percentile of DC districts. Among the three schools, Rocketship PCS - Infinity Community Prep is the clear academic leader, with the highest ELA proficiency (13.4%), highest math proficiency (14.2%), and the best state rank (96th out of 124). Rocketship PCS - Rise Academy has shown the most improvement, boosting ELA from 7.5% to 10.8% and math from 5.0% to 10.8% in one year, while Rocketship PCS - Legacy Prep is the most concerning, ranked dead last in the state with just 2.5% ELA and 5.2% math proficiency.

Every school in the network falls dramatically below the DC state averages of 39.6% ELA and 28.2% math proficiency. Legacy Prep has the largest gap (-37.1 ELA points, -23.0 math points), followed by Rise Academy (-28.8 ELA, -17.4 math), while Infinity Community Prep comes closest with -26.2 ELA and -14.0 math, yet still only reaches about one-third of the state’s ELA rate. Resource patterns align closely with performance: Infinity has the highest per-student spending ($37,854) and the lowest student-teacher ratio (13.8), while Legacy has the lowest spending ($27,256) and highest ratio (16.5). The $10,598 per-student spending difference between the two schools mirrors their proficiency gap, though this is a correlation, not proof of causation.

Internal disparities within the same network are stark: Infinity’s ELA proficiency is more than five times Legacy’s, and its math proficiency is nearly three times higher. Grade-level data also reveals an unusual pattern—infinity and Legacy both see severe math declines by 5th grade (2.9% and 3.0% respectively), but Rise Academy’s 5th grade math is the network’s best at 14.3%, proving this drop is not inevitable. Year-over-year trends are mixed: Rise is improving quickly, Infinity is roughly stable, and Legacy is declining sharply by 4.2 ELA points and 6.8 math points. The entire network faces a systemic challenge, as even the best Rocketship school remains far below state averages, and missing poverty data limits further analysis.