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District of Columbia Public Schools
Location
1200 First Street,NE, Washington, D.C. 20002 Mid-Atlantic, Southeast United States
District information
Type	Public
Grades	PK–12
Established	September 23, 1805; 220 years ago (1805-09-23)
Chancellor	Lewis Ferebee
Schools	117[1]
Budget	$701,344,630
NCES District ID	1100030[1]
Students and staff
Students	50,839[1]
Teachers	4,564.64 (on anFTE basis)[1]
Staff	3,767.57 (on anFTE basis)[1]
Student–teacher ratio	11.14[1]
Other information
Website	dcps.dc.gov

TheDistrict of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) is the localpublic school system forWashington, D.C. It is distinct from theDistrict of Columbia Public Charter Schools (DCPCS), which governs publiccharter schools in the city.

DCPS schools offer education frompre-kindergarten to 12th grade, as well as education for adults. During the 2023–2024 school year, there were 50,839 students enrolled in DCPS and 4,564.64FTE teachers, with astudent–teacher ratio of 11.14.^[1]

Enrollment in D.C. public schools previously reached a peak of 150,000 students in the 1960s before declining over the following decades.^[2] In 1996, the first publiccharter schools opened in the city, drawing more students away from DCPS schools.^[2] During theCOVID-19 pandemic, public school enrollment decreased in the city as many families chosehomeschooling or enrolled their children inprivate schools.^[3]

The racial and ethnic breakdown of students enrolled in the 2023–2024 school year was 55%Black, 22%Hispanic, 18%White, and 5% other races.^[1] DCPS schools have seen a steady increase in White and Hispanic students since the 2013–2014 school year, due to more White students enrolling in pre-kindergarten and elementary schools, and more Hispanic students enrolling in middle and high schools.^[4][5] By contrast, in 2000, the racial and ethnic breakdown of public school students was 84% Black, 9% Hispanic, 5% White, and 2% other races.^[6]

As of the 2023–2024 school year, 16% of students were enrolled inspecial education, 16% wereEnglish-language learners, and 46% were deemed "at risk of academic failure".^[7]

School is compulsory in Washington, D.C. for students between the ages of 5 and 17.^[8] As of the 2024–2025 school year, 38% of DCPS students from kindergarten to 12th grade were chronically absent, meaning a student missed 10% or more of the school year.^[8] During the same school year, DCPS referred 4,956 students ages 5 to 13 to the city's Child and Family Services Agency for educational neglect.^[8] DCPS referred an additional 1,495 students ages 14 to 17 to the city's Court Social Services Division fortruancy.^[8]

As of 2024, 77% of DCPS students graduated high school within four years, an increase from 54% in 2012.^[9] The 2024 data shows that 73% of Black students and 76% of Hispanic students graduated in four years, compared to 96% of White students.^[9]

In 2017, a report byWAMU andNPR called into questionBallou High School for graduating students that should have failed due to frequent absences.^[10] In response, the city's Office of the State Superintendent of Education commissioned an audit that found that 1 in 3 graduates of DCPS high schools that year should not have graduated based on their attendance records.^[11]

Under Teacher Leadership Innovation (TLI), experienced teachers can apply for specialized positions in which they spend at least 50% of their time teaching in the classroom and the rest of the time coaching other teachers and leading school teams.

DCPS has more than 4,000 teachers as of July 2024.

Within DCPS, schools are classified as either a "neighborhood school" or a "destination school". Neighborhood schools are elementary or secondary schools assigned to students based on their address. Destination schools are feeder-schools for elementary or secondary institutions from a school a student is already attending. Since the fall of 2009, students may choose a destination school, regardless of their neighborhood location. Locations of all schools and the neighborhood divides can be found on the DCPS website.^[12]

For the school year ending in spring 2007, the DCPS was governed by theDistrict of Columbia State Board of Education, with eleven members, including two students who had the right to debate but not to vote. Five members were elected, and the Mayor appointed four. The board established DCPS policies and employed a superintendent to serve as chief executive officer of the school district, responsible for day-to-day operations. Four board members represented specific geographical boundaries, and the Board President was elected at large. One condition of the District of Columbia Public Education Reform Amendment Act of 2007 was creating DCPS as a separate cabinet-level agency from the D.C. Board of Education. This moved DCPS within the executive branch of the District of Columbia government—specifically, under Mayoral control. Currently, DCPS is subordinate to District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser. D.C. MayorAdrian Fenty proposed putting the public schools under the direct control of the Mayor's Office upon taking office in January 2007. However, this reform to District of Columbia Public Schools was encouraged by his predecessor and constituents at large. It also placed all of the District of Columbia public charter schools under the care of a new board—the District of Columbia Public Charter School Board (PCSB). Although these schools were previously a part of DCPS, they are now considered a separate district controlled by the D.C. Public Charter School Board (PCSB).

The D.C. Council passed the Mayor's proposal into law, but since the change amended theHome Rule Act, the change needed to gain federal approval before taking effect. D.C. DelegateEleanor Holmes Norton introduced H.R. 2080, a bill to amend the D.C. Home Rule Charter Act to provide for the Mayor's proposal. H.R. 2080 was passed by theUnited States House of Representatives under an expedited procedure on May 8, 2007, by a voice vote. After three U.S. Senators (Ben Cardin of Maryland,Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, andCarl Levin of Michigan) initially placed "holds" on the bill to prevent its consideration in theUnited States Senate, the Senate agreed to pass H.R. 2080 without amendment on May 22, 2007, by unanimous consent. On May 31, 2007, the bill was presented to the President, and President Bush signed H.R. 2080 into law on June 1, 2007. After the standard Congressional review period expired on June 12, 2007, the Mayor's office had direct control of the Superintendent and the school budget. On June 12, Mayor Fenty appointedMichelle Rhee the new Chancellor, replacing SuperintendentClifford B. Janey.

In January 2004, Congress passed the D.C. School Choice Incentive Act of 2003. The law established a federally-funded privateschool voucher program known as the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP). The OSP distributes vouchers to low-income families to cover private school tuition. Because there are more eligible applicants than available vouchers, they are distributed by lottery. In 2010, arandomized controlled trial conducted under the auspices of the Department of Education examined the impacts of the OSP students, finding that it raised graduation rates.^[13] Students who were offered vouchers had a graduation rate of 82%, while those who used their vouchers had a graduation rate of 91%. By comparison, the rate for students who did not receive vouchers was only 70%. The study received the Department of Education's highest rating for scientific rigor.^[14] Over 90% of the study's participants were African American, and most of the remainder were Latino American. Further research found that students who received vouchers were 25% more likely to enroll in college than students with similar demographic characteristics who did not receive vouchers.^[15]

In 1939, writing on behalf of the Board of Education of the District of Columbia now theDistrict of Columbia State Board of Education, Ballou denied a request by contraltoMarian Anderson to sing at the auditorium of the segregated whiteCentral High School. As justification, he cited a federal law from 1906 requiring separate schools for the District. Meanwhile, theDaughters of the American Revolution had rejected a similar application. WhenEleanor Roosevelt resigned from that organization in protest, authorZora Neale Hurston criticized her for remaining silent about the fact that the board had also excluded Anderson. "As far as the high-school auditorium is concerned," Hurston declared "to jump the people responsible for racial bias would be to accuse and expose the accusers themselves. The District of Columbia has no home rule; it is controlled by congressional committees, and Congress at the time was overwhelmingly Democratic. It was controlled by the very people who were screaming so loudly against the DAR. To my way of thinking, both places should have been denounced, or neither." Although Anderson later performed at an open-air concert at the Lincoln Memorial, the board retained its policy of exclusion.^[16]

The Council of the District of Columbia enacted the DC Public Education Reform Amendment Act of 2007. This act established a DC public school agency based on authority given to the council in the District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1973. The Department of Education that was established under the Mayor triggered several changes. The largest was already discussed—DCPCS gained sole authority over chartering and chartered schools, DCPS became subordinate to the Mayor's office. Secondly, many more minor authoritative changes took place. The first is that the State Education Office (SEO) became the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE). The four subsections of the District were reaffirmed through location-based State Board of Education selectees. In addition, the smaller eight school election wards were reaffirmed. Finally, the commission was established through this legislature. The "Commission" is the Interagency Collaboration and Services Integration Commission, which includes the Mayor, Chair of the Council of the District of Columbia, Chief Judge of the D.C. Superior Family Court, Superintendent of Education, Chancellor of DCPS, Chair of DCPCSB, and fourteen others.

After the 2007–2008 school year, about one-fifth of the teachers and one-third of the principals resigned, retired, or were terminated from DCPS. DCPS initially experienced a powerful negative impact due to the loss. AGAO-conducted study^[17] recommended that the Mayor direct DCPS to establish planning processes for strikes and look to performance reviews from central offices to strengthen accountability. These recommendations were followed, and accountability has increased through academic and financial report generation. Increased accountability made way for other small reforms. One example is implementing a requirement that students entering ninth grade sit down with a school counselor and construct a course plan to reach graduation.

River Terrace Elementary School and Shaed Education Campus shut their doors at the end of the 2010–2011 and 2011–2012 school years, respectively. Students attending River Terrace and Emery Education Campus moved to the Langley Building. In 2019, a proposal was submitted to close Metropolitan High School, an alternative school.^[18]

In accordance with Section 1116, a provision of theNo Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), entitled "Academic Assessment and Local Education Agency and School Improvement", the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) of the District of Columbia oversees compliance withAdequate Yearly ProgressArchived July 26, 2011, at theWayback Machine (AYP). A large portion of meeting AYP is based on standardized-tests performance; the District used thesummative assessment called the District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System ("DC CAS") through the 2013–2014 school year, after which it switched to tools from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the National Center and State Collaborative (NCSC).^[19][20][21]

Many schools fail to meet AYP, even though DCPS educators offer support and tools to students to be academically successful.^{[citation needed]} DCPS has created an evaluation tool to assess schools by more than their standardized test scores. They call this a Quality School Review, which uses the Effective Schools Framework^[22] to assess schools through rubrics on topics such as classroom observations, interviews with parents, students, teachers, and school leadership, staff surveys and reviewing artifacts (i.e., handbooks, student work).^[23] In 2007, Karin Hess of the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment conducted an analysis that has also gone into the alignment of DCPS standards and the "DC CAS Alt", the assessment for students with cognitive disabilities.^{[citation needed]}

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, DCPS had a budget of $1.2 billion and spent $29,409 per pupil in FY 2009–10.^[24]

In 1989–90, DCPS reported spending $10,200 (1999 adj. dollars) per pupil. A decade later, in 1999–2000, its reported per-pupil expenditures had increased to $11,500. However, those figures likely underreport DCPS's actual total per-pupil expenditures. In 2012, theCato Institute'sAndrew J. Coulson showed that DCPS's reported per-pupil expenditures figures were based on incomplete data.^[25] That year, the U.S. Census Bureau had reported that DCPS's 2008–09 per-pupil expenditures were $18,181, but DCPS officials had neglected to include about $400 million in spending. Informed by Coulson's observations, the U.S. Census Bureau revised its data collection methods and reported that per-pupil expenditures were $28,170.^[26] Those revisions are reflected in the Bureau's 2009–10 reports.^{[citation needed]}

In FY 2009–2010, the District received 6.7% of its total elementary and secondary education revenues from federal sources.^[24]

In 2008, in terms of testing 36% of students demonstrated proficiency in mathematics and 39% demonstrated proficiency in reading.^[27]

The average educator was paid $67,000 in 2010. A contract signed in 2010 was expected to raise that figure to $81,000 in 2012.^[28]

As of the 2023–2024 school year, DCPS consisted of 117 schools,^[1] out of a total of 245 schools in Washington, D.C.^[29] Most DCPS schools are "in-boundary" schools, meaning that students are eligible to enroll in them if their home address falls within certain boundaries.^[30] Students can participate in a lottery for a chance to enroll in out-of-boundary schools, selective high schools, alternative high schools, and citywide schools, as well asD.C. public charter schools outside of the DCPS system.^[31]

Below is a partial list of superintendents and chancellors of the D.C. Public School system. The head of the school system was known as "Superintendent" until June 2007, when the post was renamed "Chancellor".

• List of parochial and private schools in Washington, D.C.
• Susan E. W. Fuller, artist, first instructor of art in the District's public schools^[61]
• Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S.497 (1954);landmarkU.S. Supreme Court decision that heldschool segregation in the District of Columbia Public Schools to be unconstitutional

Wikimedia Commons has media related toDistrict of Columbia Public Schools.

• Official website
• District of Columbia Public Schools at theWayback Machine (archive index)
• District of Columbia Public Schools boundary maps
• Special Section: District of Columbia Public Education Documents: Agreements, Audits, Reports, Requests, etc., by Erich Martel

• District of Columbia Public Schools
• School districts in the United States
• Public education in Washington, D.C.
• Washington, D.C., education-related lists
• 1805 establishments in Washington, D.C.

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