Students who are homeless, in foster care, or otherwise “at risk” are more likely to be in the DC Public School system than in charter schools

are concentrated in a few DC Public Schools but are more spread-out in the charter sector. And the more at-risk kids a school has, the lower its standardized test scores.

Graphic from Guy Brandenburg.

The sloping green line on this graphic shows that when a school has a lot of at-risk students, it generally has low test scores. That’s no surprise.

But the graphic also shows something that’s been hard to get at through existing data: DC’s traditional public schools A subset of DC’s traditional public schools are serving a disproportionate number of students who are likely to be the hardest to educate.

In addition to students who are homeless or in foster care, the at-risk category includes those receiving welfare or food stamps, and those who have been held back a year or more in high school. A DC law that went into effect this school year set up the at-risk category and appropriated additional funds for those students.

Data show which schools have the most at-risk students

Guy Brandenburg, a blogger and former DCPS math teacher, used the data generated by the legislation to create the graphic above and the ones below. To his surprise, he found that only three DC charter schools have 70% or more of their students in the at-risk category. Within DCPS, on the other hand, there are 31 such schools. (Originally, I did not realize that the figures Brandenburg used were estimates the schools submitted last year. As the note at the bottom of this post explains, actual enrollment figures show that ten charter schools and 38 DCPS schools have 70% or more at-risk students this year.)

Two of the three charter schools with over 70% at-risk students—Maya Angelou and Options—are specifically targeted to kids in that category. The third school is Friendship Blow Pierce.

The usual yardstick for the degree of poverty in schools is the number of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals. But students in that federal program can have a family income of up to 185% of the poverty level. The at-risk measure identifies the subgroup of students who are likely to be living in the deepest poverty.

Leaders of DC’s charter sector often point out that charter schools educate a higher percentage of low-income students than DCPS. But they’re talking about students who are eligible for free and reduced meals, not those in the at-risk category.

Graphics showing school size and names

The graphic below shows the same data as the one above, but the size of the dots corresponds to the size of the school.

Graphic from Guy Brandenburg.

A third graphic provides the names of some of the schools.

Graphic from Guy Brandenburg.

Brandenburg has also posted a table with all the data that he used to create the graphics.

Based on the data, Brandenburg predicts that DC is moving to a tripartite education system. He sees wealthier students attending DCPS schools in Ward 3 or a handful of charters that appeal to more affluent families. Those “in the middle of the wealth/family-cohesion spectrum,” many of them black or Hispanic, are largely in charters. And those “at the seriously low end of the economic spectrum,” most of them black, are in highly segregated DCPS schools.

Correction and clarification: The graphics above are based on estimates of at-risk students that schools submitted to DC education officials last year. According to the Public Charter School Board, the actual enrollment figures for this school year show that at least ten charter schools and 38 DCPS schools have 70% or more at-risk students.

In addition, the PCSB has compiled data showing that the overall proportions of at-risk students in the DCPS and charter sectors are about the same (49.3 in the charter sector and 50.6% in DCPS). However, at-risk students are more concentrated in a subset of DCPS schools, while they are generally spread more evenly through the charter sector.

Natalie Wexler is a DC education journalist and blogger. She chairs the board of The Writing Revolution and serves on the Urban Teachers DC Regional Leadership Council, and she has been a volunteer reading and writing tutor in high-poverty DC Public Schools.