Testimony Before the Council of the District of Columbia Committee of the Whole on Academic Achievement in the District of Columbia
By Noah Dougherty
Good morning, Chairman Mendelson and members of the Committee. My name is Noah Dougherty and I’m the Director of School Talent and Academic Strategy at the DC Charter School Alliance, the local non-profit that advocates on behalf of public charter schools to ensure that every student can choose high-quality public schools that prepare them for lifelong success.
Thank you for inviting us here today as we discuss the academic achievement of students in DC public charter schools. Before I begin, I want to first thank the Mayor, Council, and SBOE for being champions of the evidence-based instructional strategies that are making the biggest impact on student learning. I also want to thank Representative Chang on the State Board of Education for his tireless advocacy for literacy. We deeply appreciate his dedication to both championing literacy legislation and supporting its effective implementation. Similarly, we appreciate Councilmember Parker for prioritizing math education in DC’s public schools and calling for strategic investments in our students, teachers, and families. Most importantly, I want to thank the educators and families who work with our city’s children on a daily basis to help them grow as learners and as people. One of the things we appreciate the most about both Councilmember Parker and Representative Chang’s leadership is that it is based on empowering educators and families - the folks who are doing the most important work of fostering, supporting, and celebrating student learning.
Methods for Student Growth and Achievement
As we look towards the future and the most meaningful steps we can collectively take to continue to improve student learning, it’s important to build off the successes we’ve already achieved.
The first success is adopting high-quality instructional materials. All LEAs are required to adopt science-based literacy programs and we are proud to share that, according to OSSE, 100% of our public charter LEAs are in compliance with this requirement. We want to thank OSSE and Assistant Superintendent Elizabeth Ross’s team for their support of our public charter LEAs, including working with our five Montessori public charter schools to align their Montessori curriculum to the standards of a science-based literacy program.
The second success is investing in our teachers. We want to thank the Council for increasing educator compensation at our public charter schools. Public charter educators support the learning and growth of 48% of all public school students in DC and we appreciate the Council’s recognition of their hard work, talent, and dedication to our communities. All public school educators are required to complete various training to build their awareness of dyslexia and other reading difficulties. We are proud to share that, according to OSSE’s most-recent dyslexia compliance reporting, 96% of public charter LEAs have completed the Dyslexia Awareness Training, above the citywide average of 87%; and 100% of public charter LEAs have completed the K-2 Training on Preventing Reading Difficulties, in-line with the city average. These trainings often live as one part of a larger commitment to structured literacy, such as at DC Bilingual, a national blue-ribbon school who not only trains their staff in the Science of Reading but has invited educators from other schools to learn from them. They do this work through their Escuelita program, which welcomes all public school teachers and educators from across the city to learn from their success, including in the science of reading. They also work with LEAs individually, such as when they invited high school educators from Thurgood Marshall Academy to learn about the science of reading so they could better support their struggling high school readers.
The third success is adopting high-impact tutoring. CitySchools Collaborative has made DC a national model for high-impact tutoring, and has given tens of thousands of our city’s students the opportunity to grow into incredible readers, writers, and mathematicians. According to EmpowerK12, students with below average math performance who received more than 900 minutes of tutoring received the equivalent of 50 additional days of instruction. Public charter LEAs have long been partners in this work and we are thrilled to highlight that 9 of our public charter LEAs are partnering with CitySchools Collaborative for the 2025-26 school year.
The fourth success is promoting collaboration among public education leaders. We know that it takes a village to raise a child, and the DC Charter School Alliance continues to bring public charter leaders together to tackle our city and sector’s most important challenges. This year we are bringing academic leaders together to visit each others’ schools and learn from one anothers’ expertise. By learning from one another, we hope to spread best practices and promote increased collaboration. These visits focus on wellness, community engagement, math coherence, literacy and the science of reading, intellectual prep, high school transformation, and MTSS.
Recommendations
Today, I ask the Council to help us build off these successes that have led to the historic gains we saw in last year’s state assessment, and scale those strategies that empower our teachers and families to continue to do the most important work of growing our students as learners.
