D.C. students gained ground in reading and math for the fourth year in a row, with the biggest jumps coming from elementary schoolers heading back to class Monday, Aug. 24.
The Office of the State Superintendent of Education released 2026 DC CAPE results on Thursday, Aug. 20, showing districtwide ELA proficiency at 39.6%, up 2 percentage points from 2025, and math proficiency at 28.5%, up 2.1 points. Participation was strong: 95.5% of students took the ELA test and 94.9% took math. Since 2022, when students first tested after returning to in-person learning, ELA proficiency has climbed 8.8 points and math 9.1 points.
ELA proficiency is now the highest it has been since 2015, when the District switched standardized tests.
Where the gains landed
Third graders drove the sharpest improvement: math proficiency in that grade jumped 6.8 percentage points in a single year. Fourth grade math rose 4.4 points, fifth grade ELA rose 5.1 points and eighth grade ELA rose 5.7 points.
High schoolers were the exception. ELA proficiency for grades 9–12 dipped 1 point to 37.5%, and math held nearly flat at 14.8%.
Seven of eight wards gained in ELA. Ward 1 led at +4.1 points, followed by Ward 5 (+3.6) and Ward 8 (+3.1). Ward 2 was the only ward to decline, dropping 1.3 points. In math, all eight wards improved, with Ward 1 again on top at +3.4 points.
More than half of the city's 217 schools posted gains of at least 1 percentage point: 117 schools in ELA and 128 in math.
Gaps narrowing, but wide
Every student subgroup improved, according to OSSE's briefing data. Economically disadvantaged students gained 2 points in ELA and 1.6 in math. Students with disabilities gained 1.1 in ELA and 0.8 in math. English learners gained 1.8 in ELA and 2.4 in math.
By race, Hispanic and Latino students posted the largest ELA gain (+2.7 points) while Asian students led in math (+4.8 points). Black and African American students gained 1.7 points in ELA and 1.5 in math.
The share of students scoring at the lowest performance level fell in both subjects: down 2.1 points in ELA and 3.6 points in math.
What's behind the numbers
OSSE pointed to two major investments. The agency served more than 4,700 students in high-impact tutoring during 2025–26, with 69% of those students economically disadvantaged. A $50 million federal literacy grant covering fiscal years 2026–29 aims to reach 25,000 students across 15 school systems. Separately, the $20 million Capital Math Collective, a public-private partnership, will launch a citywide math professional learning community for teachers in October.
"Today's results show steady, citywide progress, especially in the early grades where strong foundations are built," State Superintendent Antoinette Mitchell said in the release.
DCPS interim Chancellor Kim Jackson said the system has "fully recovered from the pandemic in both ELA and math." DCPS-specific proficiency reached 44% in ELA and 33.3% in math, according to OSSE's briefing data.
National context
The Education Recovery Scorecard, as reported by Newsweek, found D.C. posted the largest reading and math recovery of any jurisdiction nationally between 2022 and 2025, gaining 0.335 grade levels in reading and 0.666 in math.
What's next
This was the final year of the DC CAPE test. Starting in 2026–27, students will take DC CAPE Next, a computer-adaptive assessment that will give teachers tools to evaluate student progress throughout the year. Individual student reports go home in September, and full school-level data will appear on the DC School Report Card in December.
