Demographics and Performance: A D.C. School

Education Week spent six months reporting on how the District of Columbia’s vision of the common-core English/language arts standards is being put into practice in one 8th grade classroom at one school, Stuart-Hobson Middle School on Capitol Hill. The District of Columbia has taken on an aggressive K-12 implementation of the common standards, a particular challenge since its academic performance lags behind that of the United States as a whole. Stuart-Hobson Middle School faces fewer challenges to success than many of Washington’s schools, in part because it serves fewer disadvantaged children.