Nearly half of students go to a school outside their ward

Ward boundaries aren't the same thing as school boundaries, but the fact that nearly half of public school students in most parts of the city go to school outside their ward speaks to how much DC families have embraced school choice.

Kids in wards 2, 4, 6, and 7 have increasingly attended school outside their wards, while kids in wards 3 and 5 have chosen schools in their home wards. Looking at wards 4, 7, and 8 – where most of the city's children live – we can see that, over time, fewer kids have decided to go to school in their home ward.

The map on the right shows where kids in each ward went to school in 2012. Select a ward, and the lines that branch out represent students attending school in another ward. The greater the number of students, the thicker the line. The box on the far right lists the top three wards where students from the selected ward attended school.

While some families are voting with their feet by seeking out high-quality schools or schools with special programs in other wards, the fact that students leave their ward to attend school doesn't necessarily mean their neighborhood schools are bad.

In Ward 2, for example, only 34 percent of children attended school in their ward in 2012, down from 56 percent in 2003. However, Ward 2 has only two high schools, both of which are specialized, application-only schools; this helps explain why so many Ward 2 residents go to schools in other wards. And some of the best schools in the city are in Ward 2, according to the Office of the State Superintendent of Education's academic growth score.

Although there's some evidence that charters tend to improve students' test scores more than the nearest DCPS option, charters are not universally better. DCPS and charters count great schools and troubled schools among their ranks. For example, the two best high schools in the city, as measured by their students' academic growth, are Thurgood Marshall Academy (a charter located east of the Anacostia River) and DCPS's McKinley Technology High School in Eckington.