The nation’s capital should be a model for public schools. Instead, Washington, D.C., taxpayers pay among the highest in the nation per student—only to see it produce one of the worst outcomes year after year. Lisa Fletcher investigates.

The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

Melissa Terzis: “Are you excited? New day?”

Leia Terzis: “Yes!”

Melissa Terzis: “New school?”

Leia Terzis: “Yes!”

That’s 11-year-old Leia Terzis on her first day of sixth grade—she’s attending private school in nearby Maryland, even though she lives in Washington, D.C. Her mom, Melissa, decided to take Leia and her older sister, Mercina, out of D.C. public schools when it became clear the girls weren’t being properly prepared for middle school.

Lisa Fletcher: What are the main factors that drove your decision to move the girls from D.C. public schools into private?

Melissa Terzis: So, having a lack of confidence in some of the subjects—that they were going to be able to grasp what they needed to be successful in middle school and high school.

A glaring example jolted Melissa when her older daughter was in the second grade.

Melissa Terzis: She came home one day in September, and we said, “Oh, tomorrow’s a new month.” And she couldn’t figure out what month came after September. And we were thinking, what did we miss? Were we supposed to do that?

As for Leia, she struggled with math and was falling behind—lost in a sea of students.

Lisa Fletcher: Any thoughts on what the rest of your education is going to be like being in a private school? What do you want it to be?

Leia Terzis: I want it to be really organized in a way, and I want to be a lot more organized than I was at my old school because in my new school we get planners and we have to fill them out. We didn’t have that at the old school.

The Terzises’ decision to pay to put their girls in private school in another state is a result of a longstanding controversy in the nation’s capital: Washington, D.C., spends more per student than almost any other school system in the country—yet consistently ranks near rock bottom in terms of how well kids learn.

According to a 2024 report, taxpayers here spend close to twenty-seven thousand dollars per student each year—well above the national average and second only to New York.

Yet 67% of fourth graders can’t do math at grade level. Seventy percent are failing reading standards. By eighth grade, it gets worse—80% fall below grade level in math, 75% in reading.

Lisa Fletcher: As a parent, are you getting your money’s worth?

Melissa Terzis: No. We ended up bringing a tutor on in fourth grade for my older daughter because there were just concepts she wasn’t getting.

Karley Sessoms teaches fourth grade in Washington, D.C., public schools and believes district leadership is the problem—allowing students who struggle with the basics to advance.

Karley Sessoms: If we are moving children through the system that are not proficient in reading and writing and basic math, how are we serving that child? When back when they were nine or ten years old, we saw this potential path for the next five to seven years. It’s tragic.

Paul Kihn: We still have many students who are not achieving at their fullest potential.

We asked Paul Kihn about the criticisms from teachers like Sessoms. He’s D.C.’s deputy mayor for education, appointed by the mayor in 2018.

Lisa Fletcher: With so few eighth graders being proficient in math and reading, what’s the district’s policy on holding students back?

Paul Kihn: We do not typically hold students back unless they fail their classes. So if you pass your classes and you have achieved the milestones that we expect of you, then you can move on to the next grade. If you retain students, you actually end up with worse outcomes for those students than if you don’t.

Lisa Fletcher: Are taxpayers getting the value out of their dollar here?

Paul Kihn: Yes, a hundred percent. It’s true that we’re starting from a foundation that none of us would be proud of and that none of us want. But the question I think families ask is, are you actually doing your best to continue to improve the learning outcomes? There’s no “silver bullet” for any of this, but are we making the right investments that are causing our schools to do better and better? The answer is yes.

Thirty-three percent proficiency in fourth grade math doesn’t seem “better,” but Kihn points out that’s up from 24% just two years earlier—giving D.C. the biggest gain among urban districts. Still, it’s not good enough for families like the Terzises, who say they can’t afford to waste time.

Melissa Terzis: There’s so much stuff that happens to prep them for high school. We wanted to actually just get them out and get them into a private school where there would be a lot more hands-on education. They definitely get a lot more focus. They get a lot more attention. Nobody’s left behind.

Lisa Fletcher: A number of school systems similar in size to D.C. actually spend less and do better. For example, Austin, Texas, and Charlotte, North Carolina, spend about half of what D.C. does, but they do better on the nation’s report card test. However, among urban districts of this size, the D.C. public schools are the fastest-improving urban school district in the nation. And truthfully, these comparisons can be very difficult to make because there are a lot of variables—like population, demographics, and the number of students a district accommodates. In Washington, D.C., I’m Lisa Fletcher for Full Measure.

Watch video here.