nothin Charter School Earns Distinction | New Haven Independent

Charter School Earns Distinction

Elm City College Prep, a K‑8 charter school run by Achievement First, was one of 97 Connecticut schools to earn top recognition in new school rankings the state released Saturday.

The state Department of Education on ranked Connecticut public schools using a new classification system. It state ranked every public school on a 100-point scale School Performance Index based on student achievement, change in student achievement, student growth, college- and career-readiness, subgroup performance and college- and career-readiness, and school climate,” according to a state press release. The rankings are based on two state standardized tests from 2011 and 2012: the Connecticut Mastery Test for grades 3 to 8, and the Connecticut Academic Performance Test for high school sophomores.

The state switched to the new method of grading schools as part of a deal it made with the federal government to waive the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The new classifications will replace the NCLB sanctions and the black list” of schools failing to make Adequate Yearly Progress. The state plans to release the full list this week of including every public school’s score, and where it falls into one of five categories — excelling,” progressing,” transitioning,” review/focus” and turnaround.”

On Saturday, the state announced which schools fell into two of the main categories — review and turnaround — and which ones it chose to highlight as schools of distinction.”

Elm City College Prep was the only New Haven school highlighted as a school of distinction.” Schools earned that title for overall student test scores, test scores among underperforming subgroups of kids, and improvement on the tests. Elm City College Prep won because one subgroup, black students, scored the highest in the state, along with Clark Lane Middle School in Waterford. Schools of distinction will get celebratory and financial recognition, and may receive flexibility from certain state requirements,” according to the state’s NCLB waiver application, which the feds approved in May.

Eleven city schools — Barnard, Jepson, Bishop Woods, Celentano, Clinton Avenue, East Rock Community Magnet, Fair Haven, High School In The Community (HSC), Hyde Leadership, King/Robinson, and Lincoln-Bassett — fell on a watch list of review schools,” among the lowest-performing in the state. Schools on that list either had CMT/CAPT participation rates below 95 percent, four-year cohort graduation rates below 60 percent, or scored below 64 on the 100-point School Performance Index, over three years. Schools can graduate off the watch list if they beat those thresholds two years in a row.

A subset of these New Haven schools are high-needs focus schools,” a designation that allowed them to share in a total of $3.8 million in extra state money this year. HSC is getting $1.5 million from the state to take part in a new network of turnaround schools in the state Commissioner’s Network; read a series about that school here.

Five New Haven schools fell into the bottom category of turnaround schools,” failing schools that must take on significant interventions” if they haven’t already. The five schools — Roberto Clemente Leadership, Hill Central, James Hillhouse, Brennan/Rogers, and Wilbur Cross — have already launched federally sanctioned turnaround” efforts through the School Improvement Grant program, complete with multi-million federal grants.

The new state classifications do not replace New Haven’s local system of grading schools into three tiers and managing them accordingly. Read about that here and here.

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