(Updated: 5:56 p.m.) Fair Haven School’s principal helped steer students toward “unprecedented” gains in reading, as New Haven’s system struggles to close the achievement gap.
District-wide reading gains topped the list of the school system’s good news as scores were released Wednesday for two separate and closely watched standardized tests: the Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) for grades 3 to 8 and the Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) for the 10th grade.
Scores slipped on the CAPT tests, following a statewide trend.
Overall, the city inched forward towards closing the achievement gap between white students and their minority counterparts, but recognized it still has a long way to go. District-wide stores still lagged significantly behind statewide results.
For full stats on all the city’s schools, check the state’s website. (Click here to read about last year’s performance.)
The test results came as the city launches a sweeping effort for citywide school reform. Goals include closing the achievement gap and boosting CMT scores up to state average in six years. (Click here to read more.)
The reform plan includes measuring individual schools’ performance and closing schools that fail. Test scores will be one factor, but not the only factor, in deciding which schools have failed, said Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. Tuesday.
CMTs
Students taking the CMTs posted significant gains in mathematics and modest gains in writing in most grades. Reading success, including double-digit gains in some schools, could be seen in most but not all grades.
“Our struggle remains third-grade reading,” said Imma Canelli, assistant superintendent of schools of curriculum and instruction.
Fair Haven School was one of seven schools picked out as this year’s shining stars. The school was chosen to demonstrate the accomplishments of a new leadership team: Under the energetic supervision of Principal Kim Johnsky (in photo above), the school posted school-wide reading improvement, including gains of over 20 points in the fourth and sixth grades.
Here’s how the district performed on the 2009 test compared with 2008, in percentage of each grade level meeting “proficiency.” (Click here for a spreadsheet detailing each grade’s performance.)
Reading went up in all grades, though quite modestly in grade three. Students posted a 1.6 percent increase in grade 3; 6 percent in grade 4, 10.8 percent in grade 5, 4.7 percent in grade 6, 11.6 percent in grade 7, and 7.3 percent in grade 8.
Math scores generally went up. The greatest gains came in grade 7, which improved by 7.5 percent. Grades three and four fell behind slightly.
Writing scores fell four points in grade three and one point in grade four. The biggest gain came in grade five, with a 12 percent increase.
School officials suggested that only looking at one year’s data gives an unfair snapshot of success. If you look at the growth over four years, the numbers are better: Third-grade reading went up 6.3 percent from 2006 to 2009, for example.
School officials’ goal, as the mayor stated Tuesday night, is to be the “best urban district in America.” The school system produced a spreadsheet boasting that they are outpacing Hartford and Bridgeport in test scores in nearly all grade levels in reading and math.
“These are incredible numbers. This is what some urban districts dream of,” said Catherine McCaslin, director of research assessment and student information, in a briefing with the Independent Wednesday.
Education watchdogs ConnCAN had a different take. In a news release late Wednesday afternoon, it praised Hartford for leading the state’s five biggest urban districts in performance gains. Instead of looking at yearly improvement, ConnCAN focuses on performance gains as well as how the same group of students improves over time.
Click here for the group’s analysis.
Achievement Gap
The CMT scores showed the city inching towards its goal of closing a vast achievement gap between white students and their minority counterparts — one of the biggest challenges and one of the central goals of the school reform initiative.
“We still have a long way to go to eliminate our achievement gaps,” said schools chief Reggie Mayo, “but we’re headed in the right direction.”
School officials issued achievement gap numbers only for reading. (Again, the metric used is percent of students scoring “at proficiency” on the test.)
Over the past four years, the achievement gap in reading has been whittled down by only a few points, according to the school system.
From 2006 to 2009, black students in grades 3 to 8 gained about 10 points on reading scores, jumping from 38.9 points on the test, to an average of 48.8. Hispanics posted similar gains, from 37.4 to 48.5.
Their white counterparts improved too, remaining far ahead of them on tests. White students’ test scores jumped from 74.9 to 81.9 on reading, leaving them 36 points ahead of blacks, and 37.5 points ahead of Hispanics.
Connecticut has the nation’s largest achievement gap. Statewide, ConnCAN called progress in closing the gap “minimal.”
“Despite encouraging progress from some of our largest cities towards closing our worst-in-the-nation achievement gap, progress statewide was marginal at best,” said ConnCAN Chief Executive Officer Alex Johnston in a press statement.
“We must redouble our commitment to improving Connecticut’s public schools,” he said.
10th Grade Struggles
Overall, the city’s 10th graders slid back a few points on math, reading, writing and science on the CAPT tests, with the lag most pronounced in writing and science. This mirrored a statewide trend.
Schools chief Reggie Mayo said that with some notable exceptions, “we’re not where we wanted to be this year in terms of our CAPT scores.”
Some highlights: Co-op High School saw gains in all areas, including a 23.6 percent in reading and a 7.3 percent boost in writing scores. A total of 109 students took the test.
New Haven Academy struggled, sinking 26.8 percent on writing scores. School officials were quick to point out that only 46 students took the test, so a few low scores can easily sink the average.
Canelli said she’s convening a district-wide meeting to develop an action plan for improving results.
One question she’ll ask the principals is, “do you have your best teachers with the ninth and tenth graders?” Canelli also said the school system needs to provide the high schools better data to tailor their instruction.
The real story here is the WIDER gap between white and non-white students' test scores. Any theories? Damn embarrassing.