http://cptv.vo.llnwd.net/o2/ypmwebcontent/Chion/do%20120723%20CMT%20data.mp3
A new way to interpret Connecticut Mastery Test scores reveals a different picture of academic improvement in the state’s schools. This measure looks at whether students are growing over time.
Vertical scales match a student from year to year, say from the first year of CMT testing in third grade to fourth grade. The system compares how that student performs one year to the next despite the more advanced material.
By this measure, students across Connecticut - from economically advantaged and disadvantaged communities, from different racial and ethnic groups – all tend to make roughly the same amount of improvement in math and reading.
But Robert Cotto, senior policy fellow for CT Voices for Children says a few important trends emerge.
"Students are coming in in third grade with very big differences in where they begin on the CMT in math and reading. And so it would suggest that the resources that we do have available really should be focused on the early years, so we’re talking about pre-natal to grade three."
Especially, he says, because students may improve at about the same rate over time, but they tend to remain within the same level they start out in, and most low income children start out at much lower levels than their more affluent peers.
"This helps to explain why it is year after year, students do improve, there are more students that are at proficient and a greater percentage that are at goal, but its very slow going."
In May, the U.S. Department of Education granted to Connecticut a waiver from certain provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act. The waiver allows for more flexible metrics to measure school and student performance.
Earlier this month Governor Malloy awarded 1,000 new early childhood seats to providers across the state, part of his education reform package. The majority went to providers in priority school districts and half went to the lowest-performing school districts in Connecticut.
