In a classroom at Silver Lane Elementary School in East Hartford, third grade teacher Angela Landon, goes about her day, teaching her students how to write a biographical essay. Landon’s students are calm as they sit on a colorful rug in late May, awaiting the end of the school year.
Landon’s work day may seem ordinary, but the long term results from her teaching and that of other educators in her district ,are anything but ordinary. Thomas Kane, an economist and education professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, says standardized test scores in the district have improved significantly
Grades among third to 8th grade students in East Hartford are higher than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“East Hartford is distinctive, unfortunately, primarily in contrast to other similarly poor districts around Connecticut, which had not recovered, so East Hartford and Meriden are two of the only districts with higher poverty rates that are back above 2019 levels in math and reading,” Kane said.
Kane is also co-author of the Education Scorecard. It provides comprehensive analysis of school district academic achievement across the country. The scorecard was created by Harvard University and Stanford University researchers, in collaboration with Dartmouth University.
Researchers gauged student performance using data which included several standardized test scores; Connecticut’s smarter balanced assessments, and the National Assessment of Educational Progress, according to the state's Department of Education.
Connecticut ranked 13th, out of 38 in academic growth for reading and math from 2022 to 2025. But many poorer districts, such as Stratford, Danbury, Bridgeport, and other school districts, are still a half grade behind their 2019 levels, according to the scorecard. But overall, the state’s students continue to be more than half a grade below 2019 reading and math levels.
East Hartford’s academic improvement surpassed similar districts:
Findings from the Education Scorecard revealed East Hartford’s school district has done better at improving student’s reading and math outcomes, compared to similar districts which are also combating lack of funding, and high poverty rates among students.
While the findings show East Hartford has made strides compared to other low income districts in Connecticut, the findings slightly differ with what the scorecard labeled a “U-shaped recovery” where low income districts, showed the highest recovery rates across the country, alongside wealthier districts, while middle income districts, where between 30 to 70 percent of the student body qualifies for a reduced price or free meals, didn't recover as much according to the scorecard. A little over 61 percent of East Hartford's student body qualifies for free or reduced price meals. The lower income districts were helped by federal pandemic aid, which has since run out.
East Hartford Superintendent Thomas Anderson, credited the academic improvement to a number of changes including regularly holding data-driven meetings to oversee the curriculum, and increasing free or low cost resources for professional development.
Anderson also said the state run High-Dosage Tutoring Program, helped boost grades, by assisting the district in securing more math tutors.
“It came through a grant, and what we did with that was, you'd have students who would be taken out of class in small groups, everything is highly organized, very scheduled, and they'd work with a tutor in math during the regular school day,” Anderson said.
While other schools used federal pandemic aid to hire more permanent staff, Anderson said the district avoided doing so, knowing that using temporary relief aid would have been unsustainable. Anderson said as a result, the district did not face the same staffing cuts that other districts across the state faced as pandemic era relief funding ran out.
CT educators share why East Hartford grades improved:
Other education officials say the reason behind the academic improvement among East Hartford students is clear cut.
Fran Rabinowitz, the executive director of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, was once Bridgeport’s interim superintendent.
Rabinowitz said steady leadership is a factor.
“Tom Anderson has been there for a number of years now, and prior to that they had a superintendent for a very long time. So, I think consistency of leadership certainly helps matters,” Rabinowitz said.
Superintendents in other Connecticut school districts singled out for similar improvements to reading and math scores by the Education Scorecard, including Greenwich Public Schools superintendent Toni Jones, and Mark D. Benigni, superintendent of Meriden Public Schools, agreed that steady leadership is also a factor in interviews with Connecticut Public.
“I'm not saying it's the only reason, but I'm saying it's one of the factors, the superintendent has been there for a number of years, and so it's consistent leadership, consistent focus,” Benigni said.
But while East Hartford has made improvements, Kane said the district is academically still below average. Chronic absenteeism is also an issue, although the schools stated it has made improvements with the Learner Engagement and Attendance Program, according to the Education Scorecard.
East Hartford school district challenges:
East Hartford’s school district has a little over 6,500 students, but enrollment is down.
Anderson attributes the decline in part to raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. He said fearful parents have been keeping many of their children home from school.
“We probably went down probably a couple hundred students for this current year, as we're looking at projections for next year,” Anderson said.
School funding is also an issue; this year, the town approved a more than $100 million budget, but Anderson said it's not enough.
“Would we have liked to have worked it out to have gotten more, of course, but we have to be fiscally responsible, knowing that we are part of the town, so we look at to see what our needs are, and how we can better align with the other town agencies,” Anderson said.
One of the reasons behind those funding woes, is what education advocates have long said is the state’s failure to update its Education Cost Sharing Formula (ECS). The formula is used to shore up funding for low income school districts .
But despite those issues, the district has managed to recover, and can be a model for similar districts according to Kane.
“In Connecticut and nationally, we have seen an increase in inequality of achievement since 2019 and what East Hartford tells us is that that's not necessary, that it is possible to to recover and actually get students back at least to where they were in 2019,” Kane said.
Building community in the classroom:
East Hartford school Superintendent Thomas Anderson says his district places great value on all classes, not just the core curriculum. And that in turn is beneficial to students.
“Every class counts, so whether it's, you know, an elective class, where it's art or music or PE, you can see students at that level of engagement in all of those areas.”
Back at Silver Lane Elementary School, a student mentioned to her teacher, Angela Landon, that a family member lost their home in a fire.
Landon offers to help with a fundraiser.
“So, what we can do as a school and as a classroom, is we can bring in some coins, maybe some bills, and raise money for the family, so they can buy things that they need at this time,” Landon said.
Landon soon moved on to diagraming how to write an essay. Next door, another teacher was proctoring a math exam for her students.
Anderson said he’s optimistic about the district's ability to continue overcoming its challenges and announced plans to launch a STEM academy.
