School officials presented some discouraging data to the Board of Education last week: in many cases, student improvement has flatlined or declined, while the poverty rate among students has increased.
The details come from the district’s recently-released 2008-09 Strategic School Profile, a state report that tracks demographics, test scores and other types of performance in each school district across Connecticut.
“It’s not a pretty picture,” said Assistant Superintendent Diane Conway of test results outlined in the report. “This is district-wide, so you don’t see the pockets of strength.”
Background
Students in 3rd to 8th grades take the Connecticut Mastery Tests, and high school sophomores take the CAPT exams each year. The percentage of students who reach different levels (Basic, Proficient, Goal or Advanced) affects the school and district’s standing for No Child Left Behind requirements.
Eventually, all students will be required to meet the proficiency levels on the state tests. And educators are given the task of closing achievement gaps between minority and white students, and between poor and affluent children.
In order to meet those goals, the number of students who reach the higher test levels has to increase each year. (Click here to read about the district’s restructuring as a result of failing to meet some No Child Left Behind requirements.)
Some Bad News
That’s why even stagnant achievement levels concern educators. And when fewer students meet certain testing levels, it’s doubly concerning.
That’s what happened in many cases in Ansonia schools last year.
Performance on the CAPT, for example, has fallen for the fourth straight year. (See chart at the top of the story for a year-by-year and subject breakdown of performance.)
In Science, half as many students in 2008-09 compared to 2005-06 reached the goal level on the CAPT. Goal is more demanding than the proficiency level.
“We’re not happy with the CAPT results,” said principal Susan McKernan. “We dipped a little bit this year. There was a dip in writing.”
McKernan said students in a writing class lost a teacher mid-year, which caused a “significant interruption,” which might have played a role in the lower scores.
More Bad News
In some cases students improved, but not at the same pace with their peers around the state.
Assistant Superintendent for Special Education, Katherine Gabrielson, said a couple years ago Ansonia special education students achieved at roughly the same level as special education students statewide and in the District Reference Group – a grouping of schools by similarities like parent education level and demographics.
Now, Gabrielson said, Ansonia special education students are almost a percentage point behind the state and District Reference Group averages.
And some good news – for example, the achievement gap between Hispanic and white students at the high school tightened – was tempered by discouraging undertones.
The Hispanic-white achievement gap closed a little because Hispanic students continued to improve, but white students stayed the same.
“We’re not seeing a rise in the performance of our white students,” McKernan said. “We do not want to see the achievement gap closing because our white students have stopped improving. That is not the goal.”
The district also had no students identified as Gifted and Talented for the past several years, something officials said isn’t reflective of the student body.
“It’s not only odd,” Conway said, answering a question from a board member on the lack of Gifted and Talented students, “it’s something we need to get back in place.”
Poverty levels increase
Factors such as poverty levels and the number of students who don’t speak English are traditionally indicators of lower test scores, so an increase in those figures can mean districts have further to go to meet state requirements.
In 2008-09, more than half the students in Ansonia qualified for free and reduced price lunch, an indicator of poverty. The number is almost 10 percent higher than the number in 2005-06. (See chart.)
The number of minority students in the district has also increased to about 45 percent from about 41 percent in 2005-06, and only about 30 percent in 2000-01.
“We know that impacts all of our work,” Conway said. “It definitely impacts all of the curriculum we are developing because we have to be very culturally responsive.”
Bright Spots
The report wasn’t entirely bad.
The drop-out rate at the high school improved, more students took the SATs and in several places achievement in math was better.
In 3rd grade math, for example, more than 60 percent of the students met the goal performance level on the CMTs in 2008-09. In 2005-06, only about 41 percent of 3rd graders reached the same benchmark. In 2008-09, almost 89 percent of 3rd graders met proficient levels in math, another increase from previous years.
“It’s phenomenal,” said Mead School principal Terri Goldson of similar increases in 4th and 5th grade math scores. “We are working really hard, and we’ve made some remarkable gains.”
And the report doesn’t highlight all the information.
At the middle school, for example, the report show a similar number of students who meet the state goal, but doesn’t show improvements made with the number of students who meet proficient levels.
“Look at the numbers in proficiency,” said Ansonia Middle School principal Lynn Bennett-Wallick. “The numbers are all going up. They’re not going down. So we’re moving forward. We can’t do everything all at once, but this shows you that we are making progress.”
