Christopher Peak Photo
John Taylor welcomes Booker T. Washington students.
The students in three New Haven charter elementary schools continue to outperform the state on tests of reading and math proficiency. But a measure of those students’ actual academic growth each year shows they’re mostly still just behind the state.
Those results were found in the latest set of scores released by the Connecticut State Department of Education for the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) test, which is used for elementary and middle school students in 15 states.
Achievement First’s Elm City College Preparatory, an elementary and a middle school, came out at the top on almost all measures. More than half the students — 54.8 percent — tested on grade level in math, and more than three-fifths — 62.8 percent — tested on grade level in reading. Both of those figures are about eight points higher than the statewide averages, which includes students from far different economic circumstances.
“At this time of year, we’re really digging into the data to see which grades and subjects were the most important ‘bright spots,’ so that we can replicate those practices across the other schools,” said Amanda Pinto, Achievement First’s senior director of communications. “Our schools are showing strong year-over-year growth, and Amistad Academy Elementary showed some of the highest growth of any of our Connecticut schools. We’ll be looking closely at all of these areas as we continue to refine our approach.”
Compared to New Haven’s traditional public schools, the charters came out far ahead on measures of proficiency. The gap in the percentage of students on grade level are as big as 30.4 points in reading and 33.6 points in math.
But the schools are clumped closer together on measures of growth, especially in reading.
Those scores are matched with individual students from year to year, making it an “apples to apples” comparison, one educator said. The state looks at whether kids are meeting the benchmarks to get slightly ahead of grade level. For students who are behind, the growth targets are meant to catch them up within five years.
In reading, Achievement First’s two charter schools are only 6 and 4.1 points ahead of traditional public schools on the average growth targets met, while Booker T. Washington is 8.1 points behind.
Similarly, in math, Achievement First is 18.3 and 7.1 points ahead on the average growth targets met, while Booker T. Washington is behind 32.8 points behind.
John Taylor, the executive director of Booker T. Washington Academy, said he plans to double down on this measure during the current school year.
“The reality is it’s all about growth. We believe in the growth mindset here: where they start is not where they finish,” he said. “We’re not panicking. It wasn’t an awful performance, but it’s not up to our standard.”
As the charter school builds from the ground up, with the oldest students in the old St. Stanislaus School building now starting fifth grade, this was the first time Taylor got a chance to see the state’s growth results.
Throughout the school year, Booker T. Washington’s teachers give students regular assessments, so Taylor said the test scores weren’t a surprise. He’d “predicted” them, “almost to a number,” he said.
Taylor said that the school had faltered last year in not adhering to its founding principles. In part, that’s because it brought several first-time teachers on board, who were still adjusting to the profession and the school’s culture.
“We had novice teachers in their first year who now understand what we’re trying to do and are able to help our kids more,” Taylor said. “We are getting really granular at an individual student level, and making sure we are mastering skills as we go, kid by kids. That’s our work here, and we probably didn’t focus on it as much as we would have liked.”
In particular, that will mean teachers throughout the building, from kindergarten up, hold a conference with each student every three weeks to set individual learning goals. That’s always been a part of the school’s model, but it wasn’t always implemented with fidelity last year, Taylor said.
“That’s where you get student buy-in and ownership, and the teacher can do some really targeted work with individual kids,” Taylor said. “If we had to put our finger on it, what would have been the place where we weren’t as good on that work as in prior years.”