The Board of Ed got its report card Friday in the form of state standardized-testing results, and Principal Cheryl W. Brown (pictured) was a star pupil: Her third-graders’ reading scores shot up 24 percent.
Brown, the principal of the Conte-West Hills Magnet School, was one of two schools cited statewide by State Education Commissioner Mark K. McQuillan for outstanding progress in reading.
She was on hand for a press conference Friday afternoon at the Board of Ed to discuss the 2007 Connecticut Mastery Test results, a widely used barometer for progress in public schools.
While reading scores dropped statewide, New Haven was proud that scores for the city’s third- and sixth-graders rose, not just in reading but in math. Fourth-graders’ scores declined, and writing scores generally stayed flat.
To examine the results, click here to access the state’s education website, which offers a school-by-school breakdown. Click here to read a Board of Ed release showing the New Haven trends, including charts about the achievement gap. Click here for a Board of Ed spreadsheet with school-by-school stats (Excel required).
Citywide , on average grade 3 reading scores at proficiency levels increased by 7 percent, grade 6 by 2 percent. In math New Haven also showed gains of on average 5 percent in grades 3, 5, and 6, with 9 percent in grade 7. Ima Canelli (pictured below), assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, called the scores posted for the third and sixth grade “magnificent.”
“This is indeed the time of year we hold our breath,” said Superintendent Reginald Mayo, in a brief presentation with Canelli before Brown and other principals “We are by no means in the promised land, but we have made progress. And it’s all about progress.”
Indeed, even with these improvements only 39 percent of New Haven Public School third-graders are proficient in reading and 64 percent in math. Only about half of the sixth grade (49 percent) is reading at proficiency, and 62 percent are proficient in math.
“Proficiency,” explained Canelli, is like a 3 out of CMT’s 5 possible levels, with two troubled levels below proficiency, and two levels of excellence above it. Achieving “proficiency” is what keeps a student, a class, a school, an entire district out of the No Child Left Behind doghouse.
Canelli, Mayo, and Brown said data-driven assessments, administered at least every six weeks, helped target specific areas for students and teacher to re-focus on. Brown said that in January, for example, when her quarterly assessment in math showed her students wanting, the whole school was mobilized to teach math. All teachers spent an hour and a half a day on it, including the principal. The decline was arrested, and math scores went up on the CMTs for Conte-West Hills as well.
“Data-driven approaches,” she said, “with lots of coaching, mentoring, and modeling for our students make the difference.”
One area of concern to Mayo and the principals was writing, where progress was flat, although those scores district-wide still come in at levels higher than reading and math. The district has focused its new data-driven approaches on math and reading. Progress there is the measure, in the lingo of No Child Left Behind (the zeitgeist in which all this operates), of “AYP,” or adequate yearly progress.
Regarding the writing Mayo said, “Sometimes the scoring in writing is more subjective. Nevertheless, we’re disappointed. We’ll look at some of our schools that did well, and take lessons from them. I think we should also institute the quarterly assessments for writing as we’ve done in math and reading, and that should lead to additional progress.”
Grade 4 students (those now going entering grade 5), Mayo said, were a chief concern, where in almost all areas, the scores indicated declines.
Other highlights the BOE has called attention to incluce Lincoln-Basset School’s overall gains in the third grade in all three content areas, math, reading,and writing: 16 percent, 35 percent, and 38 percent, respectively. Troup’s increase in grade 7 math proficiency was 34 percent; Katherine Brennan’s 27 percent increase in 8th grade math, and King-Robinson’s double-digit increases in reading in grades 3, 5, and 7 were also positively cited.