Latest Test Scores Show Room for Improvement, Landon Says

Reflecting on the latest standardized test scores released by the State Department of Education, Superintendent of Westport Public Schools Elliott Landon said Tuesday that "good is not good enough for us."

The results of the 2010 Connecticut Mastery Test and Connecticut Academic Performance Test are in — two exams administered every spring to measure proficiency in math, reading, writing and science.

The results indicate Westport is far ahead of the state as a whole and competitive with surrounding districts.

"But we're never satisfied," Landon said. "We can always do better."

The CMT, which is taken by more than 240,000 public school students in grades 3 through 8, consists of seven hours of testing over the month of March. Students are graded on a scale of 1 ("below basic") to 5 ("advanced") on each section. Though the test is not pass/fail, Connecticut sets a goal range and a proficiency level for each grade and subject.

The CAPT is administered only to tenth graders—some 40,000 statewide—and consists of eight hours of multiple choice and free response questions. Students who fail to score at or above the state-mandated proficiency level are required to retest in grades 11 and/or 12.

For the CAPT, of the 420 or so students tested, scores improved in math, science, reading and writing across the board in Westport by a few percentage points over the year before. Comparing Staples High School to high schools in surrounding towns, Westport students scoring at or above goal earned the highest marks in math along with Wilton High School. For those scoring at or above proficiency in math, Westport was behind Ridgefield and New Cannaan districts by a percentage point.

In the other categories, Westport is ahead of some schools and behind others in a difference of a few percentage points.

Schools in the District Reference Group encompassing Westport all scored as high as 30 percentage points more than the statewide results. The weakest subject for tenth graders seems to be science for those scoring at or above goal. In the science test, Westport students scored 77 percent at or above goal. That's below Wilton (78 percent) and New Canaan (80.5 percent) but better than Darien students who scored at or above goal of 67 percent.

For middle schools, grades six through eight performed at levels about equal to the year before, performing in the 90-percent range at both Bedford and Coleytown Middle Schools.

Of the elementary grades three through five in Westport, third grade scores declined in reading and writing.

Some notable achievements include Coleytown Elementary School fifth graders scoring 100 percent proficiency in math and Saugatuck Elementary School fifth graders improved their science scores compared to last year's results.

In areas where the district did not perform as strongly, Landon said administrators would address how the curriculums may not be addressing those issues and modify it as appropriate.

While many school districts "teach the test," Landon said Westport is not like that, which could be perceived as a problem from a standardized test perspective.

"We're not test crazy so our primary interest is what are we looking to have kids learn," Landon said. "You are dealing with the issue of how do you compare with other districts and that is always something we're cognizant of but we don't want that to interfere with our focus on having kids learn and love learning rather than being bored and being directed only towards test prep."

Third graders historically don't perform as well as other grades in Westport, Landon said, adding that the school district would examine why that occurs.

"We don't test prep the kids in grade 3," Landon said. "We make sure they read and write and meet certain learning outcomes and we anticipate they will do well but we don't push them on it."

Landon said the district would evaluate where it is spending too much time on one type of assignment as opposed to another and where it could place additional effort.

"There's nothing serious in here (in terms of red flags for the district) but we always want to be better than we are," Landon said.

For full test results on the CMT click here. For the CAPT results, click here.