How Newtown Fares With CAPT Scores

By Susan Coney

Results of the Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) for Newtown tenth graders who were tested in March of 2005 were released this past August, indicating that Newtown students were performing somewhat above average in math and slightly below the average in science, reading, and writing in relation to other comparable schools in the area.

Newtown scored significantly higher than the state average in every section of the four-part assessment.

The Connecticut General Statutes mandate that a statewide assessment be given to all public school students in the tenth grade. The purpose of the testing is to promote improved learning by setting high performance standards on a wide range of important skills and knowledge; emphasize the application and integration of skills and knowledge in realistic contexts; provide assessment of students’ strengths and weaknesses and provide accountability for all levels of the Connecticut educational system from elementary school through high school.

The CAPT is made up of four subtests: language arts, mathematics, science, and interdisciplinary.

The language arts portion includes two parts.

The response to literature section asks students to read a story and respond in writing.

The editing section assesses the students’ understanding of capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and grammar, including sentence structure and word usage.

The mathematics test assesses computation, estimation, and problem solving skills in such content areas as geometry, statistics, probability, functions, and algebra, to name a few.

The science portion tests skills and knowledge from the areas of life, physical, and earth/space science. Students answer both multiple choice questions and open-ended questions.

Finally, the interdisciplinary portion assesses students’ knowledge gained through their study of social studies, science, math, language arts, and other classes.

Approximately 99 percent of the 430 tenth graders enrolled at the high school participated in all four tests. The good news for Newtown is that out of the students who took the test the combined percentage of the students who need intervention and those with invalid scores is below five percent.

Students who achieve the state goal on any subtest receive certification of mastery in that area on their high school transcript. Students who do not meet the goal in any area are strongly encouraged to retake those parts of the test in grades 11 and 12. All Newtown parents receive a score report to indicate their child’s performance in relation to the state academic goal.

Newtown students are compared to other students from the surrounding area that are from their Educational Reference Group (ERG) which is a classification of districts whose students’ families are similar in education, income, occupation, and need and that have roughly similar enrollment numbers.

Reference Group Comparisons

The CAPT scores for spring of 2005 as compared to Newtown’s ERG indicate that Newtown scored slightly higher in math with 70.8 percent of students at or above goal as compared to 69.3 percent in the ERG. However, Newtown students scored below the average for the ERG in science, reading and writing.

In science 62.7 percent of the students scored at or above goal compared to 69.1 percent for the ERG. In reading, Newtown scored 66.7 percent at or above goal compared to 71.2 percent for the ERG, and in writing Newtown scored 73.8 percent at or above goal compared to 75.3 percent for the ERG.

Richard Mooney from the Bureau of Research, Evaluation and Student Assessment at the State Department of Education recommends that school districts set a goal of being in the top half of the ERG for CMT and CAPT.

Assistant Superintendent Alice Jackson stated, “It is important to remember that the CAPT is not a measure of ninth or tenth grade; it is a measure of kindergarten through tenth grade. What you do at the lower grades affect what [students] are able to do in high school. What we are looking for is a steady climb over time. We look at strengthening areas of weakness, we look at factors such as teacher turnover and other changes that affect the test.” She continued by saying that it takes two to three years to make an effective long range turn upward.

Ms Jackson went on to say that only 20 percent of the CAPT remains the same from the year before and that every five years the test is totally revised. She stated that it is a rigorous test that provides the district with feedback on how the students are progressing and can be used to compare to previous years’ scores. The school corporation keeps track of CAPT scores as well as results from the Connecticut Mastery Tests given in grades 4, 6 and 8 to study how a class as a whole is progressing, which assists the school system in strengthening areas of weakness.

The score comparisons between male and female students also help in addressing the need to alter the curriculum when weaknesses are detected and to track growth. A breakdown by the Connecticut State Department of Education for the 2005 Connecticut Academic Performance Tests for Newtown indicate the following discrepancies of test results based on gender. In mathematics 71.5 percent of the females met goal compared to 70.2 percent of the males. In science 66.1 percent of the males met goal compared to 59.1 percent of the females. For reading across the disciplines 78.3 percent of females met goal compared to 55.8 percent of males; and for writing across the disciplines 86 percent of females met goal compared to 62.2 percent of males.

Assistant Superintendent Alice Jackson said that the school district is consistently addressing areas of weakness. She has made it her mission to get into the schools and make certain that more male-friendly reading material is offered at every level. For example Ms Jackson has seen to it that curriculums such as those of the Power Technical course offered at the high school has added more reading and writing opportunities for students.

The Newtown School District emphasizes that the CAPT results are but one indicator of individual and collective student achievement. Scores are analyzed to see if students are making progress within the standard areas and to help identify curriculum and instructional areas that need to be addressed. Newtown has historically focused on the whole child and uses test assessments as just one measure of success.