He highlights the sections that relate to the five tests that make up the capt

They are held every may…sophomore take it in may, and they get the results in september, and they release it publically until november 3.

The test is a very difficult test. The state of Connecticut made this test with very high standards. I think what is so normal is that a lot of schools in Ct expect that on a lot of these standardized normed tests that districts such as Newtown are going to be in the 97th percentile, and the best schools in the state are only hitting in the 60th percentile.

“You hit 70%, that would be exceptional,” says the woman.

Schools that are really doing well are in the 50th and 60th percentiles.

They set very, very high standards. Students have to apply what they’ve learned academically to some kind of a performance task.

We’re pretty fortunate because we kind of believe in that too. Instead of learning for the sake of learning, can students learn and apply it?

You have to have knowledge.

In the math sections, you have to have knowledge in geometry and algebra, in science they ask a lot of facts. In the literature, it is strictly being able to comprehend passages.

You can’t regurgitate (information), you have to use it and apply it to a situation, so you have to know it and then apply it, which makes it interesting.

We think it’s a good test because we think it’s the way learning should happen in a school, but it also has every school stretching to ‘what can we do to get better and better.’”

All sophomores take the test, but if some students do not reach goal, they are encourage to take it again in their junior year.

This year’s class did exceptionally well. We went up in every area which we are very, very pleased about that.

Nice boast in langauge arts. Editing is the one area that everybody scores high across the board.

Three years ago we had the highest science score in their ERG group, and that was 57%.

Nice boost in interdiciplinary. What it is the application of skills across disciplines. It might have an environmental or controversial issue, and students are given perhaps five pieces of critical information, and they  have to read it, form an opinion, and then write a product, usually a letter to a senetor or something. Usually something where there is no one side, and they want students to take a stance.

Response to literature give one, significantly long passage, and they answer questions pertaining to that passage.

Math, they’ll give you questions, but besides arriving at the right answer, you have to explain how you arrived at such an answer.

5 days of testing, one subject per day, 3 hours of testing per day.

I’m really pleased with what our teachers have done. We don’t teach to the test. We do believe in performance standards. We always teach our kids to be able to learn information and then to apply it, so this test fits in to what we’re doing here in Newtown. And obviously our teachers deserve all of the credit for having our students improve like this.

We’re proud. This is a real bonus for us, plus I’m happy for our students.

Scores get put on their transcripts, and they are individual scores given to each student.

1995 was the first full year. 1994 was pilot year. This is its fifth year, so it is a relatively young tests.

All the test cares about is if the students reached goal, which the state sets up. They are set up as points, and if a student reaches a certain point level, then they are said to have reached goal. All they care about is if you’ve reached the standard knowledge base which they feel is appropriate for high school sophomores.

Newtown is in ERG group 2, which also has: bethel, brookfield, greenwich, farmington, glastonbury, madison, windsor

ERG group 1 wilton, darian, westport…wealthiest towns in ct, then second wealthiest towns. There are seven ERG groups in CT

When you compare scores state wide, us getting into the 60th percentiles is high; they’re exceptionals. In the past, schools that are similar to us are in the 40s and 50s.

ERG wise, there are going to be schools that are across the board lower then Newtown, and some schools that are across the boards higher than Newtown. Overall, we seem to be close to the top of the ERG, says Manfo.

Although kids might not like taking the test, when they find out how well they did, they smiles.

It is only five years old, so it has not had a chance to institutionalize itself like the SATs, so we don’t now as educators what colleges think of this, because it is fairly new. No doubt Connecticut colleges understand what this is, but as manfo pointed out, it might just boil down to another positive thing on a student’s transcript.

Connecticut is being looked at by other states because the test has such high standards. Connecticut is not afraid to be in the front on this.

So tell us, how does this really help our kids or hurt our students.

If our students do significantly worse than other students in our ERG, then we need to take a look at that, we should at least be equal. But I view it at NHS that I want to be better.

The problem with standardized tests is that you go from year to year. All we can know is how we’re doing with our daily stuff, how we’re doing with our students, with their performance, are they being able to get to where they want to go when they graduate, you can live and die on a standardized test. You can have one great year, and the next year you could flop, and sometimes you just can’t explain why.