Connecticut Schools Still Awaiting Test Score Data

With less than three weeks of summer vacation left, school officials statewide are still waiting to see the results of the past school year’s new state standardized tests, which were taken in the spring.

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • linkText
  • Email
(TNS) -- With less than three weeks left in the summer vacation, Greenwich school officials and their counterparts around the state are still waiting to see the results of the past school year’s new state standardized tests. This spring, students in grades 3 through 8 and 11 took the online Smarter Balanced Assessments in English language arts and math to measure their progress in meeting the Common Core State Standards. Known as the SBAs or SBACs, the exams replaced the Connecticut Mastery Tests and Connecticut Academic Performance Tests in those subjects. In science, the CMTs are still given in grades five and eight, the CAPTs in 10th grade.

School officials had expected the Smarter Balanced results to be released several weeks ago, but they still do not know when the scores will be posted.

The delay could complicate educators’ plans to implement a new system that aims to predict each student’s academic progress or “growth” because the Smarter Balanced scores are one of the key sources of data.

“We do not have a new estimated release date,” said Kim Eves, the school district’s communications director.

“The last correspondence we received on the topic from CSDE (the state Education Department) was Aug. 3.”

In the Aug. 3 message, state officials said local educators would be able to see the results that same week, but they did not make the deadline, Eves said.

A call Thursday to the state Department of Education seeking a comment on the reason for the delay in the scores’ release was not returned by press time.

Board of Education Chairman Barbara O’Neill has said that school officials and parents need to take a long-term view of the scores.

“The scores will serve as a benchmark for future years,” O’Neill said. “Scores from a single year on a new and vastly different test cannot accurately provide achievement data but can provide guidance on where instruction matches and where instruction needs to be more in line with the new format.”

The SBAs were first given in 2014, but they were trial versions. Students did not see their scores. District and school results were not released either.

This year, the SBAs count.

Changes are already being made in response to criticism of the tests.

The SBAs have been panned by juniors at Greenwich High and throughout the state.

Many 11th-graders have said they resented having to take 10 hours of Smarter Balanced tests when they already were taking a series of others, including SATs, ACTs and Advanced Placement exams this year. The CAPTs tested math and English skills in 10th grade.

©2015 The Advocate (Stamford, Conn.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.


  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • linkText
  • Email