Since everyone else is talking about CAPT and CMT scores, we felt we had to join the fray.
It is interesting that West Hartford seems to be consistently compared to neighboring towns like Simsbury, Avon and Farmington when we talk about real estate and business, in fact there is competition for homebuyers between us and those lovely towns; but when it comes to education, West Hartford suddenly cannot be compared with "those rich white towns". We are in the same District Reference Group (DRG) containing the towns of Avon, Brookfield, Cheshire, Fairfield, Farmington, Glastonbury, Granby, Greenwich, Guilford, Madison, Monroe, New Fairfield, Newtown, Orange, Reg. Dist 15, Reg. Dist 5, Simsbury, South Windsor, Trumbull, Woodbridge
People argue that we are demographically different than any of those towns, because we are right outside of Hartford and we share Hartford's urban issues of single parent families, lower income families, and kids from families that do not speak English as their first language. Therefore we should be in some other DRG. And yet, those places named in our DRG are places that homebuyers looking in West Hartford also look to to buy a home. So our town is either making excuses for not being at the top of their game, or we are no longer comparable to those communities in our DRG. Probably we have become more like Newington or Manchester or someplace else that has high taxes, big homes and poor, troubled kids. The "rich white folk" that we hear so much about who are sipping their lattes in West Hartford will be loathe to hear the news that we shouldn't compare our school system to Farmington or Avon.
No matter how you want to interpret the results, it looks like for the money we spend, roughly $11,030 per student, we should be doing much better. But then again, studies say that the amount spent really has no correlation to performance, although many who support ever growing education budgets will dispute that all day long.
West Hartford's CAPT scores of meeting state goal (which is a higher standard then proficiency in a subject area) weren't anything spectacular. The went up in some areas just slightly. Wow.
| Math | Science | Reading | Writing | |
| 2008 | 59.3 | 64.6 | 64 | 69.8 |
| 2007 | 56.8 | 63.9 | 62 | 68.3 |
Certainly not as great as Farmington
| Math | Science | Reading | Writing | |
| 2008 | 74.1 | 70.2 | 71.7 | 85.4 |
| 2007 | 76.4 | 74.9 | 73.9 | 79 |
or Avon
| Math | Science | Reading | Writing | |
| 2008 | 79.3 | 76.1 | 74.6 | 77.4 |
| 2007 | 79.6 | 78.3 | 71.2 | 85 |
or Simsbury
| Math | Science | Reading | Writing | |
| 2008 | 82.2 | 80.7 | 88 | 90.8 |
| 2007 | 82 | 75.5 | 78.7 | 83.3 |
or South Windsor (except in Reading)
| Math | Science | Reading | Writing | |
| 2008 | 72.6 | 66.3 | 59.8 | 70.7 |
| 2007 | 63.2 | 54.8 | 57.1 | 63.2 |
or even Newington who did better in Math and Writing
| Math | Science | Reading | Writing | |
| 2008 | 60.8 | 52.4 | 56.7 | 75.3 |
| 2007 | 60.3 | 55.3 | 60.1 | 62.3 |
Our Connecticut Mastery Test Scores were also ok, but again, nothing spectacular. (check them out on the Hartford Courant website)
West Hartford's DRG is here below:
Regarding our CMT scores, it looks as if West Hartford is at the bottom of this DRG, even being beaten out by South Windsor in 14 of the 20 measurements, and we are way behind Avon, Farmington and Simsbury.
The explanation will certainly be that although our real estate is just as comparable to these towns, our families economics and our kids are not. It's nice we are above state averages, but it looks like we have a lot of room for improvement and we are no longer even in the top 10 performing school districts.We are good - but it's time to face the facts that we have a bunch of catching up to do.
Let the excuses and debate begin.
2 WH Responses:
I don't think I can bear hearing or seeing out town blame minority children for our test scores one more year. I cannot believe the minority families do not rise up to complain about the BOE segregating the white scores from the minorities' scores. What a public disgrace. Where's the NAACP on this issue?
And when Chip Ward does this inappropriate disgusting presentation to our BOE, will he then be admitting that our White Suburb cannot in fact teach minority students? Are these students unteachable, if this is the case?
Why won't the public wake up to face the facts as they are. Our system is designed for children to fail to get more money from the state and feds. Who else to pin it on but poor minority children. What a disgrace! I'm embarrassed to be a part of such a town.
With the exception of 1 member, those on the BOE have been there for several years. They have participated in this cycle before, and they leave the Administration alone, worse they praise them and go around raving about how good our school system is.
They want to compare us economically to Avon, Farmington and Simsbury but when it comes to education they claim this is an inappropriate comparison.
The time has come for the BOE to demand that the Administration get serious improving the level of education in this town. The performance this year was no differnet than the past 7. CAPT testing has cycled up ~2 pts down ~2pts since 2001 - it looks like a sine wave. This year we just about hit rock bottom in our DRG.
1-When these tests are all people have to evaluate a school system when choosing a place to live it will have to have a detrimental effect on property values.
2- It is my understanding that one of the current administration members wants to be considered for the superintendants position. Based on the perfomance of the last 7 yrs she should be disqualified immediately!
3- The proposed DIP should be scrapped immediately. It was drawn up because of last years performance and did nothing to help this years class of students. It will not have data until next year so the 2009 Tests will not be affected by the DIP. The Administration and teachers know who the students are that are having problems the money would be better spent getting to those sutdents and their parents.
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