How Did Durham and Middlefield Students Score on the SBAC?

The State Department of Education recently released statewide scores for the new Smarter Balanced exams.

State officials say that 55.4 percent of students meet or exceed the achievement level in English language arts, which exceeded their expectation. In math, 39.1 percent of students met or exceeded the achievement level, matching state officials’ expectations.

“Connecticut has delivered strong results in reading compared to other states in the nation,” Commissioner Wentzell said in a statement. “We are pleased to see that our students exceeded our preliminary estimates in English language arts and we look forward to seeing them continue to grow stronger in this area.”

Addressing the math results, Wentzell announced that she will convene educators, industry and business leaders, and experts in math and STEM instruction on a Commissioner’s Council on Mathematics.

How did students in Durham and Middlefield fare?

In Region 13, 11.1 percent of students did not meet expectations in English language arts, 24.2 percent of students are approaching the achievement level, 38.6 percent of students met the achievement level, while 26.1 percent of students exceeded the achievement level.

In math, 21.6 percent of students did not meet expectations, 33.5 percent of students are approaching the achievement level, 26.8 percent of Region 13 students met the achievement level while 18.1 percent exceeded it.

State officials had anticipated the scores to look dramatically lower compared to previous years with the new Common Core aligned exams with significantly tougher questions intended to test real-world skills. While officials say the results cannot be compared to previous years, the achievement gap remains as wide as with the Mastery Test.

A statement released by Connecticut Education Association President Sheila Cohen questions the validity of the results adding that the CEA is committed to students in the state to get testing right.

In 2015, the Smarter Balanced tests replaced the old state tests, the Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) and Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) in both ELA and math for students in Grades 3–8 and 11 statewide. In total, approximately 267,000 students took the Smarter Balanced exams in 2015, the first operational year of the new state assessments. In 2014, about 90 percent of school districts administered the Smarter Balanced field test in lieu of the CMT and CAPT tests.

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