How Did Newtown Students Score On State Tests? See 2025-26 Results

NEWTOWN, CT — How well are Newtown students doing in English and math? Newly released state test results offer a look at student performance during the 2025-26 school year.

Newtown students substantially outpaced statewide results, with 69.9 percent meeting the English standard and 72.9 percent meeting the math standard, according to data released by the Connecticut State Department of Education.

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Statewide, 51 percent of students met or exceeded the English standard and 46.7 percent met or exceeded the math standard.

The results are based on Smarter Balanced assessments administered to students in grades 3 through 8. The percentages represent the share of tested students who met or exceeded the state's achievement standard — not average test scores or grades.

Connecticut Students Continue Post-Pandemic Recovery

Across Connecticut, academic performance improved during the 2025-26 school year across nearly every student group in English language arts, mathematics and science, according to the state Department of Education.

Math and science performance improved for the fourth consecutive year, while English performance also increased from the previous year.

Despite the gains, statewide scores have not completely returned to levels seen before the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2018-19, 55.7 percent of Connecticut students met or exceeded the English standard and 48.1 percent met or exceeded the math standard. By 2021-22, those figures had fallen to 49.1 percent in English and 40 percent in math.

For 2025-26, English proficiency stood at 51 percent statewide, 4.7 percentage points below its pre-pandemic level. Math reached 46.7 percent, within 1.4 percentage points of its 2018-19 mark.

The state also reported continued improvement in student attendance. Connecticut's chronic absenteeism rate fell to 16.4 percent in 2025-26, down from 23.7 percent in 2021-22. State officials said nearly 35,000 more students are now attending school regularly.

Connecticut did not administer its statewide academic assessments in 2019-20 after testing was canceled because of the pandemic. Testing resumed in 2020-21, although state officials have cautioned against directly comparing those results with other years because of unusual testing and learning conditions.