By Sean Fogarty, Courier Staff Writer:
At East Haven High
School (EHHS), it’s not just the students who are graded on the Connecticut
Academic Performance Test (CAPT)-it’s also their teachers. The CAPT, which
judges the performance of all public school students in 10th grade, determines
where the school system will focus its attention.
This year, EHHS
students’ highest scores were in writing and science. According to the results
presented to the Board of Education (BOE) at its subcommittee meeting last
week, the town’s writing scores are above the state average, with more than a
90 percent proficiency rate. The science scores, however, were below the state
average. Seventy-nine percent of students performed at proficient levels, while
the state average was 81 percent.
The results for CAPT
scores are judged by the percentage of students who perform at proficient or
higher levels in four topics–math, science, reading, and writing. The students’
performance–and, by extension, the school’s–is then judged against state levels
to determine if the school is performing above or below state levels in the
four studies.
Science
Instructional Leader Marilee Noonan said there are some changes coming to the
science program to prepare students for next year’s CAPT series.
“We have been
working to build inquiry science labs, a big focus in statewide curriculum,”
said Noonan. “Inquiry labs are about designing experiments. Students try to
identify a problem, create a hypothesis, design an experiment, run the
experiment, and organize the data to form a conclusion.”
EHHS is also taking
concrete steps to improve in the areas in which students performed poorly–most
notably in math. Seventy-two percent of students performed at a proficient level
in math at EHHS; the state average is 79 percent.
“The biggest thing
they are struggling with is they may have the skills but they can’t approach
the problem, so if we can have more kids come up with a way to approach a
problem, communicate, and execute their strategy, they will do better on the
test,” said Math Instructional Leader Jennifer Bauer.
According to Bauer,
weaknesses at the high school level can be addressed in middle school.
“I’ve noticed
geometry is a weakness of ours, so we will shuffle the order things are taught
in the middle school,” said Bauer.
EHHS performed well
in reading, although slightly below the 82 percent state average; 78 percent of
the students performed at proficiency level.
“We continue to
analyze the data,” said East Haven Schools Curriculum Coordinator Erica Forti.
“We look for their strengths to use as an on-ramp to correct their weaknesses,
we analyze what’s working, and we see what we need to do to target those weaker
areas. Those are actions we will take and continue to take.”
Forti said coaches
are being brought in to collaborate with teachers to design lessons that are
more engaging and require a higher level of thinking. In particular, Forti
said, math coaches will be brought in.
According to Forti,
bringing the entire educational package together will lead to better student
performance on the CAPT series.
“We train all our
teachers in the strategies so they can be implemented in all classrooms, so in
department meetings we can look at student work together so we are speaking the
same language and we are all seeing the student’s strengths and weaknesses. The
school has developed lots of assessments to measure student growth to show we
are on the right track to meet state proficiency levels,” Forti concluded.