2010 CMT Test Scores Released

Scores for the 2010 Connecticut Mastery Tests were released today. 

Overall, the news is good.  The new version of the CMT has been in place now since 2006, so its possible to look at trends over time. Students in grades 3 through 8 have posted steady gains in the past four years in reading, writing and math. The only exception: this year’s 3rd grade writing scores. 

One surprise:  the most accelerated improvement centered on middle school students..  For example, 67% of 8th graders met the state goal in math in 2010, compared with only 58% in 2006.

But Department of Education spokesman Tom Murphy says Connecticut’s stubborn achievement gap persists. "We have to keep in mind that the achievement gap between white students and minority students still looks like  about 30 percentage points. So there’s a long way to go in order to close that gap". He points out the gap is slowly starting to narrow. 

This is the first year that special education students were allowed to take an alternate assessment rather than the traditional CMT. Those scores were not included in these results.  

For WNPR, I'm Diane Orson.