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What You Probably Didn’t Know About The CMT/CAPT Scores

By Nyesha McCauley

October 10, 2013

In August, the State Department of Education released the Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) and Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) results. What the tests have shown is important and we’ll get to that later, but first, it’s necessary to understand what these tests are all about.

The CMT tests are given to students statewide in grades 3 through 8 and the CAPT test is given to grade 10. The test is administered in March of every year.

The State of Connecticut has set a standard or educational benchmark of where your child should be by grade level in reading, writing, math and science.

So, for instance, the reading skills section will measure your child’s ability to read a paragraph and understand what they have read. The writing section will measure your child’s ability to write a paragraph and the math section measures several skills that students should have mastered by the time of test.

Your child is given a performance level for each content area. The performance levels are:

1- Below basic: (limited knowledge of grade level content)

2- Basic: (partially developed knowledge of grade level content)

3- Proficient: (good, some mastery of content)

4- Goal: (well developed knowledge - this is the level expected from your child)

5- Advanced: ( exceptional knowledge of grade level content)

Now remember, this measurement is saying this is where your child should be given their grade level.

So now, let’s go back to what did the results say about how well Hartford students are performing. While students have incrementally made gains over the past six years, this year’s results showed little or no change from last year. In a word - FLAT and in some areas student’s scores went down.

This is troubling, alarming even, in light of the fact that Hartford students are still performing well below their peers in other parts of the State.

Achieve Hartford! will dedicate the next few weeks to bringing you a much closer look at how our neighborhood, community, charter/magnet and high schools are performing.

Looking at how well Hartford students are performing is an important first step to addressing the question of how are our schools going to improve. And what we can all do about it.