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Interview: Marc Porter Magee on 1080AM's Face Connecticut ConnCAN's Marc Porter Magee sat down with Sam Gingerella to talk about Connecticut's high school graduation rates.
Closing the income gap through education in New Haven ConnCAN's been studying Connecticut schools' success stories to better advise others on how to make improvements. The successful schools, Johnston says "can't change the short-term social circumstances of their students, but they can make up for challenges in kids' lives. It may be as banal as helping kids get their uniforms clean. It may also be providing a whole extra level of support and counseling around college choices."
Report: Student achievement gap wide Results of the 2007 Connecticut Aptitude and Performance Test were used to rank all of the state's high schools by ConnCAN -- the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now -- a nonprofit organization that tracks achievement gap problems. In a report released in late February, ConnCAN officials said Greenwich High School was among high schools with the largest achievement gaps ever recorded on state standardized tests.
PMS celebrates testing success The major share of the credit for the middle school's success in a recent survey of schools goes to the teachers, school Principal Scott Giegerich said. But, he was quick to add, the parents and the families of Portland "are equally important." The school was rated as the most improved in an analysis of Connecticut Mastery Test score results conducted by ConnCAN, an education advocacy group.
Portland school ranked No. 1 for mastery test improvement Sally E. Doyen got her "report card" this week. Her response? "We're thrilled!" the superintendent of schools said, after learning that the Portland Middle School has been judged a winner by education officials. The school was ranked number-one in the state for "performance gains" on the 2006-07 mastery test results, Doyen said. What's more, Portland also ranked number eight for most improved, according to an analysis compiled by ConnCAN, a statewide education advocacy and outreach group.
In Praise Of Schools That Work If you were looking for the best elementary school in West Hartford, you might start in the classrooms with the highest Connecticut Mastery Test scores. This would lead to the obvious - schools in neighborhoods dominated by middle- and upper-middle-class families score the best. In the process, you would miss the remarkable, emerging story of Charter Oak Academy of Global Studies in the Elmwood neighborhood just over the Hartford line. "There are only seven other schools in the state that made a bigger jump," said Marc Porter Magee of ConnCAN.
Report: Achievement gap closing in some Stamford, Norwalk schools A statewide research group has given schools in Stamford and Norwalk high marks for closing the achievement gap between white and minority students in some schools. The ConnCAN report measures progress, not just scores, providing an alternative to federal No Child Left Behind analyses, which label schools as passing or failing depending on whether they hit certain goals.
Review: 2007 State of Connecticut Public Education Report ConnCAN's second annual report on Connecticut's public schools is pretty gloomy. To start, only a third of minority and low-income students are meeting state goals on the Connecticut Mastery Test, compared with two-thirds of middle-class white students. And the gap is widening. Thankfully a few daisies sprout from the weeds. The report also lists the state's top ten schools in various categories (performance gains, Hispanic test scores, etc.) and offers links to expanded "success stories" about them that begin to comprise a useful collection of best practices.
Handful of city schools among Top 10 for student improvement In a new ranking of Top 10 schools for student improvement and closing the achievement gap, surprises came from magnet schools in New Haven and traditional schools in East Haven and Hamden. Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, a nonprofit agency dedicated to closing the achievement gap between poor and "non-poor" students, issued its 2007 Report Card on 1,000 Connecticut Schools and a set of Top 10 lists for schools that raise student achievement.
City's minority achievement gap grows The gap between white and minority test scores shrank in math this year, but grew slightly in other subjects among city students. The latest Connecticut Mastery Test results show white elementary and middle school students continued to outperform their minority peers in every subject in grades 3 through 8. "It's remarkable how stable the achievement gap is," said Marc Porter Magee, research director of the education research group ConnCAN, who has studied Waterbury's test data. "The fact it hasn't budged really suggests the status quo isn't working."
Analysis contends state achievement gap remains The latest analysis of Connecticut's mastery test scores shows the education achievement gap between urban and suburban schools has not budged over the past two years. The Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, a nonprofit education advocacy and research agency, released its analysis last month which showed the average gap has stagnated between white and black students at 38.9 percent, and at 39.1 percent between white and Hispanic students.
Owning Up to Failure
School Basics: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Real Estate In fact, every 12-percentage-point difference in scores on the Connecticut Mastery Tests, the standardized exams that students in Grades 3 through 8 take every year, is worth $5,065 to those buying or selling a home, according to the study, called “School Choice in Suburbia: Public School Testing and Private Real Estate Markets.” “The information is in the marketplace on one side of the transaction or the other,” said Alex Johnston, the executive director of the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, a two-year-old group whose mission is to close the academic achievement gap in Connecticut. Making it worse is that top-ranked school districts are often available only to those students who can afford to live there. “Geography,” Mr. Johnston said, “shouldn’t be the driver of access to a quality public education.”
Report: Graduation rates lower than reported in state ConnCAN, which released the report to bring new focus to graduation rates, said finishing high school is a key indicator of a student's success in life. Current rates fail to reflect the true number of students that finish school, ConnCAN spokesman Marc Porter Magee said. "I think if people knew it was so low, we'd probably be approaching the problem with a lot more urgency," he said. ConnCAN used numbers provided by Education Week, a national publication that compiled a report on high school graduation rates across the country. The report comes as graduation rates are getting more attention nationally, with states trying to come up with a common method of calculating them.
Graduation rates overstated by 16 percent It's difficult to overstate the importance of a high school diploma. An 18-year-old dropout will earn an average $260,000 less over a lifetime than a high school graduate, according to a Princeton University study. Dropouts are also more likely to become single parents and unemployed. Education officials claim their figures are more thorough than the study's numbers. But for many observers, the report confirms what they already suspected. "Previous studies show Connecticut's official graduation rates probably overstate the actual rate by 10 percentage points," said Marc Porter Magee, research director at ConnCAN, an education research group. "The state numbers are awfully high."
Education Dept. slow to upgrade reporting standards While the department says establishing new systems and formulas takes time, an education advocacy group, Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, is critical of the state for not moving fast enough. "It's past time we developed a comprehensive and publicly accessible system for tracking the progress of every public school student in our state," said Alex Johnston, the organization's executive director, in a prepared statement. It also is time to modify the formula Connecticut uses to determine its graduation rate, he said. ConnCAN uses data from the National Governors Association to prove its point.
Parents told of expanded rights under No Child Left Behind “Connecticut has the largest achievement gap between the have and the havenots in school. The purpose of this No Child Left Behind law is to close that gap. I hope this is the beginning of a revolution,” said Scot X. Esdaile, president of the Connecticut State Conference of NAACP branches, one the sponsor agencies, along with the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, Connecticut Appleseed and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Esdaile said parents should not underestimate the importance of testing in American society: In order to become a police officer, lawyer, doctor, accountant, applicants first need to pass tests. “If we can’t pass tests, our people are at a disadvantage,” he said.
Parents Can Get Info on No Child Left Behind Early this year, Connecticut State Conference for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People teamed up with the Connecticut Appleseed, Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law for a statewide parent empowerment initiative to let parents know their rights. “There’s a lot of stigma and taboo around the law. It’s important that parents understand the law in layman’s terms and not get the legal mumbo jumbo,” said Scot X Esdaile, president of the state NAACP. “We want to let parents make up their own minds. There are some pieces in NCLB that empower parents but parents are not aware of it. At the end of the day, the power is the parents.”
Graduation rates inflated, study says Education advocates say educators need to rethink the way they calculate graduation rates. Marc Porter Magee, research director for ConnCan, said the state method for calculating dropouts fails to capture many students who drop out in ninth and 10th grades. He said more accurate data collection on graduation rates would give educators better tools.
Educators left in suspense The bill, which would take effect before the 2008-09 school year, is a response to concerns that many suspended students treat their punishment as vacation and lose valuable classroom time. Public schools statewide issued 77,000 out-of-school suspensions last year, officials say. The issue has drawn special scrutiny in Waterbury, where nearly half of the city's high school students have been suspended out of school this year. ConnCAN, an education research and advocacy group, also backs the idea."Often the kids who end up in out-of-school suspension fall behind," Executive Director Alex Johnston said. "I think this is a practice we need to move away from."
More Charter School Proposals Sought In response to several legislative bills calling for new charter schools, the Department of Education has put out a request for proposals that could lead to two more schools opening as early as fall. The state has 16 charter schools, each of which runs independently of local school boards. The state gives them flexibility in curriculum and structure. “The state of Connecticut is funny in that it approves schools before it approves funding. Last year, the state approved four new charter schools but only had funding for two,” said Marc Porter Magee, spokesman for ConnCAN. Magee said ConnCAN estimates show that three students applied for every one of those 3,600 slots, suggesting an overall demand for about 10,000 slots in charter schools.
Coalition helps parents make choices A coalition to help parents become education advocates has developed a guidebook and a workshop to help parents make the most of it. Both are free. The workshop includes a parent-training session and break-out sessions with local organizations. The guidebook, "How to Make Sure Your Child is Not Left Behind," offers information and advice for closing the student achievement gap. The coalition that put together the guidebook includes the Connecticut NAACP, the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and Connecticut Appleseed.
Good Alternatives to Status Quo In a legislative season marked by school-reform notions ranging from worthless to wildly expensive, an advocacy organization called the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN) offers a refreshingly reasonable prescription for the state’s ailing public schools. The ConnCAN program appears to have been exceptionally well thought out, in that it dares to challenge the orthodoxy in areas where it might succeed -- a spokesman acknowledges it takes baby steps in the direction of merit pay -- but avoids controversial, long-shot reforms that have no chance of legislative passage.
Now, let's look at some data. In truth, there are so many numbers, just in looking at Connecticut Mastery Test scores, that an analyst could come up with a variety of assumptions. However, the researchers at ConnCAN, a private nonprofit dedicated to improving student achievement, have taken a look at how students improve year after year. The data are worth considering. ConnCAN has proposed two pieces of legislation that would radically change the way we approach education. The time has not yet come for this, but the time has come for investigation.
Smartly On Schools We can't even tell why some districts are doing better or worse. We don't demand that our publicly funded state universities turn out effective reading teachers. We ignore our most successful charter schools. We need another $1 billion a year for more of this? It's not money, it's some backbone that's needed. "Money by itself doesn't create great schools," said Alex Johnston, who leads ConnCAN, a business-backed school education reform group. "Some of the most effective things we can do in improving our schools don't cost a lot. But they do require a lot of political capital."
A high school reform group released a study claiming the majority of students in Connecticut and across the country fail to meet national proficiency standards, even when they meet the standards of their own state. The Alliance for Excellent Education in Washington, D.C., an advocacy group, issued report cards on the quality of education in each of the states Monday.
School makes cut for honors Forty-seven percent of Hamilton Avenue fourth-graders taking the Connecticut Mastery Test in the fall of 2004 met state goals. When fourth-graders took the test in the spring of 2006, the number meeting those goals jumped to 71 percent. The fourth-graders in 2004 also made a 17-percentage-point increase in performance on the test when they took the CMT as fifth-graders in the spring of 2006. It was the third highest increase in fourth-grade student scores in Connecticut during that time, according to ConnCAN, a New Haven nonprofit organization that studies and advocates for schools closing the achievement gap.
To Build A Better Student... Imagine the state of Washington telling Bill Gates he can't make any more software. Then you might understand Connecticut, where we are so wrapped up in the past that we let another state steal our best ideas. That's why I had to drive to Brooklyn, N.Y., to see what some of Connecticut's most innovative educators are up to. The independent education reform group ConnCAN recognized Elm City and Amistad in its list of top education reform success stories, with test scores that beat the suburbs and that are among the highest achievement levels for poor and minority children. And they're doing it for thousands less than failing schools in Hartford.
Fix Subpar Education in Five Easy Steps Finally there is a comprehensive plan to chip away at Connecticut’s education achievement gap, one of the worst in the nation. Parents, educators, members of the business community, other non-profits and legislators were all at the Legislative Office Building last week lauding the plan designed by the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now. The plan, which ConnCAN suggests be implemented over six years, would cost $1.3 billion, money that would come from the state.
Plan proposes $1.35 billion to address school achievement gaps A new plan to close the achievement gaps between students of different racial and economic backgrounds in Connecticut proposes an investment of $1.35 billion over the next six years in preschool, charter and magnet schools, and other initiatives. The plan has the support of House Speaker James A. Amann, D-Milford, and the Education Committee's House chairman, Andrew M. Fleischmann, D-West Hartford, who joined the plan's authors Wednesday to announce its major points at the Capitol. The proposal was written by the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, a 2-year-old nonprofit organization that aims to close the state's achievement gap and promotes charter schools as one way of improving education.
Coalition targets education gap—Six-year, $1.3 billion plan unveiled with a goal to achieve academic equality There is an achievement gap between rich and poor students enrolled in the state's public schools, and a nonprofit organization is calling on lawmakers to solve the problem. With the support of the speaker of the state House of Representatives and organizations such as the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now unveiled a six-year, $1.3 billion plan Wednesday that it believes will create more academic equality. "This is a starting point," Executive Director Alex Johnston said at a press conference. ConnCAN is asking Connecticut legislators to expand access to high-quality preschool, create innovative new public schools and encourage the active recruiting of skilled teachers and principals for city schools. It also wants school districts to use school improvement models and improve data collection. "Our problem is not the children," said Rep. Douglas McCrory, D-Hartford, a vice principal at Hartford's Lewis Fox Middle School. "Our children can learn."
Education reforms group calls for $1.3B to close learning gaps A group of education reform advocates and parents called on lawmakers Wednesday to fund a $1.3 billion plan they believe will help close the learning gap between Connecticut's richest and poorest students. The proposal calls for better access to preschool, steering skilled teachers to struggling schools, and tripling the number of magnet, charter and other unconventional types of public schools. National reviews have concluded that Connecticut has among the largest achievement gaps nationwide between students in wealthy districts and those in poor cities. "That is unacceptable, but it is something we can also change," said Alex Johnston, executive director of the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now.
Improved Elementary Schools In Top Ten List Superintendent of Schools Karen Loiselle said she wasn't surprised the town made a top 10 list for the most improved elementary schools in the state. "We were just pleased to see an independent research study would recognize what we are seeing every day," Loiselle said Wednesday. "And that is teaching and learning is improving dramatically in our schools." Loiselle released the results to the Colchester Board of Education at Tuesday's meeting. The Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, or ConnCAN, conducted the research.
Norwalk's progress on achievement gap And now, some good news on the achievement gap between white and minority students. Yes, you read that correctly. Results of a recently released study show that two Norwalk schools that were reprimanded last year under the No Child Left Behind Act are also among those doing the best job of bringing minority and disadvantaged kids up to speed. So says the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, a New Haven-based organization that works to help close the achievement gap. The group also took part in a community-wide forum on the problem sponsored by The Advocate last September.
Franklin makes strides on test— CMT scores most improved in state for 2006 Prepping students daily for the Connecticut Mastery Test paid off in 2006 when Franklin ranked as the most improved elementary school district in the state. Franklin Elementary School, which has 240 students from preschool to eighth grade, improved by 18.2 points from 2004 to 2006, according to "The State of Connecticut Public Education: A 2006 Report Card for Elementary & Middle Schools," a research report by the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, an independent nonprofit group.
Schools crack top 10 on progress list An independent school research group named several lower Fairfield County schools to its top 10 list of those making significant progress in shrinking the gap between white and minority students on standardized test scores. Greenwich's Hamilton Avenue School and Norwalk's Kendall Elementary School took the No. 3 and No. 10 spots, respectively, for most improved on Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now's list. Norwalk's Side by Side Community School and Stamford's Scofield Magnet Middle School were among the most improved middle schools, ranking No. 7 and No. 10, respectively.
Andover elementary students score among the highest in the state Andover Elementary School is among the top-scoring elementary schools in the state, according to a report by the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now. ConnCAN - a statewide educational rights group dedicated to closing the academic achievement gap between rich and poor students - recently released its report, "State of Connecticut Public Education." The report draws from the group's series of "school report cards," which publish ratings of the state's elementary schools by achievement in the Connecticut Mastery Tests. Andover Elementary School's performance gains between grades 4 and 5 ranked eighth in the state, according to the group's report.
School Gets Good Report Card Among state elementary schools, Robertson was ranked as having the fifth-highest percentage of low-income students who met state goals on the Connecticut Mastery Test."Connecticut has the largest achievement gap in the country but we have schools that are making great strides," said Alex Johnston, director of the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, or ConnCAN. Johnston said his organization created a variety of "top 10 lists" using data from the state Department of Education.
City students’ scores improving, Several schools recognized for advances In its first report card on the state’s progress in closing the education achievement gap, a school reform advocacy group gave Connecticut a solid “F,” but ranked several of the city’s traditional public schools on the top 10 list of schools closing the gap. ConnCAN’s report card, “The State of Connecticut Education,” released Tuesday, shows Nathan Hale School, Katherine Brennan School and Ross/Woodward School have joined Amistad Academy and Elm City College Preparatory School in achieving the greatest score gains in the state for minority and low-income students.
Ham Ave. sees big jump in fourth-grade test scores Hamilton Avenue School achieved the third highest increase in student scores in the state on the fourth-grade Connecticut Mastery Test over the last two years, according to a report released yesterday by an education advocacy group. "We were interested in looking at whether there were schools that were beating the odds," said Marc Porter Magee, director of communications and research for ConnCAN, a New Haven nonprofit organization formed in 2004 to study and advocate for closing the gap in achievement between certain groups of students, and other education issues. "Hamilton Avenue was a pretty interesting story in terms of its ability to make tremendous gains over a relatively short period of time," Magee said.
Charting better education: Independent schools topping their public counterparts It might be easy to envision Jumoke Academy nestled in one of Connecticut's privileged suburbs, educating classrooms full of fortunate children. Not, in other words, as a place for 325 mostly poor, entirely minority students in one of Hartford's rough-edged neighborhoods. Jumoke Academy had Connecticut's best-performing African-American students and fourth-best low-income students among elementary schools reporting Connecticut Mastery Test results last year, according to an analysis by ConnCAN, an education research group. Amistad Academy, a New Haven charter school, showed the greatest student improvement among all the state's middle schools.
Report: Most city middle schools abate learning gap Four out of five city middle schools outperformed the state average in progressing towards closing the achievement gap, according to school "report cards" issued Tuesday by the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, or ConnCAN. Seventh graders at Side by Side, Nathan Hale, Ponus Ridge and Roton middle schools all made greater-than-state-average performance gains between 2004 — when they were tested as sixth graders — and 2005. West Rocks Middle School underperformed the state average by five points, the report says.
School officials seek ways to close gap: Forum focuses on achievement disparities On the Connecticut Academic Performance Test, 50 percent of whites and 54 percent of Asians in Stamford met the state goal in math in 2006, compared with 10 percent of blacks and 12 percent of Hispanics, according to results the state released last week. The test is taken by most high school sophomores. "There are some very difficult truths we have to confront," said Alex Johnston, executive director of the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, or ConnCAN, an advocacy group. "The hard truth is we are starting from a point where there is an enormous amount of work to do."
Ed gap universal, federal study says A federal study suggests that the educational achievement gap that bedevils public schools also haunts private schools. “In other words, the achievement gap is not simply a public school phenomenon, but one that exists throughout the private school system as well,” said Marc Porter Magee of ConnCAN, a statewide nonprofit advocacy group working to close the educational achievement gap.
Learn, Baby, Learn Elsewhere, it's worse. In Bridgeport, the participation rate is less than 2 percent. Alicia DeSouza-Rocha, a community outreach coordinator at ConnCAN, a New Haven-based nonprofit focused on closing the state's achievement gap in education, estimates that Hartford's rate is around 4 percent. Nationally, according to Avallone, it's about 5 percent. Why do so few students enroll in free tutoring? "A lot of it has to do with a lack of knowledge about it," says DeSouza-Rocha. "A lot of [parents] don't even know it exists." | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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