    
Top 10 Schools While Connecticut is home to the largest achievement gap between rich and poor students in the United States, a look beneath these state averages reveals a wide range of high-performing schools that are demonstrating that all students can achieve academic success. In this section ConnCAN has assembled the top 10 schools across five key performance categories for both the elementary and middle school level: Performance Gains, Most Improved, Low-Income Scores, African American Scores and Hispanic Scores. The result is ten “Top 10” lists, with a total of 100 slots. Each school earning a place on these lists has something to teach us about what it takes to close the achievement gap, and the “Success Stories” section of ConnCAN’s website will serve as a growing repository of these lessons. At the same time, exploring the commonalities among the schools represented on these top 10 lists provides us with initial insight into some of the sources of this success. School Type While just 4.4 percent of all public schools in Connecticut are magnet schools, these schools fill 20 percent of all the top 10 slots —nearly five times more than their numbers would suggest. Even more significantly overrepresented are public charter schools. Just 1.2 percent of all public schools in Connecticut are charter schools, yet these schools represent 13 percent of the slots across these 100 indicators of top performance—10 times more than their numbers would suggest. Public charters schools also represent 25 percent of all of the schools in the top 1 or 2 spots across the 10 elementary and middle school lists—20 times more than their numbers would suggest. Indeed, Jumoke Academy, a public charter school in Hartford, appeared more than any other school, with four Top 10 results across the five elementary school categories. Districts While Connecticut’s largest school districts have low average levels of student achievement, they also have a number of individual schools producing very strong results. In fact, seven of the state’s larger districts– New Haven, Bridgeport, Hartford, Stamford, Waterbury, Norwalk, and Bloomfield—contain 51 percent of the schools on the Top 10 Schools lists. The most well-represented city is New Haven, with 10 out of 100 possible spots. Leading the way for New Haven are two of its public charter schools, Amistad Academy and Elm City Prep, which appear five times on the middle school rankings. Top Ten Elementary Schools Performance Gains (4th to 5th Grade) 1 Nathan Hale School, New Haven, 28.5 Most Improved (2004 to 2006) 1 Pleasant Valley School, Groton, 34.8 Low-Income Student Scores 1 Mary T. Murphy School, Branford, 71.6% African American Scores 1 Jumoke Academy, Hartford, 60.9% Hispanic Scores 1 Westover School, Stamford, 66.7% 2006 Top Ten Middle Schools Performance Gains 1 Amistad Academy, New Haven, 20.4 Most Improved 1 Griswold Middle School, Griswold, 20.6 Low-Income Student Scores 1 Bethel Middle School, Bethel, 78.7% African American Scores 1 West Woods Upper Elementary School, Farmington, 69.4% Hispanic Scores 1 Gideon Welles School, Glastonbury, 76.7% Top 10 Districts Just as Connecticut is home to pioneering schools that are demonstrating how all students can achieve academic success, our state is also home to school districts that are making progress in raising student achievement across all of their schools. In this section ConnCAN has assembled the Top 10 Districts across five key performance categories for both the elementary and middle school level. Consistent Performers While a handful of communities dominated the Top 10 School lists, the Top 10 District lists resulted in a less concentrated group of top performers. The most consistently high performing districts are Trumbull (6 spots out of a possible 10), Windsor (5), Bethel (4), Milford (4), and Voluntown (4). The top two districts are a study in contrasts that illustrates just how much student populations can differ even among Connecticut’s non-urban districts. Trumbull, a medium-sized district in Fairfield County has just 4 percent African American, 4 percent Hispanic and 3 percent low-income students. It appeared in the Top 10 for African American, Hispanic and low-income scores in both elementary and middle schools, including the top spot for Hispanic scores in elementary school and African American scores in both elementary and middle school. Windsor, a smaller district in Hartford County, has a much more diverse student body: 48 percent African American, 9 percent Hispanic and 27 percent low-income. It appeared in the Top 10 for African American and Hispanic scores in both elementary and middle school as well as middle school Performance Gains. A Closer Look at the Characteristics of the Highest Performing Districts The most consistent top performers, those districts appearing three or more times, do not stand out particularly from state averages in terms of district size or per pupil spending levels. But these districts had fewer low-income students than the state average (13 percent versus a state average of 31 percent) and fewer Hispanic students as well (5 percent versus a state average of 15 percent). The percentage of African American students in these districts (15 percent) was slightly higher than the state average (14 percent). In general, with the exception of Windsor and Bloomfield, the districts in which African American, Hispanic and low-income students are achieving at the highest levels are also districts with relatively few African American, Hispanic and low-income students. Consequently, despite their high-levels of performance these districts are having relatively little impact on closing the state’s overall achievement gap. None of the seven districts with more than 10,000 students (Hartford, Bridgeport, New Haven, Waterbury, Stamford, Norwalk, and New Britain) appear in the top 10 on any of the district lists, despite making up the majority of districts represented on the Top 10 Schools list. This confirms what many education observers have long known: establishing individual high-performing schools in large urban districts is an easier task than raising student achievement across all of a district’s schools.
Performance Gains: 4th to 5th 1 Andover 20.9 Most Improved: 2004 to 2006 1 Franklin 18.2 Low-Income Student Scores 1 Branford 74.6% African American Score 1 Trumbull 69.3% Hispanic Scores 1 Trumbull 71.0%
Performance Gains: 6th to 7th 1 South Windsor 18.7 Most Improved: 2004 to 2006 1 Griswold 19.7 1 Bethel 78.7% African American Scores 1 Trumbull 70.7% Hispanic Scores 1 Milford 76.1% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The State of Connecticut Public Education: A 2006 Report Card for Elementary and Middle Schools