[EDLING:1304] Test time: More grades prepare to take state mastery tests

Mon Mar 6 21:01:13 UTC 2006

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Test time: More grades prepare to take state mastery tests 
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By Alison Damast
Staff Writer

March 6, 2006

NORWALK -- The students in Oscar Williams' seventh-grade math class did not look pleased when they learned solving a math problem involving decimals required them to write a story.

"They're not used to writing in math," said Williams, who teaches at Ponus Ridge Middle School. "They're used to just computing."

Fortunately, math consultant Don Hastings was there to guide the class through the story problem -- one of several types of questions students likely will see when they take the Connecticut Mastery Test this week.

Hastings, a consultant from Wesleyan University's Program to Increase Mastery in Math and Science, asked the students to come up with a story that involved weight and two numbers, one with a decimal.

Within minutes, the class crafted a tale about a boy who went to the grocery store, bought a bag of potato chips weighing 623 ounces, then scarfed down 49.8 ounces of them.

"See, that's all we needed," Hastings said. "The state just wants you to show that you have an understanding of how decimals can be used in real life."

Elementary and middle school students districtwide spent the past few months learning skills needed for the latest round of the newest, and fourth, generation of the CMT. Testing began Friday for elementary school students and begins today for middle school students.

This is the first year that the state has administered the test in the spring.

In the past, the state tested fourth-, sixth- and eighth-graders annually on reading, writing and math. This year, the state added tests in third, fifth and seventh grades to meet the federal requirements of the No Child Left Behind law, which is designed to improve the performance of students on standardized tests.

The law aims to have 100 percent of students scoring at or above the proficiency level determined by the state in 2014.

"The stakes are high because there is added pressure on the districts this year not only to include more students, but to do well and to make sure that they show evidence that they have made adequate yearly progress," said Henry Garcia, a spokesman for the state Department of Education.

The proficiency target has been rising since the law was enacted in 2001. For elementary and middle schools, 68 percent of students must be proficient in reading and 74 percent in math, according to standards established by the state Department of Education.

If one subgroup fails to perform up to level, the state may label the school as not making adequate yearly progress.

Subgroups must have 40 or more students and include poor and minority students, those with disabilities and English as a second language learners. With more students being tested, subgroups could emerge in schools that did not have them before, said Diane Filardo, the research director.

"The implications for the districts in terms of subgroups is that now, with grades 3, 5 and 7 being tested, there will be more subgroups within a school," Filardo said.

The inclusion of more students coupled with rising proficiency goals makes it more challenging to meet the goals of No Child Left Behind, said Karen Lang, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction.

"You now have two additional variables that makes it much more difficult for school districts to reach adequate yearly progress," Lang said.

Besides that, administrators and teachers had to learn about this year's version of the test, which has a new category in the reading portion.

The district held workshops for language arts teachers to help them prepare students, said Michael Rafferty, the language arts instructional specialist.

"We wanted to make sure that teachers had the students involved in tasks that involved long periods of reading and writing, because if they don't do that on a regular basis, they are really unprepared when the test comes," Rafferty said.

The math section is similar to the old version of the test, but now includes more questions that ask students to show work or explain their reasoning, Hastings said.

"Students have been somewhat reluctant to do that, and we're trying to mollify that and ease the pain about what the expectations are," he said.

Nancy Trujillo, 13, a seventh-grader at Ponus Ridge, said she is confident about taking the CMT, especially after Hastings' visit to her math class Friday.

"I'm understanding everything, and the way they're teaching us for the CMT is easier for us to understand," Nancy said. "I think it's going to be not that hard." 

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