Cornish Says Stratford Test Scores Are Up

Stratford’s student test scores beat the state average in almost every category, superintendent Irene Cornish said Wednesday.

Cornish told the Board of Education Liaison Committee that Stratford’s Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) and Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) scores for math, reading and writing rose generally for whites, blacks, Hispanics and students receiving free or reduced lunch subsidies.

The state Department of Education would not release the official test scores until some time next week, so Cornish said she was not permitted to report them to the committee, which serves as a link between the Town Council and the school board.

"Our students made good gains, with the exception of our special needs group," Cornish said.

Stratford educators have begun making revisions to their school improvement plans to address the dip in scores for special education students, she said.

The superintendent noted that the standards for the federal No Child Left Behind Act increased this year, as they do every three years. But even then, many schools met the new standard, she said.

The only subject area where Stratford students’ scores did not exceed the state average was in science, Cornish said.

She said 28 Stratford teachers retired over the summer, which affected the special education teaching staff. Cornish said she addressed the matter by transferring some special education teachers to other schools in order to make sure every school had equally qualified teacher teams.

Schools were also stepping up teacher training for the special education educators to address the test score deficiency in that cohort group, she said.

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