The state Department of Education has crunched the numbers, written the assessments and published the reports, and the results are positive: All nine Ridgefield schools exceed the state target for performance.
“All Ridgefield schools are classified as either ‘Progressing’ or ‘Excelling’ — the highest two classifications,” said assistant superintendent Kimberly Beck in a press release.
Schools that were classified as “Excelling” have a minimum of 25% of students performing at the advanced level on state-mandatory tests.
The percentage of Ridgefield students performing at the advanced level on the Connecticut Mastery Test, administered to students in third through eighth grade, or the Connecticut Academic Performance Test, administered to high school level sophomores, ranges from 39 to 66.5%
“All Ridgefield schools, across all grades and subjects not only meet this criteria, but exceed it,” Ms. Beck wrote.
The performance reports, published by the state’s Accountability System for Schools on Dec. 5, calculate separate ratings for school districts and for individual schools.
Both indexes range in value from 0 to 100 with the state target set at 88 or greater.
Ridgefield’s nine schools ranged from 92.4 to 95 with the district receiving a score of 93.8.
After calculating the scores, the state classifies individual schools using a six-level scale that ranges from “Turn-around” to “Excelling” based on their rating score and the performance of student sub-groups made up of 20 or more students.
“For our schools labeled ‘Progressing’ rather than ‘Excelling’ — this reflects a ‘gap’ of 10 (or more) points between the majority of sub-groups and the overall scoring performance,” Ms. Beck explained. “In Ridgefield, our achievement gap occurs between our special education sub-group and the overall performance of the school.”
Ms. Beck added that some schools in town do not have a sub-group large enough to report; therefore, the “achievement gap” is not a designation.
“Where the special education achievement gap indicates room to improve, all our schools, administrators and teachers have already included performance goals related to reducing the achievement gap in their 2013-2014,” she concluded.