How do our students measure up? Can they meet challenging state and national standards for student performance? What are we doing to improve the results? What do we know about their health and social well being? The information in this Report is intended to help answer some of these questions.
For the last several years, students in grades 2 and 4 have been tested annually using tests provided by the State of Vermont Department of Education; the results of these assessments were used to determine whether schools were making adequate yearly progress under the provi-sions of the “No Child Left Behind” law.
In 2004, the Department of Education introduced a new set of tests developed by the New England Common Assessment Program. The tests were piloted in the fall of 2004;. In October 2005, they were given statewide to all students starting in grade 2. As the NECAP tests were designed to replace the other tests used in previous years (including the SAT-9 tests), no statewide testing was done in the spring of 2005, and therefore, we have no new data to report for that year. The results of the October 2005 NECAP tests are included in this section. The tests were given again in October 2006; those results will not be available until March, 2007.
As a matter of interest, we are reporting the results from previous years. For each group and each test, we show the percent of students who met or exceeded the performance standard each year, so you can see how this year’s second grade compares to last year’s, etc. Note that in small school populations, classes can vary greatly in their size, gender balance, academic aptitude and special needs.
Our reporting format also lets you track the progress of each class as it moves through the grades. Note however that the scores reported are from different tests with different standards and different approaches, so the data are only roughly comparable. Also, since each class may change as it progresses through the grades when individual students enter or leave the class, we report the number of students who took the test.
We use the information we get from these assessments to improve what we teach. We are careful to avoid over-reliance on test data, however. The results of a group test show only one part of the pic¬ture of an individual student’s work and potential. We hope you will read the descriptions of the various assessments used, and consider the limits of their usefulness.