Shelton CAPT Scores Among Highest in Valley

Shelton's Grade 10 students scored near the top when compared to neighboring Valley districts this year in the Connecticut Academic Performance Test, ranking in at either first or second place in every category.

Both CAPT and Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) scores were released July 19 by the Connecticut Department of Education. The department said the results overall were generally encouraging, although not much different from 2011.

Superintendent Freeman Burr said overall he is "extremely pleased" and that the results "reflect the efforts of Shelton's teachers, leadership and students to show very strong progress in the right direction."

"The results of the 2012 Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) were mixed," the department said in a news release. "While student performance increased in all content areas when compared to the CAPT baseline year of 2007, it decreased in some areas when compared to last year. As compared to 2011, performance increased slightly in writing, remained relatively constant in science and reading, and decreased in mathematics."

State Education Commissioner Stephen Prior said in the news release:

"We’re pleased to see that there are signs of progress in our schools. That said, while schools are moving more students into Proficient- and Goal-level performance, significant gaps in achievement continue between economically disadvantaged students and their peers. So there is reason for optimism regarding our system’s ability to advance, as well as cause for continuing concern. We need to work together to implement the reforms and initiatives we’ve recently launched in order to build on areas of progress and remedy the persistent problems in our schools."

Connecticut Academic Performance Test Results

Here are this year's CAPT results for Shelton in four different areas, with comparisons to scores for surrounding Valley towns.

For mathematics, Shelton scored higher than both the state and all Valley towns in every area:

Shelton was at the top when it came to the percentage of students who had achieved the proficiency level goal in science, but fell behind Oxford in the above goal category.

Reading scores were again higher than the state results, but Oxford beat out Shelton by more than 10 percentage points in the goal category:

Again, Shelton surpasses all other Valley towns except Oxford:

to see how Shelton students in grades 3-8 scored on the Connecticut Mastery Test this year, with comparisons to 2011.