Ledyard CAPT Scores Above State Averages

Ledyard High School tenth graders scored higher than the state's average in all four areas tested by the Connecticut Mastery Tests according to results released Tuesday.

But, according to last year's test scores, the percentage of students proficient in reading and science has decreased, in Ledyard and around the state.

“The overall trend of increasing percentages of Grade 10 students scoring at the Proficient and Goal levels in mathematics and writing is encouraging,” said Acting Commissioner George Coleman in a statement released Tuesday. “However, the magnitude of the increases and the relatively flat performance in reading and science is disconcerting, given the urgency that I feel about preparing all of our high school graduates to be ready to succeed as they enter college or the state’s workforce.” 

The 2010-11 results showed that 91.1 percent of students were proficient in reading across the disciplines, compared to 94.4 in 2009-10 school year and the science scores dropped from 96 percent to 90 percent proficiency.  

Assistant Superintendent of Schools Cathy Cathy Laro Patterson said that she is most impressed that Ledyard was able to meet the 90 percent proficiency in math and 91 percent proficiency in reading benchmark mandated by the state Board of Education. Patterson said schools will need to attain 100 percent proficiency in those areas by 2013 as part of the No Child Left Behind program. 

"Ninety and 91 (percent) is a very high standard," she said. "But still, there are children who, hard as we try and we try hard, might not be able to meet that level of 100 percent." 

This year's results showed an increase from 92.9 percent to 93 percent proficiency in math and a slight jump from 93.5 percent to 95 percent proficiency in writing across the disciplines. 

Compared to the state's averages Ledyard High School rises far above. The state's average proficiency score in reading is 80.3 percent, science is 81.7; reading across the disciplines is 81.9 and writing is 88.6 percent proficient. 

Ledyard tenth graders also scored higher than students in Waterford and Stonington in all but content area where Ledyard average writing score, 276.4, was slightly below Waterford's, 279.2, this year. Waterford and Stonington are two of the three New London County schools in its District Reference Group (DRG), which groups school districts according to socio-economic status. East Lyme is the only school in the DRG that exceeded Ledyard student scores in all subject areas.