City reacts to release of standardized test scores

Last week's release of the 1998 Connecticut Mastery Test scores revealed that despite slight improvements, New Haven public schools' scores are still lower than any Connecticut district's except Hartford. The mayor, school officials, and Yale student tutors have varied views about what the scores mean and how to boost them.

Mayor John De-Stefano, Jr. emphasized that local schools' scores have improved since last year. "[Standardized tests] provide measurable expectations," he said. "Last year we set a goal of five percent improvement. We exceeded that goal, and next year the goal will be set at 10 percent improvement, and the year after, 15 percent."

To continue this progress, DeStefano proposed a plan to set goals and make individual schools accountable for reaching them. Currenly, the Connecticut Department of Education is in the process of forming a task force that will study these scores and set the target goals.

But Frank Currano, president of the New Haven federation of teachers, was critical of the mayor's proposal, which would make schools accept increased responsibility for students' decline in test scores. "It seems like the policy focuses not on what we
can do about scores, but on where we
can point the finger and on who we can blame," Currano explained. "Our penal
system doesn't work because it deals with consequences."

Alternatively, Cur-rano proposed a task force that would promote more open communication between students, parents, and teachers. "We need not gear everything toward tests," he said."We need to promote the significant involvement of parents and community agencies,
to focus our resources on schools. We can see
what the business community can contribute. We need to attack the problem at the root."

The directors of Yale's Tutoring In Elementary School (TIES) program agree that local public schools should focus their efforts on enlisting parents in their children's education. "We need to make a child's home an extension of his elementary school experience," TIES co-director Jeremy Royal,
JE '00, observed, based on his experience in city schools. "We need to bridge that gap."

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