Joel Barlow Earns High Marks on Report Card

EASTON, Conn. – Students at Joel Barlow High School deserve a few extra gold stars this year now that a non-profit study shows a dramatic improvement in meeting overall state set academic goals. 

The Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, also known as ConnCAN, issues report cards and letter grades annually to over 1,000 Connecticut public schools in 160 districts. The reports are designed to “create transparency and awareness about how public schools perform,” according to the coalition.

“Connecticut residents deserve to know how well their public schools are meeting the needs of every student,” the group says.

According to this year’s results, Joel Barlow was ranked No. 4 out of 190 schools and earned an A- overall. Eighty-six percent of the students met academic goals set by the state versus the state average of 51 percent.

Eighty-five percent of Barlow students met state goals in math, 82 percent met the state goals in reading, 80 percent met state goals in science and 92 percent met state goals in writing.

The scores are based in large part on student performances from the Connecticut Mastery and the Connecticut Academic Performance tests for the 2010-2011 school year. ConnCAN also grades schools on the performance of low-income, Hispanic and African American students. Barlow was not ranked in these categories because very few students are low income or minority.

This year’s results showed an improvement over last year, when Barlow earned a B+ and was ranked No. 8 out of 190 schools. In the 2009-2010 academic year, the report cards showed that 81 percent of students met state goals. In 2009-2010, only 76 percent met state goals in math, 79 percent in reading and science and 90 percent in writing.

Results of the entire report card are available here.

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