Mark K. McQuillan was appointed Commissioner of Education on April 16, 2007. How have the schools of CT fared under McQuillan's leadership? I'll start by bringing some data into the equation, because I happen to prefer data to less objective measures. So here goes:
SAT scores in 2006: Math 510, Reading 505, Writing 504
SAT scores in 2010: Math 510, Reading 505, Writing 510
In four years, there has been no change in math or reading scores of high school graduates in CT. A slight improvement was seen in writing. I'm hesitant to attribute much of the writing gain to anything other than: people figured out how to prep for the test by 2010. 2006 was the first year the writing portion was included in the SAT. I'm going to make an assumption here that over four years, SAT prep programs got better at preparing kids to write for the test. I'm willing to consider other possibilities.
How about graduation rates? The State Dept of Ed still claims that in 2006 to 2008 that HS graduation rates were at a respectable 92%. However, the legislature pushed for a better system of accounting for students that move between districts. As a result, a new data system was put in place that calculated the high school graduation rate at about 79%. The Courant carried an article on this in March last year. Because we don't have good data before 2009, we can't draw much of a conclusion about McQuillan's term. However, I think we can all agree that 79% is nothing to be proud of.
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