It’s hard to imagine someone giving a more laughable public presentation than Donald Trump, but Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez gave it the ol’ college try this past week when she presented the board of education with a review of Hartford Public Schools’ assessment data for last school year (watch the presentation here, view the data slides here).

There were three oft-stated themes of the superintendent’s presentation: high needs students, context, and, of course, the COVID effect. 

The superintendent defends the gap in academic success between the average district in the state and HPS due to the high number of high needs of students at HPS.  This may be a fair defense, however, when one recalls the statement made by Torres-Rodriguez on the eve of becoming HPS’ permanent superintendent nearly eight years ago, which was that she “understands at a very personal level what Hartford students need to succeed,” we must question her throwing HPS’ high needs students under the bus when her understanding  turned out to be more like, “I have no idea.”  The superintendent took control of a district with the same demographic and, unfortunately for Hartford, academic challenges as exist today, but eight years ago she stated that she understood how to bring success to Hartford, not that we’d be in a similar situation eight years later due to the presence of high needs students.

Thus, comparisons should be made in the context of districts that are demographically and academically situated as is Hartford, districts with student bodies like Hartford’s, labeled “peer districts” by the superintendent, labeled Alliance and Opportunity districts by the state.  Alliance districts are the thirty-six worst performing and highest needs districts in the state.  Opportunity districts are the ten lowest Alliance districts.

Curiously (or is it?), when explaining the high number of high need students at HPS, the superintendent did not compare the number to other Alliance or Opportunity districts, she compared it to statewide numbers.  Why?  I’ll tell you why.  Because, as was shown last year, many of these “peer districts” will have a similar or higher percentage of special education and English language learners than does Hartford.  HPS does not have a monopoly on the “challenges” of high needs students.

So, throughout the presentation, the superintendent presented various academic measures for each of the last four years (omitting the 2019-2020 COVID year).  HPS data for each measure is compared with the Alliance district and Opportunity district average measure for each of the last four years.   Over the last four years, never has any Alliance district measure dropped to the level of what the HPS measure was last year, comparisons with Opportunity districts reveal the same situation in most measures.  As for chronic absenteeism, over the last four years the average Alliance district measure of chronic absenteeism has never been as high as where HPS’ chronic absenteeism number was last year. 

However, while the average graduation rate for Alliance districts has seen four consecutive years of decline, HPS’ graduation rate has seen four consecutive years of increases with the superintendent reporting a decade high HPS graduation rate for 2023-24!  The “magic” of Edgenuity I suppose (*wink*).

One measure not discussed by the superintendent in her presentation is the measure of what HPS’ “peer districts” are spending per pupil compared to HPS’ expenditure per pupil.  While per pupil spending data for 2023-24 is not provided by the superintendent or available on EdSight (“the official source for Connecticut education data”), we do have 2022-23 per pupil spending.  That data reveals that HPS spends more than the average Alliance district spends per pupil, and overall, HPS ranks 14th out of 36 Alliance districts in per pupil spending, yet academically, HPS has performed worse than the average Alliance district.

Moving on to the COVID theme of learning loss, when presenting data on ELA and math proficiency for grades 3 to 8, the superintendent twice mentioned that performance is lagging because students are still “struggling” with learning recovery.  Only 21% of 8th graders were reading at grade level for the 2023-24 school year.  This tops the percentage for reading at grade level for all grades 3 through 7.  In math, only 10% of 8th graders performed at grade level during the 2023-24 school year while grades 3 through 7 showed percentages ranging from 11% to 27% as performing at grade level.

The COVID learning loss and lack of recovery apparently disappears as students transition from the 8th grade into high school.  Over the last four years, no 8th grade class has recorded higher than 26% reading at grade level, and no 8th grade class has recorded higher than 15% reaching grade level in math.  However, in each of the last four years the superintendent reports that at least 74% of freshmen have successfully earned 6 or more credits to be labeled “on track” to graduation.  How is this possible if close to 80% of 8th graders moving into 9th grade cannot read at grade level or achieve grade level scores in math? 

What’s more, when discussing chronic absenteeism earlier in the meeting, the superintendent stated, “we can’t realize the improvements…if students are not in school every day.”  Well, for the 75% of freshmen who earned enough credits to be considered “on track” last year, 48% of them were chronically absent!  Similarly, while announcing the highest graduation rate in a decade, the superintendent failed to mention that 49% of those graduates were chronically absent in their senior year! COVID learning loss and chronic absenteeism isn’t slowing down HPS high school students, but according to the superintendent, grades 3 through 8 are “struggling” to recover.

The folly of the superintendent’s data is revealed in 11th and 12th graders SAT scores.  The superintendent skimmed over HPS SAT data during the meeting, failing to mention that total HPS SAT scores declined last year for the third consecutive year.  She also failed to mention that for the school year 2018-19, the percentage of students meeting or exceeding SAT benchmarks in ELA was 37% but has since dropped to 29%.  Similarly, the percentage of students meeting or exceeding the SAT benchmark for math has dropped from 20% in 2018-19 to 13% today.  Imagine the HPS graduation rate if there was a state required test for graduation.  As to the poor SAT numbers she did show, the superintendent basically said, “oh well, not all colleges require the SAT anyway.”  Great.

Below is a glimpse of some other data points gleaned from the superintendent’s presentation or EdSight:

• While the superintendent talks of the unique challenges HPS faces with the number of special education students (SPED), the difference between HPS’ rate of SPED students and the average district statewide is only 2.6 percentage points.  Since the 2018-19 school year, the average statewide district has seen a 2.5 percentage point increase in SPED enrollment, while HPS has seen a 1.6 percentage point increase.  Statewide, the increase in the number of SPED students in a district has increased more than the increase experienced by HPS.

• 23% of HPS students are not Hartford residents, and 44% of HPS students attend a magnet school.

• The superintendent called for a celebration after announcing that HPS has raised its percentage of teachers of color from 23% to 31% while the statewide district average is only 11%.  That’s great, but she didn’t call out that HPS’ teacher vacancy rate at the start of this year has ballooned over 203% from where it was at the start of the 2023-24 school year.

• ELA performance numbers for Connecticut Alliance districts are down 3.8 percentage points from where they were in 2018-19.  HPS’ ELA performance numbers are down 5.6 percentage points from 2018-19.  In math, Alliance districts are down 3.2 percentage points from 2018-19, while HPS is down 4.5 percentage points.  HPS is experiencing slower pandemic recovery than the average Alliance, or “peer,” district.

• The superintendent’s “District Scorecard” lists how a child perceives their safety and connection to school as a “Major Goal,” while reading, writing, and arithmetic are listed as “Secondary Goals.”  It’s easier to make a kid smile than it is to get him/her to spell smile.

• The superintendent stated that the “strongest growth” on the “scorecard” was in school climate, or how students, families, and staff perceive school climate.  This data comes from the climate and culture survey run by HPS during the spring and fall of a school year.  While no specific data for 2024 is shown, for the spring of 2022, 37% of responders were in grades 3-6, while only 27% of high schoolers responded.  Similarly, in the spring of 2023, 44% of responders were in grades 3-6, while 32% of high schoolers responded.  While the superintendent shows 2024 percentages for perceptions of school safety and connectedness being between 77% and 89%, public high school students responding in 2022 and 2023 to the same perception statements came in between 45% and 57%.  And, in 2023 the total amount of responses to the superintendent’s survey dropped 17% from the spring of 2022. 

• The superintendent stated that “family perceptions of child’s support in school remain steady.”  However, the data shows that in the spring of 2023, 48% of families responded to the survey, yet for the spring of 2024, only 14% of families responded to the survey.  That family engagement thing appears to be working well. 

The message that the superintendent would like everyone to take from this meeting presentation is that in the context of districts statewide and districts that look like Hartford, all are struggling academically, and all are struggling with student chronic absenteeism and staffing shortages just as is HPS.  Basically, it’s like a 12-year-old saying, “but everybody’s doing it!”

In the end, one thing stands out, no other district in Connecticut is reporting record graduation rates.