High-Stakes Testing and Student Achievement: Problems for the No Child Left Behind Act.

Connecticut has two criterion-referenced assessments called the Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) given to students in grades K-8 and the Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) given to students in grade 10. Connecticut Mastery Test The Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) is a criterion-referenced test administered to grades 4, 6, and 8 dating back to 1985. Students in these grades are tested annually in the fall of the school year. A second generation of CMT was introduced in 1993 and a third in 2000. Mastery and state standards have been set for each content area of the test at each grade level and reports of individual student achievement relative to these standards in the areas of math, reading, and writing are provided to parents of tested students. The legislation prohibits the use of test scores as the sole criterion for promotion and graduation. The purposes of the CMT are: to set high expectations for students, to test a range of academic skills, to disseminate test information about students, schools and districts, to identify students in need of intervention, to assess equitable educational