Connecticut Compensatory Education Programs. Annual Evaluation Report, 1973-74. Programs Supported by Connecticut Act for Educationally Deprived Children and Title I of the Education Amendments of 1974.

The first section of this report provides the pupil count, expenditures, and staff figures for the 1973-74 school year Connecticut compensatory education programs. Section two provides the major types of programs for public and nonpublic schools and the frequency of their occurrence in 1973-1974. The programs include preschool, reading and math, and summer programs. The third section addresses achievement test results, which are given in terms of a grade equivalent analysis, and a standard score analysis. The rest of this section provides a discussion of the test analyses presented. It is suggested that the use of grade equivalent test score analysis at the school district, the State, and the Federal levels be discontinued in favor of a more accurate way of reporting the achievement of compensatory children to the public. Although various features that improve the method of reporting achievement are incorporated in the additional way Connecticut has analyzed compensatory pupil test information for the past two years, two considerations are seen to need further attention. First, some of the Connecticut analyses are shown not to be consistent with that of the much larger MAT Gains sample; second, this report does not deal with the issue of how the MAT Gains approach can be used effectively at the school district, the State, and the Federal levels of participation to determine whether pupils are performing any better than they would have, had compensatory help not been provided to the selected pupils. (Author/AM)