Students along the Front Range showed lackluster performance on standardized tests, according to scores released by the Colorado Department of Education on Thursday. In many cases, fewer than half of students met or exceeded expectations in either math or English. Some districts had a bleaker picture of student performance, with sometimes less than a third of students hitting that benchmark.
The latest data release drills down into district-level performance on Common Core-aligned Colorado Measures of Academic Success or CMAS tests in math and English. The tests - administered in grades three through nine for English, and three through 12 for math - were given for the second time earlier this year. Interim Commissioner of Education Katy Anthes echoed remarks she made after , saying that two years is not enough to indicate a trend. Anthes also stressed that the CMAS results did not tell the whole story of students鈥� academic achievement.
鈥淭he complete picture of a student鈥檚 academic progress comes from looking at the child鈥檚 whole school experience, and that includes test scores, classroom grades and teacher feedback,鈥� Anthes said in a statement.
This year of CMAS testing saw improved participation in places. The Greeley-Evans and Poudre school districts, for instance, saw strong participation in testing across all grade levels. Boulder Valley school district, although touting improved participation in some grades, showed slipping participation in grades eight and nine.
Anthes warned parents to keep these uneven participation rates in mind when interpreting the scores.
鈥淧arents should look carefully at both the scores and the participation rates in their children鈥檚 schools, because low participation can impact how well the results represent their school as a whole,鈥� she said.
The charts below track the percentage of students in each grade that met or exceeded expectations in a either English and Language Arts (ELA) or math. We tracked four districts along the Front Range - Greeley-Evans, Poudre, Boulder Valley and Denver County.
