Some school districts have been counting non-English- speaking students as participating in the CSAP, even though those students never attempted to take the test, a federal evaluation of Colorado’s accountability practices found.
The audit, performed in January by a team from the U.S. Department of Education, is the first federal review of how well Colorado is carrying out the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
In a 34-page report released last week by the Colorado Department of Education, the federal agency found that the state gave districts permission to excuse English-language learners from the Colorado Student Assessment Program.
Those students weren’t given a CSAP grade, yet they were counted as having taken the test so that the district could meet the 95 percent test-participation requirement of the law, the audit found.
Zollie Stevenson, who led the federal audit in January, said only students who have been in the country for 10 months or less can be excluded from the CSAP.
Under Colorado guidelines, however, districts were permitted to count the English-language learners as CSAP participants if they had taken an English-language proficiency test, which is different from CSAP.
“They’re not supposed to do that,” Stevenson said.
The federal team based its report on visits to the Denver and Jefferson County school districts and phone interviews with the Aurora and Colorado Springs school districts. School officials and parents also were interviewed.
The state has until mid-April to respond.
Denver Public Schools, and possibly other districts, excused English-language learners. But DPS said they were adhering to state rules.
“Denver Public Schools follows state guidelines for reporting data that track English-language learners. Should those state guidelines change, the district certainly would make subsequent changes accordingly,” said district spokeswoman Tanya Caughey.
Pat Chapman, a federal-programs director for the Colorado Department of Education, said the state didn’t think testing non-English speakers gives an accurate picture “because we’re assessing them in a language they don’t understand.”
Staff writer Karen Rouse can be reached at 303-820-1684 or krouse@denverpost.com .
