Nine-year-old Emma bombed the CSAP test, earning her an “unsatisfactory” for her school.
Emma didn’t even take the regular CSAP. Her teachers at her elementary school in Cherry Creek School District had her take the “CSAP-A,” a sort of CSAP-lite for children with special needs.
But Emma bombed it anyway.
So what’s the problem? State education officials may assume she must not have learned anything last year since there was no measurable progress on her CSAP test.
Emma can’t hold a pencil. She can’t walk, talk, and she eats through a feeding tube.
As if having those challenges weren’t tough enough, Colorado state law requires her school to give her the CSAP test.
“It’s silly that she’s being judged on the items on this test. She and her school should be judged on her accomplishments and what it’s realistic for her to accomplish,” said Emma’s mother, Monique. “Special-needs kids, by definition, cannot be compared to each other and everyone else.”
But under No Child Left Behind, passed by Congress in 2001, schools and districts are required to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), which is a standard that defines annual academic requirements. AYP results were released this week.
In Colorado, schools and districts must reach 100 percent of their targets to meet AYP. Cherry Creek School District made 95 percent of its targets, but by state standards, failed to meet AYP. Cherry Creek won’t be alone. Last year, no school district with more than 4,500 students made AYP. Cherry Creek has about 46,000 students.
Each state decides what meeting AYP means. Colorado has a number of requirements. One that most impacts students like Emma is that school districts with at least 30 students in a “subgroup” also must have 95 percent participation in each subgroup to make AYP, even if parents choose not to have their children take CSAP tests.
The subgroups are:
Economically disadvantaged; Race; Students with disabilities; Limited proficiency in English.
Some schools in Cherry Creek School District have at least 30 students with limited English skills. According to state law, at least 1 percent of those students should score advanced on their CSAP for the school, and the district, to make AYP.
But think about it. If a student is “advanced” in English, would he be considered limited English proficient?
It just doesn’t make any sense.
Don’t get me wrong. Accountability measures for schools can be helpful to parents, the community, schools and students. But parts of Colorado’s school accountability process need to be reviewed.
Emma, for example, has physical and development challenges to cope with, then she must undergo the humiliating process of having a blank test submitted in her name. Then, when the public asks why Cherry Creek School District didn’t make AYP, the district must tell them it’s because students like Emma didn’t score well on their tests.
The third-grade CSAP test doesn’t measure all that Emma accomplished last year, or throughout her life. Doctors didn’t expect her to make it past her first birthday. If she did, they said, she wouldn’t smile or laugh, because the areas of her brain that control emotions were damaged.
Well, Emma made it past that first year. She’s laughing and smiling. She hasn’t met many of the traditional milestones other children have, but she’s created her own.
With the support of her parents and the motivated staff at her school, Emma is learning how to answer questions with eye gaze. She’s working on becoming weight-bearing by using a stander. With the support of a gait trainer, she is learning how to take steps.
Hours of work, patience and exhaustion go into every bit of progress Emma makes. But she is rewarded with an “unsatisfactory,” which means she didn’t learn anything last year. In addition, her teachers and therapists who are passionate and innovative are rewarded with an “unsatisfactory” for their hard work.
Schools should be accountable, but let’s do it in a way that accurately measures the students who are actually in our public schools.
Michelle Ancell (ancellsrus@yahoo.com) is a communication specialist for Cherry Creek Schools who lives in Aurora with her husband and daughter.
