More Colorado schools are “excellent” than five years ago and fewer are “unsatisfactory,” but progress has been unsteady and more needs to be done, Gov. Bill Owens said Tuesday as he released the 2005 state School Accountability Reports.
To better track just how well schools are doing at reaching individual students, the state for the first time this year measured how much – or how little – students who took the Colorado Student Assessment Program tests in 2004 improved their scores in 2005.
That ranking, called “academic growth of students,” appears on the report card parents will receive along with the traditional “excellent,” “high,” “average,” “low” or “unsatisfactory” ratings they are accustomed to seeing.
The measure, state officials say, is not perfect but gives a better sense of whether students are continuing to progress or whether their achievement is stagnating.
Overall, Owens said, the report cards arm parents to decide where to send their children to school.
“They now have the ability to compare schools,” Owens said. “It may not be perfect, but more information is better than less.”
In addition to academic growth, this year’s report cards offer two more new pieces of information: a school district’s accreditation status and the number of federal education goals a school had to meet compared with how many it actually met.
The report cards also include dropout rates, teacher salaries and years of experience, safety and discipline figures, and other information for each of Colorado’s 1,800 school programs.
Owens highlighted several points the state has tracked from 2001, when the first school report cards were issued.
This year, 60 more schools were rated “excellent,” 110 more were rated “high,” 75 fewer were rated “low” and 28 fewer were rated “unsatisfactory” than in 2001.
He expressed concern, however, that 17 schools were rated “unsatisfactory,” four more than last year. A few schools also are in danger of being converted to charter schools because they continue to underperform, Owens said.
“Not all the scores are positive this year,” Owens said. “A handful of schools are on the brink of being converted.”
Under state law, schools that are “unsatisfactory” must create an improvement plan that will raise achievement, according to Karen Stroup, chief of staff at the Colorado Department of Education. If a school is rated “unsatisfactory” three consecutive times, after having completed three improvement plans, it must be converted to a charter school.
Of 1,800 school programs rated this year, 234 climbed to a higher rating, 192 dropped to a lower rank, and 1,303 remained the same. The remaining 71 did not have ratings in 2004 to compare to 2005.
Sometimes, the rating changes were dramatic. At Paradox Valley School in Montrose County, the middle school’s rating jumped from “average” in 2004 to “excellent” in 2005.
Director Renee Owen said that five years ago, Paradox, which currently serves about 45 students, was rated “low.”
With more than 80 percent of the predominantly white student body qualifying for free or reduced-price lunches, Owen said she wasn’t sure scores could be raised until she saw that some urban schools with similarly disadvantaged students were successful.
In 2002, Owen said, she began visiting some of those schools, including Denver’s KIPP Sunshine Peak Academy. And she read books about other urban, poor schools that did well. “Once I found out about them, I was determined,” she said.
She set up after-school tutoring twice a week for students who were below grade level in reading or math. And she asked parents to sign contracts agreeing to support their child’s education.
In Pueblo, Columbian Elementary School in the Pueblo School District 60 held on to its “high” rating for another year. Students who took the CSAP in 2004 were “improved” in 2005, the reports show.
Principal Karen Ortiz said the school serves about 375 students, 88 percent of whom qualify for subsidized lunches.
In addition to studying each student’s test scores and providing tutors or mentors for students who are not performing at grade level, the school tries to engage students in other activities like the running or walking club, art class or chess.
“I wanted them to find something they could be passionate about,” Ortiz said.
The accreditation status listed for the first time on the report cards indicates whether the school district, not the school, meets education standards outlined by the state board.
However, 15 of the accredited schools were listed as being “on watch” because those schools have not met all 11 education standards outlined in accreditation contracts the state has with all 178 districts in Colorado.
In all, about 1 million blue- and-white pamphlets have gone out across the state, at a cost of about $300,000, Stroup said.
Staff writer Karen Rouse can be reached at 303-820-1684 or krouse@denverpost.com.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Q: Which assessments are included in the “Overall Academic Performance on State Assessments”?
A: Scores from all 2005 CSAP tests and the 2005 statewide ACT assessment are used to calculate a school’s overall academic rating. For Colorado Student Assessment Program tests, the rating includes reading, writing, math and science scores. For the American College Test assessment, the rating includes the reading, English (writing) and math sub-scores.
Q: Are the Spanish CSAPs included in the school’s “Overall Academic Performance on State Assessments”?
A: Yes, results from the Spanish CSAP assessments, which are administered in grades three and four, are included in the school’s “Overall Academic Performance Rating.”
Q: Which students do not have their scores included in the School Accountability Reports rating?
A: Students new to the school after Oct. 1, 2004, limited-English-proficient students attending Colorado public schools for a short amount of time, and students eligible or taking an alternate assessment do not have their scores included in the school’s SAR rating.
Q: What does the term “students per teacher ratio” mean?
A: If your district is reporting the number of teachers per grade correctly, “students per teacher ratio” represents the total number of students in the school divided by the total number of teachers including special teachers (such as art and music). It does not indicate specific class size averages.
COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
