State education officials on Tuesday released the sixth annual collection of data known as School Accountability Reports, calling it a centerpiece of education reform that has raised student academic performance in Colorado’s 178 public school districts.
It was also the final school report card release under Gov. Bill Owens, who has championed the blue and white, tri-fold documents as a tool to help families make choices about what schools are best for their children.
Owens, who leaves office in January, said he believes the so-called report cards on schools are a part of his legacy in Colorado. “I strongly believe in accountability,” Owens said following a press conference at the Colorado Department of Education.
Parents, he said, “should be given more information” on their children’s schools.
“I feel education is a significant part of what I’ve tried to accomplish as governor,” Owens said.
The report cards were created six years ago by the state legislature to provide data to parents and taxpayers. A report card is created for each school in the state.
The 2006 batch gives academic ratings to 1,800 Colorado public school programs, based on how students performed on the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) test. The CSAP measures how well public school students meet state standards for math, reading and writing in grades three through 10, and in science for grades five, eight and 10.
This year, 650 public school programs rated “average.” Another 581 were rated “high,” and 351 were rated “low.” There were 199 schools that recieved the highest rating, “excellent,” and 20 had the lowest rating of “unsatisfactory.”
Schools rated “unsatisfactory” four years in a row could be converted to a charter school, which happened to Cole Middle School two years ago. However, state law allows a school to appeal to the State Board of Education to avoid conversion if they can show they have a plan in place to turn the school around, said Karen Stroup, chief of staff at the education department.
Owens said noted that fewer schools are in the “unsatisfactory” category. Enrollment in unsatisfactory schools in 2001 was 16,803, compared to 4,353 this year, according to the state.
The reports also feature other details like student/teacher ratios, the number of fights at a school, and whether the school showed academic growth over time.
