DENVER—More than 44 percent of Colorado schools rated excellent or high in the latest Colorado School Achievement Program tests, up slightly from the year before.
The results, released Tuesday by the Colorado Department of Education, are for the 2007-08 school year.
The department said 11.9 percent of schools were rated excellent in 2007-2008, up from 11.8 percent in 2006-2007, and 32.5 percent were rated high, up from 31.2 percent the year before.
It said 35.9 percent of schools were rated average, down from 36.2 percent the year before.
Nineteen percent were rated low, down from 20.1 percent the year before, and 0.6 percent rated unsatisfactory, unchanged from a year earlier.
The report includes a new measurement of how much progress all the students at a school are making toward meeting state proficiency standards, called the Colorado Growth Model. On that count, about 350 schools were rated high, about 1,100 were typical and about 300 were rated low.
About 80 alternative schools were not included in the Colorado Growth Model ratings. Another 190 regular schools were unrated or listed as unreportable.
Commissioner of Education Dwight D. Jones said the Colorado Growth Model can be a good tool for parents, students and teachers to view long-term trends instead of just a one-year snapshot.
“The beauty of the Colorado Growth Model is that it’s built on individual student progress over time,” Jones said. “The result is a view of the effectiveness of schools in improving student achievement from where each student starts.”
State officials said the results show a strong link between high achievement on the test and schools that rate high on the Colorado Growth Model.
For example, 71.6 percent of the schools that rated high on the growth model were either excellent or high on the CSAP tests. But only about 20 percent of the schools that rated low on the growth model were excellent or high on CSAP results.
