Seventy-three percent of Colorado’s 60,063 third-graders are reading at grade level — the highest mark in five years on the annual statewide assessment.
“We have smiles on our faces,” said Jo O’Brien, assistant commissioner at the Colorado Department of Education. “We are hopeful this continues. ”
For the past four years, the percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced on the third-grade Colorado Student Assessment Program wavered between 70 percent and 71 percent. The highest mark was 74 percent proficient set in 2003-04.
This year’s 3 percentage point increase over 2008 shows real statistical improvement, O’Brien said.
“We are not declaring a victory or this being over,” she said. “Three points is a very nice move forward.”
The sobering fact remains that 27 percent of Colorado’s third-graders have not grasped the basic literacy fundamentals that educators believe are building blocks to learning — which does not bode well for their future.
“If you are a fourth-grader and are not able to read or write, your chance of catching up is statistically low,” O’Brien said.
That is why third-grade results are released in May — months before CSAP scores for other grades and subject areas are available.
The annual CSAP tests kids in third through 10th grade on the standards in reading, writing and math. Students in the fifth, eighth and 10th grades also are tested on science.
Sheridan School District saw the largest gains among Denver-area districts. The south metro district’s 101 third-graders improved 13 percentage points over last year, with 64 percent of students scoring proficient or advanced.
“We instituted some high-quality assessments and really worked hard to stay focused on achievement,” said Superintendent Michael Clough, who has headed the district since July.
“The projections for this class when they started the year weren’t quite as positive as this. We are very excited,” Clough said.
Statewide, African-American third- graders made the biggest gains, improving by 7 percentage points over 2008 to 61 percent proficient or advanced. But an achievement gap still remains.
Latino third-graders improved 2 percentage points over 2008 with at least 54 percent proficient or advanced.
Whites improved 2 points to 83 percent proficient or advanced, and Asian students improved 1 point to 78 percent proficient.
Students poor enough to receive federal meal benefits climbed 3 points to 56 percent proficient.
Six metro districts — Denver, Aurora (Adams-Arapahoe 28J), Douglas County, Cherry Creek, Boulder and Littleton — stayed statistically flat, either improving by 1 percentage point or showing no improvement.
Brighton’s proficiency rose by 10 points to 75 percent proficient and Mapleton rose by 5 points to 50 percent proficient.
Eighty-five percent of Boulder’s third-graders were proficient or advanced — the highest in the metro area.
Westminster 50 had the lowest proficiency marks, with 47 percent of the district’s 812 third-graders reading at grade level — a 2-point drop from 2008.
Aurora’s students were 48 percent proficient; Mapleton’s, 50 percent; and Denver’s, 51 percent.
Denver reading proficiency grew 1 point over last year — not good enough in a district that has set 3.5 percentage points as an annual goal for CSAP improvement, said Tom Boasberg, Denver’s superintendent.
“We fell short,” he said. “We are disappointed. We do appreciate that we have made progress. We do recognize that the progress is not fast enough.”
Of the 716 Denver third-graders who took the Spanish-language reading test, Lectura, 60 percent were proficient or advanced — a 7 point increase over the previous year.
“That literacy in Spanish will help kids as they transition,” Boasberg said. “We are really trying to provide intervention strategies and approaches and secondly using the stimulus money to provide targeted interventions for our struggling students.”
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com
