The Colorado Department of Education posted school- and district-level results from statewide assessments that were required in the spring of 2021, including the Colorado Measures of Academic Success assessments in English language arts and math and the PSAT and SAT. The school- and district-level results as well as the state-level results can be found on CDE’s assessment webpage…
— Press release from the Colorado Department of Education, September 1, 2021
The school- and district-level results of the CMAS standardized tests (Colorado Measures of Academic Success assessments) have finally been shared with the taxpaying public.
The Colorado Department of Education (CDE) tried to bypass the test for 2021, by filing a waiver request with the US Department of Education — similar to the waiver requests that were granted in 2020 during the nationwide school closures — but the Biden administration didn’t allow the 2021 waiver requests.
The federal government has managed to tie millions of dollars in grant funding to its requirement that all students in certain grades succumb to standardized testing.
Or, if not all students, at least a reasonably large percentage of them. The percentage of students taking the CMAS test in 2021 was relatively small.
Opponents of testing last year — including many superintendents and school boards, as well as the state’s largest teachers union — argued that testing in the midst of an ongoing pandemic would present logistical challenges, and would take away from precious instructional time without yielding valid results. The federal government discounted those arguments and kept the testing requirements in place.
Colorado did manage to pass a law prohibiting districts from using the 2021 test results in teacher and staff evaluations.
According to CDE press release this week, “It is important when reporting these results to consider the many unusual circumstances last school year that impacted learning and the test results.” Not just a few unusual circumstances, but many.
For one thing, the 2021 participation rates for districts, schools and student groups were “significantly lower overall than in past years.” That presents challenges, says CDE, with interpreting results. Additionally — and as we all know — learning was significantly disrupted by quarantines, closures, and classes switching back and forth between in-person instruction and remote learning. Also, the scoring was not re-calibrated to adjust for the challenges faced by schools and students in 2020-2021.
“Based on the participation rates in a school or district, conclusions in some cases should be made with caution or completely avoided.”
The Daily Post is going to take CDE at their word, and will avoid, completely, reporting or analyzing the CMAS results for 2021. (Disclosure: I serve on the board of directors for Pagosa Peak Open School, the only District-authorized public charter school in Archuleta County. The opinions expressed here are mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the PPOS board or staff.)
My decision to refrain from sharing district and school data in the Daily Post has nothing to do with the numbers — whether ‘good’ or ‘bad’ — generated by any of our schools in Archuleta County. The scores are posted on the CDE website, and are available for parents and community members to explore at their leisure.
I’m not sharing scores here, however, because I believe the standardized testing industry is antithetical to optimum education. The only subjects consistently tested, year after year, by the CMAS industry, are ‘reading’ and ‘math’. There are many reasons why the testing industry limits itself to scoring only two subjects consistently, out of all the various skills and types of understanding essential to a healthy human existence — but the end result of this limited focus has been generally hurtful to a well-rounded education in our public schools.
From US News, October 2019, before the arrival the COVID nightmare:
Math and reading scores for fourth- and eighth-graders in the United States dropped since 2017, and the decrease in reading achievement has government researchers particularly concerned.
“Over the past decade, there has been no progress in either mathematics or reading performance, and the lowest performing students are doing worse,” Peggy Carr, associate commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, said during a press call Tuesday.
Note, please. “Over the past decade… the lowest performing students are doing worse…”
Is it possible that this whole high-stakes testing scheme is actually making our education system worse with each passing year? Possibly, by frustrating experienced teachers, and causing them to leave the profession? Possibly, by draining the joy and excitement out of the system?
Tests — a traditional tool used by teachers since 5000 BC — provide valuable insights, when properly administered, and when used to guide instruction. The cost of a traditional test, in a classroom, is approximately $0. Give or take. Traditionally, the teacher (or a teacher’s aide) grades the test, and the results can be used immediately to identify, for teacher and student, areas of needed improvement.
But thanks to the vast (and bloated?) educational bureaucracy that now guides American educational policy, the state of Colorado has spent approximately $100 million on the annual CMAS tests over the past decade. The same decade during which, according to Peggy Carr, math and reading scores have been falling.
Colorado’s CMAS tests are administered in April. The scores are released in September, just as a teacher is welcoming a fresh new class of students. In other words, the CMAS test results are basically worthless for helping the teacher-student team understand where improvement is needed, because by the time the results are available, everyone has moved on to the next school year, and to a different class.
Who benefits from this dysfunctional CMAS testing process? The testing industry, and no one else?
But Colorado cannot afford to leave this ridiculous scheme behind, because — as already noted — millions of dollars in federal aid are now tied to standardized testing requirements.
And the taxpayers, who fund these potentially worthless — possibly even harmful — testing programs, are powerless to bring about a justifiable end to this wasteful practice.