CSAP putting pressure on local schools

CSAP putting pressure on local schools

Nov. 2, 2000

By Janelle Holden
Journal Staff Writer

By placing the onus for student performance on the back of school administrators rather than students, the state has understandably made some school officials nervous.

Susie Robertson, guidance counselor for Mancos Middle School and High School, says that at least one student has noticed the school’s interest in the scores.

"We had one student who told their teacher, ‘Oh, so will you get fired if we don’t do well?’" explained Robertson. "Students don’t seem to feel that threat of accreditation that teachers do," she said.

Gone are the days when "Iowa Basics," the standardized tests most students across the nation took every spring, were administered in Montezuma County public schools. Instead, students are required to take controversial state-mandated tests through the Colorado Student Assessment Program that could soon determine their schools’ future.

During its last legislative session, the Colorado legislature re-worked the state’s evaluation of CSAP scores. Now the state plans to issue yearly report cards with letter grades for each public school based on its students’ performances on the CSAP tests. The first report cards are due by August 2001, but administrators and teachers are already feeling pressure to prepare Grade 3-10 students to score better than ever during the 2001 spring testing cycle.

This is due, in part, to a new system of CSAP analysis. Although CSAP tests have been administered since 1997, the state legislature recently revised which students’ scores would count toward each school’s grade. As a result, administrators have no way to accurately predict from previous scores next year’s letter grade.

In the past, all students were required to take the CSAP and graded on their proficiency — or, in simpler terms, whether they scored high enough to pass.

When students take their next exams, three groups of students normally factored into the scores will be excluded: those enrolled in special education, those with limited English skills, or anyone who enrolled in the school from out of state after Oct. 1.

Of the remaining students, their scores will be grouped into four different categories: Advanced proficient, proficient, partially proficient, and non-satisfactory. The percentage of students in each of these categories is then multiplied by a number on a scale of 0.5 that ranges from -0.1 for non-satisfactory to 0.1 for advanced proficient.

These four numbers are averaged, rounded, and then averaged with the scores from other tests to produce the school’s overall score.

Across Colorado, each school’s score will be placed on a bell curve, with F schools being the bottom 2 percent of all Colorado schools, A schools those in the top 8 percent, and D’s, C’s, and B’s falling somewhere in the middle. In addition, the state will give schools another letter grade based on their improvement from the previous year, so it’s theoretically possible for a D school to get an A in improvement.

The stakes are high for F and D schools.

If schools fail to raise an F grade within two years, even with state intervention, an independent charter school could legally take over operation of the institution. For D schools, the State Board of Education may appoint a voluntary assistance team that makes recommendations to the education commissioner for improvement.

The state plans to notify schools by June if they get an F grade, but won’t release the report cards until August.

Giving out the F’s first worries George Schumpelt, Re-1’s assistant superintendent of curriculum. "It’s going to be a lot more shocking for the public," he warned.

Although schools will still receive their base funding no matter their score, better-scoring schools will get bonuses from the state. As a result, schools have a monetary incentive to change their curriculum to comply with the test.

"Everybody is teaching to the test more. As people teach to the test, scores are getting better," explained Schumpelt.

Administrators and teachers say the danger of CSAP is that all curricula will have to be based to the test, giving teachers little academic freedom to vary material according to students’ needs.

"Tests are important, but I think maybe we’re putting too much emphasis on one," cautioned Zadra Culp, language arts master teacher for Re-1. Culp said that teachers in the district already spend many hours aligning their lesson plans with district standards.

This spring, grades 3 through 11 will take at least one of the CSAP reading, writing, math, and science subject tests. But in the spring of 2002 grades 3 through 10 will take both a reading and writing test, with the possible addition of math and science. In addition, juniors will be required to take the ACT college entrance exam, and it will be included on the student’s report card.

Some school districts administer their own assessment tests. Re-1, for instance, also gives students in grades 3 through 8 a Levels exam, developed through the Northwest Evaluation Association, which measures the learning growth of individual students. "The exams measure our standards exactly," said Schumpelt.

Although Re-1 has scored lower than state proficiency levels, sometimes by as much as 15 percentage points, Schumpelt said the test hasn’t been tweaked enough to provide an accurate picture of the district’s students.

For instance, Schumpelt pointed out that in fourth grade, students have to score 75 percent or above on their writing tests to be proficient, but only 45 percent and above to be proficient in reading.

"The test wasn’t built on a continuum of calibrated scores," said Schumpelt. "It was random criteria developed by a group of teachers behind closed doors."

"It’s premature to go exclusively with CSAP because it’s just in the formation stages, where our Levels exam is a proven test. It’s frustrating and demoralizing to our teachers when a criterion that is more or less random becomes the standard as to whether or not their students are proficient," he explained.

Dolores and Mancos schools have fared significantly better on the CSAP then Re-1, and administrators give much of the credit to smaller class sizes, but the pressure is still there for them to keep up their success.

"Whenever you have state-level assessments that have high accountability and high stakes there’s always that stress and pressure that everybody feels," said Tina Goar, Dolores superintendent.

Robertson cautions that the state needs to take into account that smaller schools often need more resources and funding to keep their students competitive with students in wealthier metropolitan districts.

"You’re measuring a different population in Mancos then you are in Cortez, let alone Denver," she explained, but didn’t seem too worried about the CSAP.

"I think that these tests are going to come and go, just like any other educational endeavor. Politics will change. I don’t think that they’re all that bad."