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Grand Junction, CO Colorado
GRAND JUNCTION — The average Mesa County Valley School District 51 student did an average job this spring on Colorado Student Assessment Program tests, according to School Accountability Reports released Wednesday from the Colorado Department of Education.
Accountability reports, released each winter by the state, collect CSAP scores from every student in a school and put them through a formula to determine how the school performed on CSAP tests as a whole earlier in the calendar year. The reports are sent home with students to inform parents about the school’s performance. The reports also include information about safety at the school and a district taxpayers’ report on how the school district gets and spends taxes.
Twenty-five of the 44 reportable schools in District 51 had average CSAP scores in spring 2007. Nine performed high and nine performed low. One school — Orchard Avenue Elementary — had excellent performance.
Last year’s accountability reports were above average. With spring 2006 CSAP scores, the state reported 16 out of 41 reporting District 51 schools had high or better performance. Six schools rated low. One — Independence Academy’s grade 1-5 program — rated unsatisfactory. The other 18 schools had average performance.
Accountability reports also show how a school’s students have grown academically.
The categories are: Significantly improve; improve; remain stable; decline; or significantly decline in their CSAP score total.
These rankings tended toward the middle in District 51 for 2006-2007 as well.
Sixteen District 51 schools remained stable in their test performance. Nine improved. Nine declined. Seven significantly declined, and three significantly improved.
District 51 teachers, parents and administrators are already working to improve CSAP scores in spring 2008, according to District 51 Spokesman Jeff Kirtland. CSAP scores became available to the school district late this summer.
“The data being used is data we’ve seen already,” Kirtland said. “This is data teachers have been using since the beginning of the school year.”
Teachers are “using data more and more” to decide how to help kids learn, Kirtland said. Teachers can view a student’s CSAP history online through a private inter-district Web site, he said. Parents can see the same information about their child on the Parent Bridge Web site, www.mesa.k12.co.us.
CSAP scores and accountability reports are two of three measures schools use to evaluate student success through standardized testing. The other method is school accreditation. Accreditation results will be available in the spring.
Gov. Bill Ritter said Wednesday he was dissatisfied that only 11.8 percent of Colorado’s 1,971 public schools rated excellent on school accountability reports this year.
“We should continue to debate whether the SAR is the best measurement tool available to us. Regardless, I am not satisfied. Nobody can say we are doing the best job possible when it comes to preparing our kids for a 21st century workforce,” Ritter said in a press release.
“If there’s one area where we can not fail, it’s how we educated our children.”
Reach Emily Anderson at eanderson@gjfreepress.com.
GRAND JUNCTION — The average Mesa County Valley School District 51 student did an average job this spring on Colorado Student Assessment Program tests, according to School Accountability Reports released Wednesday from the Colorado Department of Education.
Accountability reports, released each winter by the state, collect CSAP scores from every student in a school and put them through a formula to determine how the school performed on CSAP tests as a whole earlier in the calendar year. The reports are sent home with students to inform parents about the school’s performance. The reports also include information about safety at the school and a district taxpayers’ report on how the school district gets and spends taxes.
Twenty-five of the 44 reportable schools in District 51 had average CSAP scores in spring 2007. Nine performed high and nine performed low. One school — Orchard Avenue Elementary — had excellent performance.
Last year’s accountability reports were above average. With spring 2006 CSAP scores, the state reported 16 out of 41 reporting District 51 schools had high or better performance. Six schools rated low. One — Independence Academy’s grade 1-5 program — rated unsatisfactory. The other 18 schools had average performance.
Accountability reports also show how a school’s students have grown academically.
The categories are: Significantly improve; improve; remain stable; decline; or significantly decline in their CSAP score total.
These rankings tended toward the middle in District 51 for 2006-2007 as well.
Sixteen District 51 schools remained stable in their test performance. Nine improved. Nine declined. Seven significantly declined, and three significantly improved.
District 51 teachers, parents and administrators are already working to improve CSAP scores in spring 2008, according to District 51 Spokesman Jeff Kirtland. CSAP scores became available to the school district late this summer.
“The data being used is data we’ve seen already,” Kirtland said. “This is data teachers have been using since the beginning of the school year.”
Teachers are “using data more and more” to decide how to help kids learn, Kirtland said. Teachers can view a student’s CSAP history online through a private inter-district Web site, he said. Parents can see the same information about their child on the Parent Bridge Web site, www.mesa.k12.co.us.
CSAP scores and accountability reports are two of three measures schools use to evaluate student success through standardized testing. The other method is school accreditation. Accreditation results will be available in the spring.
Gov. Bill Ritter said Wednesday he was dissatisfied that only 11.8 percent of Colorado’s 1,971 public schools rated excellent on school accountability reports this year.
“We should continue to debate whether the SAR is the best measurement tool available to us. Regardless, I am not satisfied. Nobody can say we are doing the best job possible when it comes to preparing our kids for a 21st century workforce,” Ritter said in a press release.
“If there’s one area where we can not fail, it’s how we educated our children.”
Reach Emily Anderson at eanderson@gjfreepress.com.
