How does your kid’s school stack up?

July 21, 3:07 PMColorado Education ExaminerTodd Engdahl

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Colorado parents have been comparing school performance – and shopping for homes in neighborhoods with good schools – since the CSAP testing system spread across most grades in the 1990s.

Every fall, parents receive a report detailing how junior did on the CSAP tests taken the previous spring. Students are ranked as “advanced,” “proficient,” “partially proficient” or “unsatisfactory” in reading, writing and math. (Those tests are given every year in grades three through 10. Science tests are given in the fifth, eighth and 10th grades.)

Later in the year, parents receive a “School Accountability Report” that labels their kids’ school as “excellent,” “high,” “average” or “low,” based primarily on CSAP scores but including some other factors.

The trouble with all that data is that provides only snapshots of moments in the past. Up to now it hasn’t been possible to track whether a student or a school actually is making progress. (For instance, it was hard to tell if a kid was low in the proficient category for reading two years ago but was a high proficient last year, meaning the student could be on the way to advanced this year.)

Now, after nearly a decade of policy making, number crunching and computer programming, it’s possible to track a student’s growth over time. The state Department of Education has launched a new system named the Colorado Growth Model to do just that.

For the schools, the model can display schools in a district both in terms of test scores and growth.

Look at the chart to the upper right. Each dot represents a school’s performance on a given test. A dot’s place on the chart represents both test scores and improvement:

• Dots in the upper right box are schools with high scores and strong improvement.
• Dots in the lower right box are schools with scores less than proficient but that are improving.
• Dots in the upper left box are schools with high scores but that are not improving.
• The lower left box contain problem schools – low scores and little improvement.

The higher a dot is on the chart, the higher that school’s test scores. The farther to the right a dot is on the chart, the higher its improvement

You can see a box for any district in the state by going to this state webpage. Scroll down to links for the district you’re interested in. Once a district grid is displayed, you can generate displays for high, middle and elementary schools and for math, reading or writing scores, using the navigation boxes to the right of the grid. Mouse over a dot, and a popup box will display that school's name and vital stats.

The data currently displayed covers only up to the 2007 CSAP scores, but grids that include 2008 scores will be available in late August.

And, when you have your teacher-parent conference this fall, ask the teacher about Growth Model data for your kids.