The Aspen Community School CSAP scores are among the highest in the state of Colorado. That said, assessment of the data is complex and understanding the data can be confusing. This document is provided as a brief overview to increase parent awareness.

 

The Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) is a series of state mandated assessments that are given to 3-10^th graders in reading, writing, mathematics and science (5^th, 8^th and 10^th grade only). CSAP results give us a glance at how a student performs in each tested subject, relative to other students in that same grade across the state of Colorado. The tests are intended to measure the educational standards, as defined by the Colorado Department of Education, for each subject. 3^rd grade reading is tested in February and all other subjects are tested in March.

 

Yes! Over the years we have found that the CSAP is a good indicator of what a student knows and can do. We retrieve a great deal of valuable data on each student from the CSAP. We are able to track student strengths and weaknesses. We use this information to inform our instruction and design curriculum that meets the needs of our students. Usually, this information confirms what we already know from a myriad of other assessments. However we continue to gain important information that we use to help kids learn and to help us teach better. The CSAP does two valuable things for us. The data helps us understand how an individual child is doing and it helps us assess strength and weakness in the entire school program.

 

In 2007 we did a four-year analysis of CSAP results from every child who had taken the CSAP at ACS. Using a fantastic computer program called Alpine Achievement we were able to learn many valuable things about our students and instruction. This data led us to adopt a new K-8 spelling program. It also showed that a higher number of our 6-8 graders are operating at the advanced level in Mathematics and Reading then ever before. Data also revealed that reading scores at ACS are among the highest in the State and the Roaring Fork Valley. Collectively, our lowest scores were in written grammar and usage (hence the new spelling program) and our very highest scores were in vocabulary, extended writing, reading comprehension and upper level mathematics.

 

Yes. This is one of the more controversial aspects of the CSAP. Each year a School Accountability Report is issued which compares area schools and gives each school a rating based entirely on CSAP results. For the past six years ACS has consistently scored high in the ratings. However, we are less concerned with our “rating” and more concerned with each individual student and what we can learn as a school from the results. State issued ratings are notoriously deceiving. For example, ACS frequently has classes that are “100% proficient or advanced” in reading (7^th and 8^th grade 2007, 23 students). While this is great news, we still evaluate individual student scores and look for ways to support growth and improvement. It’s also important to recognize that statistically it doesn’t make sense to compare our 7-8 grade class of 23 students to the 7-8 grade class of 200 at Aspen Middle School (who achieved a combined score of only 80% proficient or advanced). This type of comparison is fraught with pitfalls and serves only to distract us from our goal, which is student learning.

 

 

The best way understand CSAP results is to meet with teachers and look at the results in conjunction with all the other data about your child. Some reasonable questions to ask are:

 

These are useful questions to ask regardless if your child has scored proficient, advanced or partially proficient.