CSAP and Educational Accountability
Coming up next spring is the fourth annual Colorado Student Assessment Program (commonly referred to as CSAP) exams, which test students on standards-based criteria in math, science, reading and writing. Highly publicized and widely debated, the CSAP has not exactly been taking the back seat to other educational issues. In fact, it is has been and still remains the educational issue in the state, dividing teachers, administrators, state legislators and even the governor as to what function the CSAP should serve in public schools. It started as rallying cry from Gov. Bill Owens-his answer to the critics who said not enough was being done to adequately reform education within the state. For the past ten years, the country has been undergoing a radical change in education reform. Standards have been implemented in every public school system to make sure students are learning and performing at the levels expected of them and their respective grade levels. Owens saw this as not being enough, so he implemented the CSAP along with its penalties for under-performing schools, and rewards for high-achieving ones. To explain these penalties and rewards, the assessment system must be touched on first.
Since its inception, the CSAP has garnered plenty of media attention, everything from irritated teachers and administrators who feel the burden being placed on their shoulders, to the calm, unassuming governor and legislators of this state. Newspapers and newscasts have held the CSAP as the focus of several pieces of journalism-a lot of them trying to explain the many facets of the program and its exams. For the past three years, each fall, every public school and its grade based on the CSAP has been publicized in the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post, leading to the praise and acclamation of high-performing schools, and the public discontent of low-performing schools. Teachers who have to prepare students for the CSAP are given packets providing sample test questions, preparation ideas, and other suggestions to aide in students' success on the exam. The pressure to have their students succeed in this high-stakes testing program can lead to teachers who rely too much on the preparation packets, and teaching directly from them. What happens to those creative ways teachers have of getting through to students? They still may be there, but they are diminishing quickly, giving way to pre-packaged techniques the state is recommending, and teachers are not as willing to a take a chance of not getting information across to their students. rm being a touchy subject, the local media need to present the facts straight, and then let the public form their perceptions, instead of throwing around lies, which lead to an uninformed public. One example of irresponsible reporting can be seen in the July 26, 2001 issue of the Denver Rocky Mountain News, whose headline on page 2E reads, "Caps Show Overall Gains, But 86% of 10th Graders Flunk Math Portion of Test." Read further into the article and you will find out that the 86% of students who "flunked" includes those who were Partially Proficient, which, if were to be converted to a standard grading scale would be a 70-75% (CDE, Demonstration Binder 13). Most of the public would not read past that headline, left with the assumption that 86% of Colorado's 10th graders are flunking the math portion of the CSAP. One of Denver's most widely read newspapers putting out headlines with this kind of language ("flunk") skews the public perception of how students and schools are actually performing on the CSAP exam. This kind of reporting twists the facts about the CSAP and its results and attempts to sensationalize them. In this day and age, with education and its refo! gs because only a certain number of schools are allowed in each category. John Q. Public could be deciding where to send his kids to school, and seeing that his neighborhood school was not quite at the level as the school across town could send his children their instead, when it could very well be the case that his neighborhood school only had a few students who did not score Advanced on the CSAP, while the other school made up that difference with just a few students. This type of rating system only aids in skewing the public perception of schools based on the CSAP exam. Another way students and schools lose before they even take the CSAP is through the program's limited leniency involving students who are learning English as a second language. According to Nancy Mitchell's article in the Denver Rocky Mountain News, the CSAP only allows for a certain percentage of a school's population that is not primarily English speaking to be exempt from taking the exam, a large portion of which is reading and writing, even in parts of the math section which requires students to submit hand-written responses to word problems explaining their answers. The problem with this is that those students who do not end being exempt from the CSAP, even though they may not be fluent in English, still have to take the exam, and their scores are included in their school's overall rating ("Gaps in Achievement" B3). In the same article
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3659
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page double spaced)
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