While useful to read the following in order to understand the broader parameters that DPS is operating under, you can jump directly to possible changes in Colorado’s accountability system, and what is currently happening in DPS, including information on the new Denver Education Explorer that provides additional school level data.
For all the faults of high-stakes testing and accountability over the past twenty-five plus years – and there are many – it should be noted that there was never a magical time prior to such efforts where low-income and BIPOC students received an adequate education. While some argue that education reform has been an attempt to privatize public education, we choose to apply the principle of charity, and believe the vast majority of reform efforts were undertaken to improve public education through innovation.
Unfortunately, education reform has not improved public education to the degree needed, and Goals 2000 were not met, children were left behind under No Child Left Behind, and currently not every student is succeeding under ESSA.
As with many issues in our current polarized political environment, K-12 testing and accountability is often viewed and discussed in binary terms, with some arguing that all testing is inappropriate and should be done away with, and others saying that accountability via single tests is the only way to ensure students are learning.
Overall, we as a society must find a middle way, which ensures that our K-12 systems are effective for all students through public reporting of inputs and outcomes, but to date, we have just never done the math right.
Specifically, high-stakes testing and accountability systems have fallen victim to Campbell’s Law that states:
Simply stated, the more importance and weight placed on an indicator – or small set of indicators – the less valid the indicator becomes. For example, 100% of Elementary and Middle Schools in DPS have their “success” determined only on CMAS scores. To judge the “success” of a school on a few days of testing each Spring is simply poor math, and broader measures must be implemented.
Of course this is not to say that CMAS scores should not be reported, and CMAS scores should be a part of measuring school performance, but to have CMAS be 100% of how we evaluate schools must be improved upon. Fortunately, the pendulum has finally started to swing back from sole reliance on high stakes testing, as can be seen in initiatives at the Federal, State and Local levels.
Before turning to the specifics of such initiatives, it must be noted that DPS policies are not created in a vacuum, and we must understand that Federal and State laws set the parameters that DPS operates under. Therefore, while I understand there are many that want to do away with tests such as CMAS and the grading and color coding of schools, we have to understand that hundreds of millions of dollars DPS receives each year from the Feds and State come with strings attached, which includes testing and accountability systems.
Federal Changes
With the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015, the federal government no longer required states to test on Common Core standards, but still required states to administer a single test to measure academic growth in ELA and Math, along with measuring English Language Proficiency and high school graduation rates. In addition, states were also required to develop an additional fifth indicator for student success, and many states adopted attendance for their fifth indicator.
Included with the ESSA was the Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA) program, which allowed up to seven states to pilot new assessment systems and an overview of issues can be found here. Over the first few years, five (5) states had pilot programs were approved. However, in a stunning announcement in November of 2023, the Feds announced that all states could apply for innovative assessment systems. Overall it seems that more and more people are understanding the limitations of a single test, with particilar concerns over how a single test can improve instruction.
Colorado Accountability System
Interestingly, the state of Colorado did not make any significant changes to the state accountability system after passage of the federal ESSA and currently has a more punitive system than is required under federal guidelines.
However, a performance audit on Colorado’s accountability system was released in November 2022. In the executive summary the following language was found, “Overall, we found that the performance indicators and measures used in Colorado’s statewide education accountability system provide a reasonable and appropriate basis for objectively measuring the performance of districts and public schools. We did not identify any significant gaps in the design of the accountability system. Our analysis showed that schools and districts are assigned performance ratings consistent with their underlying performance indicator scores. “
However, Superintendents in Colorado still see needs to improve the accountability system, and an overview of issues can be found in this Colorado Chalkbeat article. In response, Colorado passed HB23-1241Task Force To Study K-12 Accountability System, and the task force will work to see if changes to the accountability system are needed, with a final report due in November 2024. Click here for updates on the task force meetings.
In addition to the state performance audit, and task force, the state of Colorado has shown a willingness to broaden accountability measures through the 2019 passage of SB19-204, which allowed districts in Colorado to apply for funding to create supplemental accountability systems. Thus far 38 districts, BOCES and charter schools received funding to create new systems and an overview on these efforts can be found here.
DPS’s Strategic Roadmap and Public Reporting Dashboard.
In August of 2022, DPS released DPS Thrives: A Strategic Roadmap to the Denver Public Schools Experience. (Executive Summary, Full Report)that we find to be comprehensive and having excellent goals and data points. While many in DPS were fearful that the roadmap would not have enough emphasis on academics, we believe DPS under the leadership of Dr. Marerro and the work of the Transition Advisory Team did an excellent job of balancing academic measures with whole child and culture and climate measures as called for by the SPF Reimagine Committee. Please visit our overview on DPS’s strategic Roadmap for more specific details.
The three recommendations of the SPF Reimagine Committee were as follows:
- Retire the previous DPS SPF and instead, “Adopt the state performance framework to capture and track essential information about how our schools are performing and how they relate to other districts and schools across the state to meet state accountability requirements.
- Create a School Dashboard to inform all stakeholders on school performance and Growth. “It is our intention that this dashboard includes a broader set of information and does not include a summative rating or score, but rather shares important information about schools. This will provide parents and the broader community with a more accurate picture of each school, and because of the broader set of indicators which speak to a wider array of what is valued in an education, lead to a better fit between students and schools.
- Leverage a collaborative continuous learning and improvement cycle to assess the ongoing performance of schools across our three value domains: Academics,Whole Child, and Culture/Climate. A continuous improvement learning cycle is meant to fully explore the deeper data story through a robust body of evidence, diagnose key strengths and weaknesses across a variety of outcomes, flag potential problems for early action, and support school-level improvement strategies.
It is important to note that these recommendations were strongly supported by the DPS Community at large, with over 75% supporting the creation of a dashboard. Such findings have also been reinforced through other studies such as Community Views on Quality and Equity in Education which surveyed many BIPOC members of the DPS Community. Overall, the DPS Community at large wants additional information on schools and simply reporting CMAS results is not enough.
In response, DPS resolution 4079 required the creation of a public dashboard that would provide more nuanced information on DPS schools, and now that DPS has a strategic roadmap, we can begin the Community Led, District Supported process to create a state of the art dashboard. Fortunately, many states and districts from across the country have already created dashboards, with MCIEA.org being perhaps the best known, but we here at DPSCommunity.org have also collected information from other states and districts from across the country to know what options are available to us. For information on dashboards and all things testing and accountability, please access our information clearinghouse.
Finally, we must note that the new DPS dashboard will not be used for high stakes/punitive accountability and will instead simply meet the informational needs that the DPS Community has long called for. That said, DPS does have the opportunity to affect larger systemic changes at the state level by providing state level policy makers with tangible frameworks for their consideration as they make changes to the state accountability system. We here at DPSCommunity.org have engaged in extensive conversations with state legislators, state board members and others about our work and many are excited about working with us as the state considers broader changes.
As previously noted, many rural districts have already taken advantage of Local Supplemental Accountability grants, and many at the state level eagerly await large urban districts such as DPS and JeffCo to provide additional options for consideration. History has shown the significant influence DPS can have on state level policy, with the existing state system heavily influenced by what DPS created in the mid 00s.
Overall, we must understand that even with the creation of a DPS dashboard, students and schools in DPS will continue to suffer from high stakes/punitive accountability that relies too heavily on CMAS scores. We can affect broader change, and please help us with the Community Led, District Supported process to create a new dashboard.
In January 2024, the Denver Education Explorer was released with support from RootEd. The new tool provides additional school data points including: teacher demographics and years of exerience; student & parent survey results; dicipline data and additional information, and can be seen as the first K12 Dashboard for DPS. While the Denver Education Explorer is a step in the right direction and reports all currently available data, there are still a variety of data elements that need to be created, collected and reported in order for the broader DPS Community to have a full picture of school performance.
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