CSAP: Behind the scenes

MONTROSE  — It's test time, and a lot is riding on the results.

For one week a year, the bell rings and students sit quietly, the classroom door shut, and listen to the rules and directions for the Colorado Student Assessment Program. How well they do not only determines a school's reputation and whether it will keep its doors open, but also dictates state and federal funding.

"There is a lot of built-up stress," Centennial Middle School Principal Kirk Henwood said. "People know we are being evaluated in a lot of different ways. It impacts the real estate market, it impacts economies, it impacts a lot of things."

Several weeks before scheduled testing, the CSAP exams are sent to Laura Burris, Montrose County School District Re-1J coordinator of assessment. Burris has been trained, along with a coordinator for each school, in the proper way to administer and collect the tests.

"There is so much that happens behind the scenes," Burris said. Booklets have to be checked for interfering markings; labels have to be correct, along with student information. The tests then have to be placed in a secure room so that they can't be tampered with in any way.

The tests are given to students in third through 10th grade; all are tested in reading, writing and math. Fifth-, eighth-, and 10th-graders are also tested in science.

The narrow subject range is one fault critics have of CSAP testing.

"One thing we all have to be careful of, and we are having this conversation now in our building, is our job is to educate the whole child and reading, writing and math is not the whole child," Henwood said.

Critics call this "teaching to the test" and worry that the stress of striving for high scores leads schools to focus on certain subjects and drive others out of the curriculum, such as music, art and social studies, which they say are needed to produce a well-rounded student.

Henwood doesn't believe this is the case in this district.

For several years, teachers have been focusing more on "mapping" out their curriculum by looking at the federal and state standards, then narrowing those down into substandards, district spokeswoman Linda Gann said.

"We are looking at content standards and aligning to those standards," she said.

Every Wednesday, students are released from school early so that teachers can meet and work through this process. Their mapping is available on the district's Web site, www.mcsd.org.

"All of that leads up to this week, when hopefully we have a good system in play and we're doing a good job in instruction," Henwood said.

Sixth grade Centennial student Jordan Williams said she thinks the system is working and that the tests are a good representation of her knowledge as a student.

The method in which the scores are used to evaluate schools has also come under scrutiny. Scores are used to determine whether a district is meeting federal No Child Left Behind standards. It's also used by the state to accredit and produce adequate yearly progress reports (a school's report card). These reports are used by parents moving to an area, teachers looking for a job, and by the government handling funds.

Through several different legislative bills and within the Colorado Department of Education, standards and assessments are being reviewed.

CDE spokesman Mark Stevens said many pieces are involved in the department's re-evaluation of standardized testing. He said there is even a proposal to switch testing, starting in ninth-grade, to ACTs. Stevens said the problem here is that the state accountability system must work with the federal NCLB assessments or it could lose federal funding.

However, as the state and federal departments battle over the way to assess this country's education, students and staff are doing what they are told.

"This isn't a test you study for and that's why we tell the kids to do their best," Henwood said. He encourages his students to get a good night's sleep, eat a good breakfast and come motivated to do the tests.

"If all those things are in line, (the results) give us an accurate picture — or a more accurate picture," he said, adding that one has to remember this is only three days of testing, a snapshot, of a whole school year. "But, I think as far as accountability, it gives us some gross data and a general sense if we are on the right track."

Contact Kati O'Hare via e-mail at katio@montrosepress.com