Colorado’s annual exams have a new name – TCAP instead of CSAP – but the results remained largely the same for 2012, results released Aug. 8 show.
Nearly 70 percent of the state’s students are reading at grade level, a slight increase over 2011. About 56 percent are proficient or above in math, essentially flat over last year. Fewer students – or 54 percent – are writing at grade level, a marginal decline. Science scores are slightly up, with 49 percent of students achieving proficiency.
The Transitional Colorado Assessment Program replaced the Colorado Student Assessment Program this past spring as educators and students transition to new state academic standards.
These results are a performance “snapshot” on a given day or days. To see how schools are progressing over time, check the EdNews database showing 2012 academic growth numbers.
Read this EdNews story for more on the 2012 TCAP results. This database shows results for 2008 – 2012:
Search tips
- The database allows for multiple selections of districts, schools, subjects and grades. For example, to see more than one school in a district, click on the district name, press “Ctrl” (for PC users) or “Cmd” (for Mac users) and then select as many school names as you’d like. Similarly, you can click on multiple grades and subjects for the same school.
- You need not click an item in each box to complete a search. Clicking on Denver and Abraham Lincoln High School, for example, will bring up results for all grades and subjects for the school.
- Want to compare a school or district to the statewide average? Click in the “School district” name box and scroll down to “State totals.”
- To see districtwide averages, click on a school district’s name and then scroll down to “District averages” in the school name box.
- To rank search results, click on a column heading. For example, if you’re looking at several schools and want to easily see which had the highest proficiency rate in 2012, click on the column heading “% Proficient and Advanced 2012.” Click once and it sorts lowest to highest – click twice to see highest to lowest.
- Clicking the “Details” button brings up more information about the 2012 TCAP scores.
Data notes
- Only schools with at least 16 students receiving TCAP scores are included; the state withholds data for fewer students to protect their privacy. If you cannot find a school or you see zeros in your school’s history, that typically means not enough students took the exams that year to disclose results. It may also mean the school is new and did not have students in that particular grade that year.
- Results of the Transitional Colorado Assessment Program come in four levels – “unsatisfactory” is the lowest level, then “partially proficient,” followed by “proficient” and then “advanced,” the highest level. Typically, a student scoring proficient or advanced is considered to be performing at or above grade level.
- Results of the Spanish-language exams, Lectura and Escritura, are included in the database. They are given in grades 3 and 4 only.
- Poverty rate refers to the number of students in a school or district who are eligible for federal meal assistance. It is a widely used indicator of student poverty.
Learn more
- Visit the Colorado Department of Education’s TCAP/CSAP results page for 2012 and prior scores, plus analyses of performance by ethnicity, gender and poverty.
- Can’t find a school? Think your school data is in error? Email us at EdNews@EdNewsColorado.org and we’ll check it out.
I have a question: Where may I find the scores broken out by ethnic or FRL demographics? I am curious about rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods such as NW Denver.
Thank you.
Joanne,
CDE’s DataLab is very useful. Not sure if the new data is incorporated yet, but you can drill down to considerable detail (and CDE deserves far more credit than they have received for having transparent and available data): elm.cde.state.co.us/datalabreport.htm
The SchoolView Data Lab, Data Center, and Colorado Growth Model will be populated with the new data as soon as possible. It will probably take a few more days because of technical problems in our systems – and then all the numbers need to be checked before they are published.
Thank you both very much for this information.
Bill Bonk, where is the WDP Harvey Park data for 8th graders in all tests? Your CDE spreadsheets don’t show data, yet EdNews seems to have some here.
Also, it appears your 7th grade data for WDP Harvey Park is mixed up. This database here doesn’t have figures that jibe with CDE’s at all.
Thanks for pointing out the discrepancy. Let me dig into the data and see what I can find.
I’ve cross-checked the CDE spreadsheets in reading, math, writing and science for all grades for West Denver Prep Harvey Park with our database and the figures do match for 2011 and 2012. I used the CDE spreadsheets located here – http://www.cde.state.co.us/assessment/CoAssess-DataAndResults.asp. However, there are a couple differences in how the data is presented that may be confusing. The CDE spreadsheets are simply blank for West Denver Prep Harvey Park for 8th-graders in 2011. This is because the school did not have an 8th grade that year. Our database uses zeros or 0s instead of blanks. (We assign zeros or 0s in our database program instead of blanks because we search for “null” or blanks for other reasons, such as locating schools with name changes or new school codes over the years.) To clarify this, I’ve added to our explanation in the “data notes” section and put it in bold. In addition, we round our results while the CDE spreadsheets go out to a tenth of a percent. So our database may say 70 and the CDE spreadsheet may say 69.7. This is so we can fit additional years on our results page.
We appreciate people using this database and we do take putting it together seriously as it typically turns out to be the most viewed post on our site. We tap an experienced computer programmer/database administrator to merge the spreadsheets provided by the CDE for current and past years. Once that’s complete, we go through and cross-check no fewer than 25 schools in different districts, subjects and grade levels to ensure our results match those of the CDE.
That said, we do make mistakes and we try to learn from them. If folks see discrepancies, please point them out. We also appreciate suggestions for improving how we present the data. Please feel free to list your suggestions/point out errors here or to email me directly at nmitchell@ednewscolorado.org.
Do you have splits for free and reduced lunch, or are these presented in an aggregate fashion to you?
The CDE spreadsheets include combined free and reduced lunch numbers for schools. We add a combined free and reduced lunch number for districts and for the state, because we think it’s important information for people to have. That’s also why we include it on the results page, rather than the details page, which is another click away.
For those interested, the state annually breaks out lunch status – free, reduced and not eligible – by school, district and state. You can find the fall 2011 data on this webpage – http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdereval/rv2011pmlinks.htm.
Also, the state has released its breakdown of 2012 TCAP data by a variety of categories, including gender, ethnicity, language proficiency and free/reduced lunch status. The breakdown by lunch status includes free, reduced and not eligible. This is available by school and district. Go to this webpage – http://www.cde.state.co.us/assessment/CoAssess-DataAndResults.asp – and scroll to the bottom to see those breakdowns.