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CMAS scores give insight into learning throughout the COVID-19 pandemic

Scores show some recovery from COVID as well as persisting achievement gaps

CMAS results show areas of growth, areas for improvement and more for the local Eagle County School District.
Chris Dillmann/Vail Daily Archive

Earlier this spring, the Eagle County School District — alongside the rest of the state — returned to a full schedule of Colorado Measures of Academic Success, or CMAS testing after two years of either eliminated or reduced testing due to the pandemic.

The Colorado Department of Education released the results of this testing in August, giving districts across the state one view of how the pandemic may have impacted student learning. For the local Eagle County School District, overall, the results were encouraging but still showed some areas for improvement and student learning loss.

“We knew there would be learning loss, but our overall district performance score is almost exactly where it was before the pandemic,” said Superintendent Philip Qualman. “It speaks to our efforts to continue a learning process throughout the pandemic from online learning to smaller cohorts and back to full in-person instruction as quickly as we were able.”



Each year, CMAS is administered to third through eighth-grade students in Colorado. The tests are meant to demonstrate whether students are meeting the grade-level and subject-matter standards set by the state’s Department of Education. In 2021, students in grades three through eight took math and English language arts assessments.

This is the first year since 2019 that all these tests were administered, as they were canceled in 2020 and given in a reduced capacity in 2021 based on grade level. In 2021, students in grades three, five and seven took the language arts exam; grades four, six and eight took the math exam; and eighth graders took a science exam. 

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What the data shows

Overall, in 2022 across all grades tested, Eagle County School District saw a 4.8% decline in the number of students that “met or exceeded expectations,” in English Language arts.

However, for the grades that were tested in 2021 on the subject — third, fifth and seventh — they saw an increase from the results in 2021. Across the three years, the percentage of third graders meeting or exceeding expectations was at 37.2% in 2019, dropped to 33.2% in 2021 and rebounded to 38.6% in 2022. For fifth graders, 47.3% met or exceeded expectations in 2019, dropping to 38.5% in 2021 and increasing to 39.3% in 2022. For seventh graders, 53.6% met or exceeded expectations in 2019, dropping to 43.1% in 2021 and increasing to 47% in 2022.

Students in fifth and eighth grade saw the biggest decrease from 2019 to 2022 in those that met or exceeded expectations, dropping 8% and 7.1%, respectively. Inversely, third-graders were the one area that showed growth in the number of those that met or exceeded expectations, increasing from 2019 to 2022 by 1.4%.

Melisa Rewold-Thuon, the district’s assistant superintendent of student support services, said that across the district, it’s seen some of the greatest impacts on student learning in elementary students.

“Eagle County School District elementary students who were learning to read and write during the pandemic are our lowest performing age group, but are showing strong growth,” she said.

Overall, trends in CMAS math scores were similar to the trends in English Language Arts in terms of those that “met or exceeded expectations.” In 2022, across all grades, there was a 4% decrease in the number of students who met or exceeded expectations in the math assessment.

For two of the grades that were tested in 2021 in math — fourth and eighth — there was a recovery from the 2021 results based on the number of students meeting or exceeding expectations.

The percentage of fourth graders meeting or exceeding expectations was at 25.7% in 2019, sunk to 15.8% in 2021 and jumped back up to 18.2% in 2022. For eighth graders, 33.3% met or exceeded expectations in 2019, dropping to 23.2% in 2021 and increasing to 28.3% in 2022.

The district’s sixth-graders, however, were the only grade that saw an increase from 2019 to 2021 and a decrease in 2022. In 2019, 20.4% met or exceeded expectations, increasing slightly to 21.8% in 2021 and dropping to 17% in 2022.

Once again, third-graders were the one grade that saw an increase in the number of students meeting or exceeding expectations from 2019 to 2022. This number increased by 1.5%. On the other side, the greatest declines in the math assessment from 2019 to 2022 were seen in second and seventh-graders, with a decline of 7.5% and 6.5%, respectively.

Rewold-Thuon said that this year, at the secondary level, the district has “implemented a year-long, evidence-based intervention program called Math 180 for our students with the largest skill gaps in math.”

Achievement gaps continue

CMAS results provide one set of data with which the district can measure student success and achievement — as well as gaps in these based on student demographics.
Chris Dillmann/Vail Daily archive

This data also provides insight into achievement gaps that may exist between different demographics — an area of growing interest for the local district as it attempts to close these achievement gaps.

“We would like to see all of our numbers continue to improve but the greatest needs are for students with disabilities and minority students,” Qualman said. “We want all students in ECSD to succeed, and that means ensuring access and support to all students, which is the core of our focus on equity.”

At the core of this work for the district is ensuring that demographic characteristics are not predictors of success. The 2022 CMAS results show that these gaps still exist, particularly between genders, race/ethnicity and socio-economic status.

Between the district’s Hispanic and white populations — of which there were 1,332 valid scores for Hispanic students and 1,168 white students — significant disparity in testing scores were seen across grade levels. The results show that 61.4% of white students met or exceeded expectations, compared to 22.8% of Hispanic students across all grades tested. On the other side, 24% of Hispanic students “did not yet meet expectations,” whereas 4.8% of white students received the same score.

Based on the students that were eligible for free and reduced lunch and those that were not eligible, the results show disparities based on socioeconomic status as well. Across all grades tested, 49.8% of those not eligible for free and reduced met or exceeded grade level expectations compared to 20.8% of those that do qualify. Additionally, 25.8% of those that are eligible “did not yet meet expectations,” compared to 10.2% of those that were not eligible.

Across all grades tested, a higher percentage of female students (48.6%) met or exceeded expectations compared to male students (34.5%).

These disparities are not unique to the Eagle County School District. A press release from the Colorado Department of Education announcing these results said that “achievement gaps between historically lower performing and historically higher performing groups continued to persist in 2022.”

However, with its equity efforts, the local district plans to make strides on these gaps.

“Our major equity efforts were rolled out last school year and the next step towards what we believe is a more equitable Standards Based Grading have just been implemented at the start of this year so the CMAS data in years to come will better provide us with information in that regard,” Qualman said. “If anything, the data continues to show work needs to be done in this area.”

How the data will be used

While this data provides valuable insight for the district on learning loss and the pandemic, it also has other impacts across the district.  

“As always, there is room for improvement in numerous areas and we will work to address these in hopes of making positive strides forward,” Qualman said. “Results vary considerably by school, and principals determine what aspects to focus on based on their specific data.”

In addition to the CMAS scores, the district also relies on several other metrics to track student learning, including more frequently giving tests at the beginning, middle and end of the year. Specifically, this year, it will be using STAR assessments in kindergarten through eighth grade to monitor student learning and progress.

To make progress in these areas for improvement, the district will look to make changes in several areas using all its student data.

“We have spent considerable time refining curriculum, aligning resources, and consistently implementing proven intervention strategies,” Qualman said.  “We also continue to work with our educators on professional development and a better understanding of the social-emotional needs of our students is important for us to successfully address and improve these scores. Our professional development has been limited in the past few years for both pandemic and staffing reasons so it has become that much more important looking forward.”

Plus, building principals will use their building-specific data — as well as other metrics — to create their individual school improvement plans, which will be presented in the coming weeks to the district’s board of education, Qualman said.

“We will examine all their improvement plans and make sure that district resources  — time, money and personnel — are directed to support those plans,” he added.

At the core of these plans is a goal that building principals are “expected to grow their SPF rating by 5% per year,” Qualman said. SPF stands for School Performance Frameworks, which is a performance rating used by the Colorado Department of Education. These ratings not only take into consideration achievement and growth in state standardized testing but graduation and drop-out rates, college entrance exams and more.

As we move forward from the pandemic, Qualman wants to see a broader evaluation of how COVID-19 and the precautions and measures taken impacted students. Specifically, he said, he “wants to see an ‘After Action Review’ of the efficacy of protective measures implemented during COVID.”

Not only would this data “better prepare schools to handle the next pandemic,” but it would show “whether masking, social distancing, hybrid schedules, four-day schedules, or online learning were effective,” he added.

“It would be helpful to see student achievement data that compared states by per-pupil spending, as well as COVID-19 interventions,” Qualman said. “Some of that may come from ESSER spending analysis at the national level.”


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