A response to the
State Board of Education meeting on June 11, 2026 –
its look at 2026 State Assessment Achievement Results on Reading and Writing.
Three questions
The Colorado Department of Education’s presentation included this data:
Overall 2026 scores- CMAS – English Language Arts
|
Grade |
Did Not Yet Meet |
Partially Met |
Approached |
Met |
Exceeded |
Met/Exceeded |
|
3 |
22.3% |
17.2% |
19.8% |
34.2% |
6.5% |
40.8% |
|
4 |
14.2% |
14.7% |
24.0% |
36.3% |
10.8% |
47.0% |
|
5 |
9.1% |
15.7% |
25.2% |
44.0% |
5.9% |
49.9% |
|
6 |
10.9% |
19.2% |
28.4% |
34.1% |
7.4% |
41.6% |
|
7 |
13.7% |
16.8% |
22.8% |
30.6% |
15.9% |
46.6% |
|
8 |
17.5% |
17.3% |
23.0% |
32.5% |
9.7% |
42.2% |
In
blue – rising % of students (from about 25% to 34%) scoring in two lowest performance
levels
In red – 2026 scores down from 2025
1. Why not pay more attention to the decline in grade 3 – in light of the READ Act?
For over a decade
the state’s annual READ Act reports have reminded us of its goal: “ensuring
every student in Colorado reaches reading proficiency by the end of third
grade.”
|
3rd grade - % Met/Exceeded Expectations |
|||||
|
2017 |
2019 |
2022 |
2024 |
2025 |
2026 |
|
40.1 |
41.3 |
40.7 |
42.1 |
42.0 |
40.8 |
The decline in 2026 for grade 3 takes
us even further from achieving that goal. Why no mention of this on June 11? Why so little change over the past decade? Why has Colorado’s biggest financial commitments
to any academic subject (over $300 million to the READ Act for grades K-3) again
achieved such disappointing results? (See a
similar story in Utah.[i])
2. Why did CDE and the Board spend over five minutes on grades 3-5 (with that good news for grades 4 and 5) and then less than 60 seconds on grades 6-8, where scores declined? (At least one press report noted what CDE seemed eager to skim over.[ii])
It was nice to see
the scores for grades 4 and 5 in English Language Arts. Especially impressive:
the jump in scores for the same class, from 2025 to 2026. (In blue and red.)
CMAS ELA- Percentage Met/Exceeded Expectations
|
|
2024 |
2025 |
2026 |
Change, ’25 to ‘26 |
|
Grade 3 |
42.1 |
42.0 |
40.8 |
-1.2 |
|
Grade 4 |
42.0 |
42.0 |
47.0 |
+5.0 |
|
Grade 5 |
47.3 |
48.0 |
49.9 |
+1.9 |
But CDE had little to say on the disheartening ELA scores in our middle schools. They deserve a closer look. See #3.
CMAS
ELA- Percentage Met/Exceeded Expectations
|
|
2024 |
2025 |
2026 |
(My
comment) |
|
Grade 6 |
44.0% |
44.2% |
41.6% |
Lowest
score since 2017 |
|
Grade 7 |
46.3% |
48.8% |
46.6% |
|
|
Grade 8 |
42.8% |
43.9% |
42.2% |
Lowest
score since 2016 |
3. Related to #2: Why so much attention to Approached versus
Met and virtually nothing on the percentage of students scoring Did
Not Yet Meet and Partially Met? In 8th grade nearly 35%
of students scored below Approached. Why no questions about that?
It was promising
to see Christina Wirth-Hawkins, Chief Assessment Officer at CDE, present a
slide showing the five performance levels on CMAS.
|
A Continuum of
Student Learning Less Understanding More Understanding
<_____X_____________ X_____________X_____________ X
____________X_____>
|
||||
|
Did Not Yet Meet |
Partially Met |
Approached |
Met |
Exceeded |
“Oftentimes,” she said, “we just look at the percent of students who Met/Exceeded Expectations. But with this conversation we often lose what’s going on with the other performance levels.”
On June 11,
however, we saw little discussion about “what’s going on” with students scoring
poorly. CDE’s presentation focused on the definitions and skills evident when
students score at two levels: Approached versus Met. Board
members say this is a chief concern of parents.
Fortuantely, those
parents have advocates on the State Board.
But who is advocating for students scoring even lower than Approached? This number rises steadily in middle school to nearly 35% of our 8th graders. Let’s ask why, after 5th grade, so many of our students appear unable to read and write anywhere close to grade level.
(See Endnote for two possible factors - if CDE looked into the mirror.[iii])
|
See Commissioner of Education Susana Córdova’s cautionary note on Colorado’s overall scores on achievement tests. She might have had in mind these 8th graders, far behind their peers.[iv] |
|
Grade |
Did Not Yet Meet |
Partially Met |
Total in lowest two performance levels |
|
5 |
9.1% |
15.7% |
24.8% - Lowest % we see in grades 3-8 |
|
6 |
10.9% |
19.2% |
30.1% - % starts climbing |
|
7 |
13.7% |
16.8% |
30.5% |
|
8 |
17.5% |
17.3% |
34.8% |
Writing
Finally, not a
question – just an obvious point. These reports by CDE are (said to be) about
our Reading and Writing assessments, and yet once again we learned
little about how well our students actually write. On June 11 there were
moments when the discussion made that old error of mistaking CMAS and PSAT/SAT
for being simply reading tests.
Are students progressing on the essential skill of writing? Are they making good progress? (With AI at our students’ fingertips, our concerns grow.) We need answers.
[i] “Are Utah’s K-3 Reading
Programs Actually Working? Here’s What a New State Report Found.”
“Utah aims to get 80% of
its third graders reading proficiently by 2030, but in the last decade, there’s
been little improvement, the new audit notes.” The Salt Lake Tribune, by Carmen
Nesbitt, June 24, 2026.
[ii]
“Student math proficiency rises but
literacy results are mixed, preliminary Colorado test scores show,” by Jason Gonzales,
Chalkbeat Colorado, May 29, 2026.
Literacy proficiency increased for fourth and fifth graders, with
students in fourth grade making the greatest strides. The data shows 49.9% of
fourth graders were proficient in literacy, up five percentage points from
2025, although proficiency rates for third graders fell.
“Early literacy has
been a major focus in Colorado, and we are encouraged by the progress we are
seeing,” [Commissioner Susana} Cordova said.
Meanwhile, there was a decline in literacy proficiency in every middle school grade by two percentage points. For example, CMAS literacy proficiency dropped 1.7 percentage points to 42.2% of eighth graders.
[iii] CDE’s Strategic Plan might be one factor. No mention of addressing students’ literacy skills after grade 3. The number of CDE staff working to improve literacy in grades 4-12 might be another.
1) CDE’ Strategic Plan – 2025-2028 - https://ed.cde.state.co.us/cdecomm/strategic-plan
2) # of CDE’s personnel on Elementary Literacy and School Readiness Team (READ Act): lists 9 people -
https://ed.cde.state.co.us/early/contactus
# of CDE personnel on the Standards and Instructional Support Team - Reading, Writing and Communicating: 1 person
https://ed.cde.state.co.us/standardsandinstruction/contact
I also made this point in an op-ed in The Colorado Sun in June.
“Another reason a new approach is needed: The legislature and the Colorado Department of Education have maintained a decades-long and much-too-narrow focus on grades K-3. The state has spent over $300 million to implement the READ Act since 2013. Important work. But little after third grade. CDE’s 2025-28 strategic plan continues this myopia: not a word on reading after grade 3.”
“A challenge we must confront is too many Colorado students still struggle to read well after third grade.” https://coloradosun.com/2026/06/09/opinion-colorado-reading-scores-governor-focus/
[iv] Commissioner Susana Córdova, in the context of a discussion on NAEP and CMAS scores.
Colorado students, she said, “historically outperform the national average on NAEP.” But she added: “I think it’s really important to name that … using Colorado tests and the NAEP test … that we have large numbers of kids who are … performing better than our peers, and we have large numbers of kids who are not at that same level. So both of those things are true at the same time.”
(Transcription, and any errors, are mine.)
More evidence of this achievement gap: Colorado’s NAEP results in 2024. “Colorado students’ NAEP test scores mostly stable, as gap between low and high performers widens,” by Yesenia Robles, Chalkbeat Colorado, Jan. 29, 2025. https://www.denverpost.com/2025/01/29/colorado-naep-test-scores/
[v] From AV #276 – Sept. 2024
2024 Literacy
Update – Did Not Yet Meet Expectations - Again, over 70,000 students
|
2023 - After 3rd Grade |
2024 Update |
|||
|
Reading & Writing - Did Not Yet Meet Expectations |
||||
|
CMAS ELA |
% |
# of students |
% |
# of students* |
|
Grade 4 |
14.5% |
8,063 |
14.5% |
8,078 |
|
5 |
7.9% |
4,494 |
8.2% |
4,588 |
|
6 |
10.3% |
5,734 |
10.2% |
5,565 |
|
7 |
13.2% |
7,126 |
12.8% |
6,826 |
|
8 |
16.5% |
8,561 |
18.1% |
9,110 |
|
9 - PSAT |
21.2% |
12,391 |
18.2% |
10,435 |
|
10 - PSAT |
22.1% |
12,429 |
20.3% |
11,562 |
|
11 - SAT |
28% |
15,663 |
30.6% |
17,326 |
|
|
|
74,461** |
|
73,429 |
|
**This
total far exceeds the 51,294 students in 4-12 on a READ plan that year.[v] |
||||
|
Did Not Yet Meet Expectations |
||
|
Grade |
2025 |
2026 |
|
9 – PSAT |
18.4% |
17.2% |
|
10 - PSAT |
21.8% |
21.7% |
|
11 - SAT |
26.9% |
28.8% |
