Thread by @Miller4Students

Thread: My first take on #Jeffco's 2022 CMAS scores: Big change in demographics of test takers impart an upward bias to reported results. The real situation is worse. Read on. #edcolo #copolitics @JeffcoTranscrip @ChalkbeatCO @denverpost @ColoradoSun @boardhawk @JeffcoSchoolsCo

In 2019, before COVID arrived, 48% of Jeffco students in grades 3-8 did NOT meet state ELA standards. In 2022, that increased to 50%. The comparable numbers for math were 60% in 2019 to 63% in 2022. But the real results were likely much worse. Why?

Between 2019 and 2022, the number of valid CMAS results fell by (5,566) for ELA and (5,512) for math. But these declines weren't evenly distributed across all student groups. In 2019, only 83% of students failed to meet the CMAS math standard, vs 50% for non-FRL students...

However, between 2019 and 2022, the decline in the number of valid Math scores in grades 3-8 was 30% for FRL students, but just 9% for non-FRL students. So even with fewer FRL students taking CMAS, the pct of students not meeting the state math std increased from 60% to 63% (!)

The ugly truth is that it is almost certain that without the disproportionate decline in the percent of FRL eligible students taking the 2022 CMAS, the increase from 2019 in the percent of students who did NOT meet state math standards would have been much greater.

Even worse, the district's budget (which I voted against), plans to spend far less than outside analysts (like Georgetown's @EdunomicsLab) have estimated we need to spend to recover COVID learning losses - just to return to our unacceptable 2019 baseline.
edunomicslab.org/calculator/

In sum, Jeffco's poor CMAS results and our current budget forecast (which projects a $61m deficit in 2024, even before the impact of the proposed additional teacher pay increase we will vote on this week) are a cause for alarm, not celebration.