Jeffco’s 2021 CMAS Scores: COVID Learning Losses Worsened Already Lousy Achievement Results

On September 1, 2021, the Colorado Department of Education released district level results for the 2021 CMAS. In Jeffco, they paint a picture of substantial learning losses. Business as usual will not recover these losses. Instead, substantial changes will be needed for Jeffco students to graduate prepared to thrive in the intensely competitive 21stcentury economy.

Two examples highlight the student achievement challenges facing the district.

English Language Arts

Let’s start with a look at some historical results. On the 2017 CMAS, 55% of 3rd grade students did not meet state standards in English Language Arts (reading and writing). Two years later, when these students were in 5th grade, 46% still did not meet state ELA standards.

On the 2019 CMAS, there were 5,602 valid scores on the 3rd grade ELA assessment, and 54% of Jeffco students failed to meet state standards.

On the 2021 CMAS, there were only 4,458 valid scores on the 5th grade ELA assessment — a decline of 1,144 (20%) scores from the 2019 3rd grade ELA assessment. However, the number of students who met or exceeded state standards only declined from 2,594 to 2,480 (114, or 4%).

This suggests that almost all the students who did not take the 2021 5th grade ELA assessment were unlikely to have met state ELA standards.

The published CMAS results say that only 44% of Jeffco 5th graders who took the 2021 CMAS did not meet state standards. However, if both the 2019 grade 3 and the 2021 grade 5 CMAS ELA assessments had the same number of valid scores (5602), then 56% of Jeffco 5th graders probably would not have met state ELA standards. This would represent an increase of only 2% compared to the 2019 grade 3 results.

Simply holding the line like this during the COVID pandemic represents an impressive achievement by team Jeffco. Yet it still represents a learning loss compared to the past. Between 2017 and 2019, the percent of students not meeting ELA standards declined by 9% (from 55% to 46%) between 3rd and 5th grade. Between 2019 and 2021, the comparable figure was an increase of 2% (from 54% to 56%) in the percent of students not meeting state ELA standards. Compared to the 2017–2019 period, the 2019–2021 period represents a learning loss of 11%.

Mathematics

In comparison to ELA, math appears to have been a disaster.

On the 2017 CMAS, 60% of 4th grade students did not meet state standards in Math. Two years later, when these students were in 6th grade, 65% did not meet state standards. In other words, results got worse.

On the 2019 CMAS, there were 5,984 valid scores on the 4th grade math assessment, and 61% of Jeffco students failed to meet state standards.

On the 2021 CMAS, there were only 4,329 valid scores on the 6th grade math assessment — a decline of 1,655 (28%) scores from the 2019 4th grade math assessment. However, the number of students who met or exceeded state standards declined from 2,301 to just 1131 — a fall of 1,170 or 51% (!!). This shouldn’t be surprising — it is in line with national data about math learning losses, as well as parental intuition that it is easier to keep up with reading and writing when a student is learning remotely at home than it is to keep up with math.

The published CMAS results say that 74% of Jeffco 6th graders who took the 2021 CMAS did not meet state math standards. However, if both the 2019 grade 4 and the 2021 grade 6 CMAS Math assessments had the same number of valid scores (5984), then 81% of Jeffco 5th graders probably would not have met state math standards.

Historically, fewer students meet state math standards as they advance through different grades in Jeffco schools. As noted above, in 2017, 60% of Jeffco 4th graders didn’t meet state math standards. Two years later, when they were in 6th grade, 65% didn’t meet them.

We are now faced with an even worse situation. In 2019, 61% of Jeffco 4th graders did not meet state math standards. In 2021, it appears that a stunning 81% of 6th graders don’t meet them, at a time when the 21st century economy is putting an ever-higher premium on strong quantitative skills.

Even before COVID arrived, Jeffco’s math results were a disaster. In the absence of dramatic change, this disaster will only grow worse — and thousands of children will pay a heavy lifetime price for adults’ nihilistic indifference to their future.

This leaves parents and other voters facing three critical questions:

(1) Will Jeffco’s management and members of its Board of Education acknowledge the scale of the problem facing our children?

(2) Will Jeffco’s management and members of the Board of Education make the substantial changes that are required to recover our children’s learning losses, so that they will be able to thrive in the 21st century economy?

(3) What will Jeffco parents and other voters do if management and the board majority do nothing? Will they stand by and let our children suffer the consequences of adults’ refusal to change Jeffco’s failed status quo? Or will they take action — say in this November’s election — to save their children’s future?

Tom Coyne is a business executive who has invested 20 years of volunteer time in the cause of K-12 performance improvement in New England, Alberta, and Colorado. He is a former member of the Jeffco District Accountability Committee, and former Chair of the Wheat Ridge High School Accountability Committee. His wife, Susan Miller, was elected to the Jeffco Board of Education in November 2019. These are solely Coyne’s views.