Colorado CMAS math, literacy scores surpass pre-pandemic levels

Test scores among Colorado’s elementary and middle-school students continue to recover since schools temporarily shuttered in 2020, with this spring’s literacy and math scores reaching — and in some cases surpassing — pre-pandemic levels, according to data released by the state Department of Education on Tuesday.

The new Colorado Measures of Academic Success test scores offer the clearest sign yet that students are recovering academically after the pandemic upended in-person learning, but the education department cautioned that gains need to be sustained for a longer time to truly show that academic achievement has completely rebounded.

And despite the good news, the data shows that significant achievement gaps continue statewide among students of color and their white peers.

“We are encouraged by the continued improvement in our students since the pandemic disrupted learning,” Colorado Education Commissioner Susana Córdova said in a statement. “We continue, however, to see troubling and persistent achievement gaps across student groups. It is not enough for some Colorado students, we need to ensure that every child is getting the support they need to be successful.”

The education department only released statewide test scores Tuesday. The agency will make public the results for individual districts and schools on Aug. 29.

CMAS tests, which cover English Language Arts and math, are offered to students in third to eighth grade. Children who score at least 750 on the exams are considered to have “met or exceed expectations,” which means they are on track to being college- or career-ready.

Schools also give tests in science, but fewer children take those exams. High schoolers also take the PSAT and the SAT, which for the first time were offered fully online. Other changes were also made to the PSAT and SAT, such as with content, so the education department said it wasn’t able to analyze academic recovery for high schoolers after the pandemic.

Student performance in the PSAT and SAT math tests dropped 7% among ninth-graders, 4% by 10th-graders, and 4% by 11th-graders compared to a year ago, according to a news release.

The public health crisis upended education, leading to widespread staffing shortages in schools and chronic absenteeism among children. The federal government has given Colorado schools nearly $2 billion in aid since the pandemic began to help them combat learning losses caused by remote learning. Schools have used the funding to expand tutoring and start summer school programs, but that money will be gone by the end of September.

The education department canceled CMAS testing in 2020 when schools moved to remote-learning. While CMAS tests were given the following year, many families opted out, leading some school districts, including Denver Public Schools, to disregard the results altogether.

That means this is the third year of data that shows how children are doing in English Language Arts and math compared to before the pandemic. (Student participation in the CMAS tests this year was similar to that in 2023, but still down compared to the number of students who took the tests in 2019.)

The data released Tuesday showed that more third-graders (42.1%) and sixth-graders (44%) met or exceeded expectations in English Language Arts compared to those who took the test in 2019. Five years ago, 41.3% of third-graders and 43.6% of sixth-graders met or exceeded expectations in English Language Arts.

The English Language Arts results for fifth-graders and seventh-graders were comparable to 2019 levels, but the percentage of fourth-graders (42%) who met or exceeded expectations in English Language Arts dropped 6 percentage points from five years ago and almost 2 percentage points from 2023, according to the data.