What is riding on the CSAP scores?

The stakes for CSAP seem to be increasing. As we, here at AHS, are in the middle of our CSAP testing I did a little reading to catch myself up to date with the CSAP stakes today. I was surprised at some of what I found!

1. School Report Cards (this one has been around)

- In August, all of the compalation of scores from each school are published and each Colorado school is given a report card. These report cards usually get posted in local papers and magazines. The report cards are used to communicate to the community (parents) about how each school ranks.

The scores include all students tested (non English speakers, special educaiton students and any student that transfered into the school after Oct. 1st)

- 2% of the 16,000 Colorado schools will fail and be given 3 years to better their performance or be taken over by the state.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4191/is_20010726/ai_n9991242

2. Now, some legislation is built in with the promise of progress (to be measured by CSAP)

Jefferson County passed a mill levy with a “performance promise” based on the original state law requiring schools to improve CSAP scores “by 25% over three years”. Jeffco's first CSAP scores were so high that a 25% improvement would be beyond the maximum score. Later the law was rewritten to require “reasonable growth” of one year’s growth each year. Jeffco has met the rewritten expectation, but the original “performance promise” limits the amount of district mill levy funds received.

http://www.lwvjeffco.org/csap.html

3. Schools adding CSAP to the students' report cards:

Greely-Evan's School District 6 (in Colorado) recently made the decision to post CSAP scores on each students individual report card. The District hopes this will help stop parents from excusing their children from taking CSAP and motivate students to do well on the test.
http://www.substancenews.com/content/view/377/81/

4. Texas and Florida imposing penalties (non graduation) for failure

Schools in Texas are now imposing penalties for failure for their standardized tests. A good idea? What these schools are doing is starting to require certain test scores for graduation. (Motivating?) In 2004 when Texas implemented the test score counting toward graduation, the scores jumped 20 points! In addition, many schools have started to post individual scores and include the scores on the student's transcript.

I wonder what will change in how we use CSAP scores in the next 5 years.