Report

In this report, we review a widely used method for calculating effective weights and apply it to evaluate the alignment of nominal and effective weights for composite accountability scores produced in the Colorado School Performance Framework (SPF).

In this qualitative study, we conducted a series of think-aloud interviews with in-service elementary reading teachers as they reacted to a prototype for reporting content-referenced growth (CRG) within a commercially available diagnostic assessment, Curriculum Associates’ i-Ready Diagnostic.

This study aims to analyze in-service elementary teachers’ reactions to a prototype for reporting content referenced growth on a widely used commercial assessment, Curriculum Associates’ i-Ready Diagnostic. Created through a partnership between CU Boulder and Curriculum Associates, the score reporting prototype is intended to support teachers, parents, and students in interpreting both the status of student understanding at one point in time and their growth in understanding across points in time.

A number of foundational skills contribute to students’ growth toward skilled reading, including phonics knowledge. In this report, we examine how phonics knowledge develops from kindergarten through third grade by considering a theory of reading development known as orthographic mapping and by examining how the difficulties of i-Ready Diagnostic phonics items change from grade to grade.

This report provide a descriptive look at patterns of “summer learning loss” (SLL) in reading and mathematics for elementary and middle school students who use the i-Ready Diagnostic assessment system produced by Curriculum Associates. SLL in math amounts toabout 30 to 40% of school year growth depending on the grade in question. The score decreases are smaller in reading, ranging from about 10 to 20% of school year growth.

In this report, CADRE researchers share results from conducting a qualitative multi-site case study at three former low performing schools located in one school district that adopted locally motivated turnaround strategies and practices to maintain higher levels of student achievement over time. Two schools are former turnaround schools that participated in the Colorado Department of Education’s (CDE) Turnaround Network (TN), and one school did not participate in the network but used many of the tools and strategies provided to TN schools. The purpose of this multi-site case study was to identify the practices, and conditions supporting those practices, that these schools learned through partnership with the TN and continue to sustain through present day.

This is an addendum to a report prepared for the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) by the Center for Assessment, Design, Research & Evaluation (CADRE) at CU Boulder (Shear et al., 2021). CDE requested an addendum to the 2021 CADRE report presenting similar descriptive analyses for schools that participated in the Connect for Success (CFS) program and providing initial descriptive analyses of academic outcomes for schools participating in two other Empowering Action for School Improvement (EASI) programs: The Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports (MTSS) and Accountability Pathways Planning and Implementation (Pathways).

In this study, we provide a rich description of one academic coaching program and use a quasi-experimental design to evaluate the program’s effects on student outcomes. We investigate two research questions: 1) how does academic coaching influence key student outcomes? and 2) to what extent do these effects vary by amount of coaching received?

For this report, we analyzed longitudinal administrative data collected by the Colorado Department of Education to track the academic performance of schools. The analyses contained in this report focus on the set of schools receiving School Turnaround Network (STN) and School Turnaround Leadership Development (STLD) supports.

This report focuses on one particular technical choice CDE must make when deciding which version of the SGP model to use in measuring student growth, namely whether these measures should be based on so-called cohort or baseline-referenced SGPs.