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Are Colorado kids showing up ready for kindergarten? Are their early math and reading skills up to par? How’s their social and emotional development?
A new report from Early Milestones Colorado, a statewide research and policy group, argues that clear answers are unavailable because of missing or incomplete data.
The report arrives as Colorado is spending big on universal preschool, which launched in 2023 and aims to help prepare kids for kindergarten. Advocates say better kindergarten data could spotlight bright spots and weak areas in that program and help the state make informed decisions about improvements.
At the same time, Gov. Jared Polis is pushing for better data systems for all education levels as part of a multistate effort he’s spearheading for the National Governor’s Association. Part of the goal of the “Let’s Get Ready” initiative, he said in a recent press release, is to “bolster our capacity to measure what works and what doesn’t.”
For nearly a decade, a law known as CAP4K has required Colorado’s kindergarten teachers to collect information early in the school year on how students are doing in six areas: cognition, language, literacy, math, social-emotional development, and physical and motor development. Most schools use one of several state-approved assessments to collect the data, which is released annually in a report to lawmakers.
In 2024-25, the share of students considered ready for kindergarten ranged from 51% to 63% depending on the developmental area, according to the state report.
But advocates say the report lacks key information about certain student subgroups. That’s because schools are allowed to report as “unknown” a child’s race or ethnicity or whether the child is eligible for free or reduced-price school meals, one measure of poverty. In the most recent report, about 10,000 children who met language expectations had unknown free and reduced-price meal status. The numbers were similar for the other five developmental areas.
In addition, the report contains no readiness data at all for thousands of kindergartners whose schools got waivers from using state-approved assessments. Such students make up about 7% of the more 50,000 kindergartners in the state’s public schools, according to the Early Milestones brief.
Jennifer Stedron, executive director of Early Milestones, said given that CAP4K’s goal was to boost student achievement, the lack of data about a key grade is “a little stunning.”
The Early Milestones report includes three recommendations:
- Require reporting of students’ race/ethnicity, gender, and free-and-reduced-meal eligibility status as part of kindergarten readiness data. Eliminate the “unknown” option.
- Require reporting of results for kindergartners whose schools received waivers from state-approved assessments.
- Require reporting of the share of kindergartners who meet or exceed expectations across all six developmental areas.
Officials from the Colorado Department of Education say the State Board of Education would be in charge of making any changes to kindergarten assessment data requirements.
Tami Yetter, the department’s director of elementary literacy and school readiness, said data privacy rules are why free- and reduced-price-meal status is unknown for so many students in the kindergarten readiness report.
She noted that the state has kindergarten data for schools with waivers that allow them to use non-approved assessments, but historically hasn’t published it. She said state officials aren’t sure if such assessments are comparable to state-approved assessments, the most common of which is Teaching Strategies GOLD.
The State Board’s next scheduled review of kindergarten readiness data requirements will be in 2028, Yetter said.
Madi Ashour, director of K-12 education policy for the Colorado Children’s Campaign, said the state’s current kindergarten readiness report is “good, but could be better.”
She said requiring that all schools use state-approved kindergarten assessments would be the easiest way to ensure that the 7% of kindergarteners not currently represented in the kindergarten readiness report show up there. But she acknowledged that Colorado local control ethos makes that tricky.
Ashour also noted the state has made some progress over the years toward more accurately reporting kindergarten data. Indeed, the state’s kindergarten readiness report used to be even more opaque. In 2016, worries about data privacy and government intrusion prompted the State Board to drastically limit what data appeared in the report.
That eventually changed, but advocates say more is needed.
Ashour described the Early Milestones recommendations as a way to “further improve these systems that can really make a difference in how Colorado serves kids.”
Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.
