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More Colorado 11th graders met or exceeded state expectations on the SAT this spring. But student proficiency on the ninth and 10th grade PSAT showed mixed results.
The testing data was released Thursday by the Colorado Department of Education. Instead of using a state-created standardized test, Colorado opts to gauge how well students are learning through the widely used SAT and PSAT.
“We see some overall mixed results,” said Christina Wirth-Hawkins, Colorado Department of Education chief assessment officer.
While the results varied by grade level, challenges from previous years remained. The tests once again showed that students scored higher on reading and writing tests than on math. Large score gaps remain based on students’ race, family income, and other factors, such as whether students are learning English as a second language or have a disability.
Improvements on the SAT reading and writing tests were a highlight for the state, with 61.5% of students meeting or exceeding expectations. That’s up from 57.6% last year, or a jump of 3.9 percentage points — the highest increase of any test.
The reading and writing increases on the SAT spanned almost every student group.
The percentage of students considered proficient went up to 60.6% for boys and 62.4% for girls. Among different ethnic and racial groups, only Asian American students scored below last year, a negligible tenth of a percentage point.
In math, the percentage of students meeting or exceeding expectations on the SAT increased by 1.4 percentage points to about 32.5% of students.
On the PSAT ninth grade reading and writing test, scores were basically flat with 65% of students meeting or exceeding expectations. That’s up just 0.4 percentage points from last year.
Student proficiency on the PSAT ninth grade math test backslid by 2 percentage points, with 37.5% meeting or exceeding expectations. Every racial and ethnic student group scored lower than last year.
On the PSAT 10th grade test, fewer students met or exceeded expectations in reading and writing, down 2.5 percentage points to 63.5%. However, more students tested higher on math. The percentage who met or exceeded expectations was up 2.5 percentage points to 36.4%.
Black students were the only student group with gains on both the PSAT 10th grade reading and writing tests.
On all tests, white and Asian American students continue to score proficient at higher rates than their peers.
Senior reporter Ann Schimke contributed to this report.
Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.
