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BROMWELL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL (214)
2500 East
Fourth Avenue,
80206-4214
(Columbine Street at East Fourth Avenue)

Telephone:
(303) 388-5969
Fax: (720) 424-9355
E-mail: Bromwell@dpsk12.org

Mr. Jonathan Wolfer, Principal

Schools Optimistic About CSAP

Meaghan O'Brien has high anxiety -- and even higher hopes. On the day before the Colorado Student Assessment Program, her 28 fourth-graders at Cheltenham Elementary School spend the morning going over their answers on a practice CSAP test. Kids who aren't reviewing their practice tests are writing in their journals on the topic, "These Are My Feelings About CSAP."

The real thing begins today. Finally.

After months of preparation, it comes down to this: an hour of testing on Tuesday. Another hour on Wednesday. Another hour on Thursday.

For fourth-graders, there will be three more hours on three more days next week.

A few hours of standardized exams on reading and writing that will be the measure of an entire school in the eyes of the state of Colorado. A few hours that will distill the success of every school's teaching methods, and every school's children, to a letter grade or a single word.

"It's high stress time, there's no way around it," says Cheltenham principal Kay Frunzi. "It's a time when you hope all your efforts pay off. We've been trying so hard."

Cheltenham has to try hard. Its test scores sink it to the bottom third of the Denver Public Schools' 84 elementaries, and schools that continue to score poorly on the CSAP face the threat of state intervention.

"I'm hoping we hold our own or improve," Frunzi says. One positive: the school has been awarded more than $500,000 in grants that will help fund next year's intensive literacy programs.

"For next year, I know," Frunzi says. "For this year, I just hope."

At Bromwell Elementary, which consistently scores in the top five among DPS schools, Principal Frank Bingham devotes the front page of the school's newsletter, "The Talon," to the upcoming tests.

"We're Ready," reads the headline. "Bring on the CSAP."

Bingham's words reflect the concerns of his parent community, where the question is not whether the kids will pass the CSAP but whether the CSAP is interfering with a well- rounded education.

"Teachers continue to work toward a balance between aligning their instruction with the skills that the CSAP requires, while not `teaching to the test' to an inappropriate degree or neglecting subject areas that are not covered on the CSAP," Bingham writes.

To understand just how different these schools are in the world according to CSAP, ask two fourth grade teachers to predict what percentage of their class will score "proficient."

Bromwell's Sue Loftus mentally sorts through her class before she answers. "In reading, 85 percent," she finally says. "In writing, I hope 50 percent."

The fourth grade writing test is notoriously tough.

"They all have strengths in writing. They all have wonderful things to say," Loftus says. "When it comes to just giving them a topic like this, cold, that we can't talk about, we can't discuss, we can't do any of the pre-writing stuff they're used to doing before any good writer starts to write. We've talked about that, talked about the fact that maybe that's the challenge, that you're able to do it without that stuff.

"But at this age, is it quite fair? I don't think it's fair. And then to tell a kid he's a failure at writing? This is when you're trying to build them up and say you do have ideas, you do have things going on in your head that are worth putting down on paper."

Last year, 96 percent of the kids who are now fourth-graders at Bromwell scored proficient or better on the CSAP reading test. Third-graders don't take a writing CSAP.

At Cheltenham, Frunzi asked all her teachers to figure out which kids might make it to proficient land. O'Brien hesitates to say what she told Frunzi, afraid she might look a little too pie-in-the-sky.

"My number was higher than anybody's," O'Brien says. "I think that's because I'm very optimistic, and I'm so proud. But because of that, I'm sure I'm going to be the furthest off."

Of her 28 kids, O'Brien believes half of them might score proficient. As third-graders, 31 percent were proficient in reading. She would be thrilled if 25 percent score proficient on writing.

"I think they've grown tremendously, and it's not just academically," O'Brien says. "I'm stressed, because it's not a progressive assessment. Nobody knows how far they've come. Nobody knows that one of my students couldn't sleep at night and was afraid to come to school because she was nervous about making a mistake, and now she'll dance in front of the class because she has the confidence."

In O'Brien's class, Michelle finishes her essay on how she feels about the test.

"I hope we do good on the CSAP this year. Last year, our school got an F," she writes. "If we get an F like last year, it just makes me and everyone else feel dumb."

© 2001 Denver Rocky Mountain News/Denver Publishing Co.
All rights reserved.

This article is copyrighted by the Denver Rocky Mountain News and may not be reproduced or republished without their permission. You can contact them for further information at the Rocky Mountain News website. We are grateful for their permission to post it here for the enrichment of our school community.

Would you like to go to the next installment? Click on Kids Grope for Guffaws on the CSAP.