Rigor in grades 11 and 12 assailed

Panel stops short of extending CSAPs

Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 25, 2006 at midnight

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Juniors and seniors are sliding through high school on lax academic standards, members of a study panel appointed by Gov. Bill Owens said Tuesday.

Rick O'Donnell, director of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, called the lack of rigor in 11th and 12th grade "shocking."

"We've often heard about the wasted senior year. Now we're talking about the wasted junior year," O'Donnell said.

Education Commissioner William Moloney said, "What you need is rigor right through the final years of the system."

Their comments came during a meeting of the Colorado Education Alignment Council. The 30-member panel of education and business leaders was appointed by Owens last fall to study whether high schools are preparing students for college and the workplace.

Colorado began tightening academic standards in 1993, then put teeth in the system four years later with statewide achievement tests.

But the tests end with grade 10, although juniors must take the ACT test, a college entrance exam.

Christine Tell of the Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm Achieve Inc., told the panel that Colorado high schools limit their expectations to "those that can realistically be attained in two years" - the ones in which tests are administered under the Colorado Student Assessment Program, Tell said.

In math, for example, students are required to learn algebra and geometry, but not advanced geometry or pre-calculus.

Tell stopped short of calling for extension of the CSAP test to juniors and seniors, and education leaders were wary of that step, too.

"Ultimately, that's a decision for the General Assembly," Moloney said.

Panel member Nancy Tuor, president of Kaiser-Hill, the company that cleaned up Rocky Flats, said more work is needed on defining academic standards for juniors and seniors before deciding whether to conduct tests.

"It doesn't take decades . . . but it takes more people getting together and looking at the problem," Tuor said.

Tuor, O'Donnell and Moloney co-chair the alignment council.

"I'm not going to go that far," state Sen. Ron Tupa, D-Boulder, said of extending CSAP. Tupa, a former high school teacher, is a member of the study group and the Senate Education Committee.

Extensive public discussion should precede any decision to extend CSAP, Tupa said.

Tupa agreed that high schools must improve the junior and senior program, but warned that many districts don't have the money for additional courses.

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