COLORADO, USA — Colorado will cancel state standardized tests this school year while about 90% of the state’s 913,000 students are out of school to help stop the spread of the new coronavirus, state education officials announced Tuesday.
“With the extraordinary actions we are taking to prevent the spread of COVID-19, it’s clear that we need to press pause on our CMAS tests this year,” Education Commissioner Katy Anthes said. “Students and educators need to feel a sense of stability and normalcy before state tests can be administered and produce valid results. This also means we plan to pause our school and district state accountability system as it relates to state assessments for a year.”
Each spring, Colorado tests students in grades 3-8 in literacy, math, and select other subjects using tests known as the Colorado Measures of Academic Success, or CMAS. Colorado also administers the PSAT to students in ninth and tenth grades, and the SAT college entrance exam to 11th-graders.
State education officials are working on possible solutions for administering the PSAT and SAT tests, “which offer unique roles in Colorado’s system in terms of scholarships and college entrance,” the Colorado Department of Education said in a statement.
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