This week is the post-colored-egg-hunt time of year when the weather gets nice and Colorado’s public school children stay indoors in their classrooms for up to 7 hours and 45 minutes each for third and fourth graders to 12 hours and 45 minutes for eighth graders to endure the state-required but possible-to-opt-out-of CMAS tests. The Colorado Measures of Academic Success are mostly used to demonstrate lack of success, but that’s the name of the game for many organizations that want to dismantle our public schools.

The test-taking hours don’t reflect the full diversion from schooling in the CMAS program. School districts spend hours setting up the technology and preparing the children to do their best. The cost of the testing comes close to $100 million for the Colorado Department of Education and school districts when counting for inflation based on the 2014 report that attempted to total the bill. That number doesn’t count lost teaching and learning time.

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That money also doesn’t cover the dollars funneled to the private sector for test prep. The Colorado Department of Education offers some test samples on its website. A third-grade reading piece, for example, refers to rococo toads in Argentina. A seventh-grade math example asks students to “find the expression that matches -3/5(7?31/3).” Third- and fourth-grade English language learners can take the tests in Spanish, but fifth graders and above are stuck with English-only.

Imagine being a non-fluent English speaker in seventh grade facing this passage from a sample CMAS test: “To produce healthy nuts, pistachio trees need nitrogen, so we add it to the soil with organic fertilizers. We add a ground-up fish solution to the sprinkling system, and we mix shovels full of composted chicken feathers or manure into the soil.” Now also imagine being a low-income English-speaking kid trying to answer questions on the passage. It would be helpful to have some experience with pistachio nuts, at least the ice cream version. In other words, there may be some socio-economic bias to the sample.

For non-low-income kids and their parents, there are plenty of resources to help children do well on the CMAS tests. Parents can purchase the Colorado Ultimate Practice Test book for $22.95. A third-grade CMAS assessment practice book goes for $24.86 through Abe Books.

There are a series of test-prep resources provided by TeachersPayTeachers.com. IXL.com, or I Excel, offers a variety of CMAS tests by subject and grade level. Lumos Learning offers the same. Then there’s Wyzant.com that provides tutors. One link at Wyzant ran the numbers from$75-per-hour on the low end to $115-per-hour on the high end.

Pearson, the United Kingdom-based company that creates the CMAS, offers its array of tools for students, at a price. For $9.99-per-month or $14.99/month, whatever your budget can afford, it’s possible to learn and study at one place in a re-imagined learning program.

No wonder a recent survey by the Colorado Parent Teachers Association found almost universal rejection of the CMAS system. With nearly 1,200 respondents, most of whom are parents or community members in the 35-to-54 age group, more than 80% voted “no” to the statement: “do you think annual standardized tests are an accurate measure of student learning?” More than 85% voted “no” to: “do you think spending $30 million annually (CDE’s estimated costs) on Colorado’s standardized tests is a good investment for improving public schools?” Almost 80 percent voted “no” to: “do you think test scores of English language learners and students with significant cognitive disabilities should be included in the evaluation of schools and school districts?”

Students and parents can opt out of these tests. Almost 70 percent of PTA respondents voted “yes” to exercising the right to opt out of CMAS.

It’s no surprise test results over the years haven’t been excellent for a large number of children, especially the almost 40% of Colorado’s students eligible for free or reduced lunch, generally without pistachio nuts as a side.

Despite the massive advantage to the 60% of students not eligible for free or reduced lunch, the state’s “education reform” gurus, including conservative organizations like Ready Colorado and Democrats for Education Reform and their well-paid cohorts, insist this annual rite of non-passage is critical to improving our kids’ education, especially for low-income students. It’s no matter that improvements have been spotty at best and often offset by losses, in the same year.

HB23-1239 on Local Innovation for Education Assessments, a bill to encourage some adaptability in the face of the brick wall of the state’s CMAS program, was set for a House Education hearing this week. It’s postponed to April 20. That gives the bill about three weeks to get through the chambers to Gov. Jared Polis’s desk. The testing season will be done, but results won’t be available to parents until the 2024 school year when their kids have moved to the next grade. Who came up with this mess, anyway? Does the guy running for mayor of Denver have something to do with it?

Paula Noonan owns Colorado Capitol Watch, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.