State test results released by the Colorado Department of Education Tuesday reveal most Colorado elementary-grade students continuing to recover from COVID learning losses while high school math scores took a notable hit last year.

Results varied by grade, but incremental progress was reported overall for elementary and middle school students’ Colorado Measures of Academic Success tests over the past year. Only fourth and fifth grades scored lower in literacy than in 2023 while all elementary and middle school grades improved in math achievement besides eighth grade, which only dipped by .2% from last year.

CMAS tests in science improved in all grades tested with fifth graders increasing by four percentage points.

This week’s released results were only statewide. Data for specific schools and school districts will be released next week.

Despite these improvements, the results reflect a mixed bag when compared to pre-pandemic scores. Sixth and seventh graders have caught up to English and Language Arts results from 2019 while grades 3-5 have surpassed math scores from that year.

“We are encouraged by the continued improvement of our students since the pandemic disrupted learning,” Colorado Education Commissioner Susana Córdova said in a news release. “We continue, however, to see troubling and persistent achievement gaps across student groups. It is not enough to see growth for some Colorado students, we need to ensure that every child is getting the support they need to be successful.”

This year’s high school scores tell a worsening story.

Ninth grade scores at or above the college readiness benchmark decreased by 7%, in the 10th grade by 4%, and in the 11th grade by 4.1% from 2023, marking the largest drop in a subject across the board this year. When compared to 2019, this year’s results reflect even greater losses.

Reading and writing scores held steady for the most part, with ninth and 10th grade increasing by approximately 1% and 11th grade scores decreasing by about 1%.

CDE officials were hesitant Tuesday to point to a single cause for these trends since 2024 marks the first year of the PSAT and SAT being administered completely online along with other adjustments to how answers are assessed.

“The 2024 scores reflect both changes in true student achievement as well as changes to the tests themselves,” CDE Chief Assessment Officer Joyce Zurkowski said. “And it is very difficult, if not impossible, to disentangle those two factors.”

Other changes to this year’s tests include fewer math problems presented with words or context and adjustments to the amount of questions for geometry and algebra. Reading and writing changes include shorter passages for single questions over longer passages with multiple questions.

Because of the assessment shifts made this year, CDE officials said they were unable to examine student recovery from the pandemic like in previous years.

Zurkowski said that the state does not intend to adjust the SATs and PSATs any more over the next several years in order to have a better understanding of trends going forward.

Another persistent theme this year was achievement gaps reported by various student subgroups based on race/ethnicity, disability status, free/reduced lunch status, and multilingual learner status.

During the briefing held Tuesday, Córdova noted that additional adjustments have been made and resources made available in recent years for these groups such as individualized learning cohorts, but that they are still working through lingering impacts from the pandemic that have manifested in recent years in ways such as teacher turnover and increased absenteeism.

“Our real aspiration is to see the gaps shrink, to get kids attending in patterns that are more regular around the amount of time they’re spending in school and to make sure that all of those things are contributing to both a sense of belonging, a sense of efficacy and an ability to demonstrate progress academically,” she said.

She added that there might very well be positive outliers to pull trends and data from after the release of test results from individual schools and districts next week.

The statewide results can be found at the CDE’s website.