Summary

A+ Colorado’s signature Outliers report is a compendia of which districts are beating the odds in terms of student outcomes, and which districts are behind the curve across many different metrics. It provides the state of the State for education, and identifies noteworthy districts that are supporting excellent outcomes for students. Given the COVID-19 pandemic disruption in our schools, it is more important than ever that educators and policy makers know where schools have been successful for different student populations.

This year’s Outliers 2020: Colorado School Districts Beating the Odds offers readers a myriad of ways to explore the wealth of information the Colorado Department of Education collects and provides information about how students are faring in school districts across the state.

Here you can explore demographic trends, see which are the bright spots in achievement across the state, and assess where we are going next as a state with our preparation of students for life beyond high school.

You can read the full print version of the report here^[1] or continue below to dig into the dashboards to see how your district compares, where different groups of students are excelling, and find your own data stories worth sharing.

Why We Care

This chart helps to answer how student outcomes in a school district compare to outcomes students see in similar school districts. As an organization we aspire to create and support an education system where student demographics do not correlate to student performance inside the classroom. Yet current research and experience documents a relationship between what happens outside of the classroom, and how students perform in the classroom. Here we look at how districts with similar student populations support those students to meet grade-level expectations in core academic subjects.

How To Read This Chart

Each dot represents a district. The size of the dot corresponds to the number of students in that district. The demographic index represents the portion of students in the district that are receiving special education services, qualifying for free or reduced price lunch, inter-district student mobility, and emerging multilingual students. The higher the number, the greater number of students in these categories are in the district. The height of the dot shows the percent of students meeting or exceeding expectations in that given subject.