About the Colorado Alternate Assessment (CoAlt)
The Colorado Alternate Assessments (CoAlt) is administered to students with significant cognitive disabilities who are instructed and assessed on alternate achievement standards. A Student's IEP team makes the determination if a student qualifies for the alternate assessment following criteria provided by the Colorado Department of Education Exceptional Student Services Unit via the eligibility worksheet.
This standards-based assessment program is designed specifically for students with significant cognitive disabilities using the elements of universal design. For students who qualify to take alternate assessments, the CoAlt is an indicator of student progress toward the Expanded Benchmarks which are linked to the Colorado Model Content Standards in the content areas of Reading, Writing and Mathematics in grades 3 - 10 and Science in grades 5,8, and 10. The assessment is meant to provide a picture of student performance to schools, districts, educators, parents and the community. The data should be used to keep abreast of individual student progress toward attaining achievement in the content areas.
The CoAlt is untimed and individually administered. The assessments are comprised of selected response items and modified constructed response items.
The CoAlt was collaboratively developed by the Colorado Department of Education,
Colorado educators and
CTB/McGraw-Hill.
CoAlt Revision
New science and social studies alternate assessments will be administered operationally in the spring of 2014 and will be designed to measure the Extended Evidence Outcomes of the Colorado Academic Standards. In accord with the summative assessment design, the alternate assessments will be administered in grades 5, 8 and 11 in science and the social studies alternate assessments will be administered in grades 4 and 7 and once in high school.
Colorado educators engaged in item writing for the upcoming science and social studies alternate assessments. Through this process, educators played an active role in determining and shaping the content for the revision of the alternate assessments.
Moving forward, educators will have additional opportunities to ensure that the new alternate assessments are designed to adequately reflect student performance through participation in item review, and bias and sensitivity review.
Educators interested in participating in revision opportunities can be added to the data base by completing the online questionnaire.
11th Grade Alternate
The 11th grade alternate assessment is for students who qualify for the alternate assessment, and who will not be taking the CO ACT. For more information on the 11th grade alternate assessment contact the Exceptional Student Services Unit.