The Colorado State Assessment System is designed to measure Colorado student’s mastery of the Colorado’s academic content standards. In December of 2009 Colorado adopted revised academic content standards progressing from early school readiness to postsecondary competencies reflective of both workforce readiness and 21st century skills. In 2012 Colorado implemented the Transitional Colorado Assessment Program (TCAP) to reflect changes in the state adopted academic content standards and to provide information to teachers as they began incorporating the revised content standards in their daily instruction.
The Transitional Colorado Assessment Program (TCAP) is Colorado’s standards-based assessment designed to provide a picture of student performance to schools, districts, educators, parents and the community. The primary purpose of the assessment program is to determine the level at which Colorado students meet the Colorado Model Content Standards in the content areas assessed. The TCAP is collaboratively developed by the Colorado Department of Education, the Colorado teaching community and CTB/McGraw-Hill.