A bipartisan group of Colorado lawmakers wants to trim the number of hours elementary and middle schoolers sit for state standardized tests, putting one of the most heated debates in K-12 education back on the front burner: How should schools assess students and in what ways should districts and the state use the data they collect from kids’ test results?
Democratic state Sen. Chris Kolker, of Centennial, calls current testing hours “onerous” for students who take the Colorado Measures of Academic Success exams every spring, some of whom spend as many as 11 hours over the course of a few weeks on the tests.
“Do you think having kids sitting for a test over 11 hours is engaging them in school?” he asked, referring to eighth graders whose CMAS testing can stretch that long. “Does that engage kids and do they want to be in school?”
CMAS gauges where students are in meeting grade-level standards in reading, math, science and social studies. The state assesses kids in grades 3-8 on reading and math. Students in grades 5, 8 and 11 are tested in science, while kids in grades 4 and 7 at some schools complete the social studies exam.
Kolker, who is chair of the Senate Education Committee, introduced Senate Bill 68, which would create a working group — including professional educators, district administrators and school board members — who would recommend ways to reduce CMAS testing time. He is asking the Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, to manage the working group in hopes of avoiding costs to the state.
The current language in the bill states that standardized assessments should be administered “to the minimum extent possible” and also directs Colorado to apply for a federal waiver so that the state is exempt from federal assessment mandates. Kolker said he plans to update the bill to shift its focus to creating the working group as a stepping stone toward relaxing test time in the future.
He believes the bill could end up saving the state millions of dollars at a time Colorado spends $18.3 million in state funding and about $2.2 million in federal funding per year on the CMAS exam. Curbing the number of hours students are sitting for the test could also lower costs for the state, Kolker said.
“In this budget shortfall that we’re in and the need that we’re in,” he said, “why do we need to spend this over testing our kids?”
Kevin Vick, president of CEA and a proponent of the bill, said the hours required of CMAS testing are one component of a much bigger, more complicated conversation on how important the exams are for kids’ education.
“Is a student’s time best spent grinding for this standardized test or is it better spent seeking opportunities for their future or exploring new creative outlets?” Vick said. “I really think this is a conversation that the state needs to have in regards to how standardized testing is dominating our school programming these days.”
The exam is also used to measure the performance of teachers and schools, but Vick said the test format is increasingly out of touch in preparing kids for life outside classroom walls.
“The type of testing that we are doing and the type of instruction that we are giving only measures yes or no answers in a very complicated world,” Vick said. “So I think that is a real frustration with educators, and I think it is a contributing factor to why so many have left the profession.”
Other education advocates are urging lawmakers to slow down and wait for input later this year from another task force that has been exploring how to improve the state’s school accountability system and, with it, the state’s approach to standardized testing.
“I really believe that we should honor the work that those people did in that task force and the work the state is continuing to do,” said Jamita Horton, executive director of Teach Plus Colorado, an organization that prepares teachers to tackle education policy.
As a former teacher and administrator, Horton said she relied on results of CMAS tests to refine her approach to teaching different academic standards and better understand how school systems were working for students.
“All of these statewide assessments, there is a reason that we have them and one of those reasons is to be able to compare how students are doing,” Horton said. “And I think that’s really important for our state to continue to have a pulse on how all students are doing when it comes to standards.”
Kolker said he wants to charge forward with a task force composed of the experts who work with students every day and can help the state shave down the amount of time devoted to standardized tests — a much narrower focus than the task force reviewing the state’s school accountability system.
He said he sees several other flaws with CMAS testing, including fluctuating participation rates and test results that come a few months after the end of the school year. But Kolker does not want to get rid of CMAS assessments, at least not immediately. That could be an option Colorado visits in the future, he said.
“Right now, I think this is the quickest way for us to save money, continue with accountability and still use the same format we’ve been using for accountability,” Kolker said. “(CMAS) just doesn’t need to be this long for grades 3-8.”
He added that testing students should “always be a conversation.”
“We should always look at every way we are monitoring our students,” Kolker said. “It shouldn’t be a settled question. The biggest consideration should be how are we engaging kids, how are we making sure they’re coming to school and they’re involved and they want to be at school.”
Other main sponsors of the bill are Sen. Byron Pelton, a Sterling Republican; Rep. Eliza Hamrick, a Centennial Democrat; and Rep. Lori Garcia Sander, an Eaton Republican. It is scheduled on the Senate Education committee’s March 9 agenda.
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 2:09 p.m. on March 3, 2026, to clarify that the bill is going to be rewritten to focus on creating a working group.