Every fall and spring, students at Escuela de Guadalupe sit down for the NWEA MAP Growth assessment, a nationally normed test used by thousands of schools across the country. The test does not just measure what a student knows on a given day. It measures how much a student has learned since the last time they took it. Think of it as the difference between a static snapshot of a student’s academic standing versus that same student’s ongoing story.
This year, our students’ MAP growth scores revealed something remarkable. Nine in ten of our students made measurable academic growth, and our results place them ahead of the vast majority of students nationwide. As a Denver private school built around a relentless, school-wide focus on outcomes, we think those numbers are worth explaining.
The MAP Growth Behind This Year’s Results
Growth, in MAP terms, means a student scored higher at the end of the testing period than they did at the start, adjusted for grade level. It is not about hitting an arbitrary bar. It is about whether a student is moving forward.
This year at Escuela de Guadalupe:
- 89.9 percent of students made measurable growth in math
- 80.67 percent made measurable growth in English literacy
- 75.63 percent made measurable growth in Spanish literacy
Just as important as the percentages is what did not happen. Across nearly every grade and subject, regression was almost nonexistent. Students who started the year ahead stayed ahead. Students who started behind closed ground. Growth here is not a one-time win. It is the product of a system that every teacher, in every classroom, is expected to deliver on, year after year.
What the Percentiles Actually Mean
Growth tells us how far a student traveled. Percentile rank tells us where they stand next to peers across the country. Escuela de Guadalupe students now score at the 82nd percentile nationally in English and the 78th percentile in math.
To put that in perspective, imagine lining up 100 students from schools all over the United States, sorted from lowest score to highest. A student at the 82nd percentile is standing ahead of 82 of those 100 students. That is not a marginal edge. It is the kind of separation that shows up when a school has built an intentional, well-run academic program.
Growth in Two Languages, Not Just One
What makes these results notable for a dual language school is that they hold up in both of the languages that our students are learning every day. As a Catholic school where children build literacy in their home language before developing full academic fluency in their second language, we track growth in English and Spanish separately, and we expect both to be strong.
This year’s MAP growth scores prove that they are. Growth in Spanish literacy, at 75.63 percent, sits close behind growth in English literacy and math. That is meaningful, because it means bilingual instruction is not coming at the expense of academic progress. It is producing it, in two languages at once.
Why Growth Matters More Than a Single Score
A single proficiency score answers one question: is a student on grade level right now. Growth data answers a different, and in many ways more useful, question: Is this school moving every student forward, regardless of where they started?
That is a meaningful distinction for any parent searching for an elementary or middle school and trying to sort through admissions marketing. A single high score can reflect a student population that arrived already ahead. Consistent growth, across nearly every student and nearly every subject, reflects what a school actually does with the time it has.
At Escuela de Guadalupe, that focus on growth is paired with proficiency results that are already well ahead of district and state averages in both reading and math, and it carries through to what happens after eighth grade, when the large majority of our graduates are accepted into their first choice high schools and go on to college.
MAP Growth: The Bigger Picture
None of this happens by accident. It is the result of an extraordinary team of educators who treat every student’s progress as non-negotiable, supported by a school-wide system built to catch students who are behind and keep pushing students who are ahead. When people ask what sets apart the best private school in Denver, this is a large part of the answer: not a single impressive number, but a school-wide pattern of growth that repeats itself every year, in every classroom, in two languages.
