Colorado Education
Colorado Department of Education
Colorado Commissioner of Education: Robert Hammond
District/School Information
Length of School Year: A minimum of 180 school days are required by Colorado state law. However, there is an hourly option which allows schools to have a minimum of 1080 school hours for secondary schools and 990 school hours for elementary schools.
Number of Public School Districts: There are 178 public school districts in Colorado.
Number of Public Schools: There are 1,817 public schools in Colorado. ****
Number of Students Served in Public Schools: There are 832,368 public school students in Colorado. ****
Number of Teachers in Public Schools: There are 49,060 public school teachers in Colorado.****
Number of Charter Schools: There are 158 charter schools in Colorado.
Per Pupil Spending: Colorado spends $8,963 per pupil in public education. ****
Average Class Size: The average class size In Colorado is 17.0 students per 1 teacher. ****
% of Title I Schools: 29.0% of schools in Colorado are Title I Schools.****
% With Individualized Education Programs (IEP): 10.1% of students in Colorado are on IEP's. ****
% in Limited-English Proficiency Programs: 11.4% of students in Colorado are in limited-English Proficient Programs.****
% of Student Eligible for Free/Reduced Lunches: 38.4% of student in Colorado schools are eligible for free/reduced lunches.****
Ethnic/Racial Student Breakdown****
White: 60.6%
Black: 5.9%
Hispanic: 28.6%
Asian/Pacific Islander: 3.7%
American Indian/Alaskan Native: 1.2%
School Assessment Data
Graduation Rate: 79.8% of all students entering high school in Colorado graduate. **
ACT/SAT rank: 304.6 students per 1000 in Colorado had a score of 25+ on the ACT or a 1780+ on the SAT. ***
8th grade NAEP assessment scores:****
Math : 292 is the scaled score for 8th grade students in Colorado. The U.S. average was 283.
Reading: 271 is the scaled score for 8th grade students in Colorado. The U.S. average was 264.
% of Students Who Attend College after High School: 62.6% of students in Colorado go on to attend some level of college. ***
Private Schools
Number of Private Schools: There are 398 private schools in Colorado.*
Number of Students Served in Private Schools: There are 57,502 private school students in Colorado.*
Teacher Pay
The average teacher pay for the state of Colorado was $48,020.00 in 2009.##
Each individual district in the state of Colorado negotiates teacher salaries and establishes their own teacher salary schedule.
The following is an example of a teacher salary schedule in Colorado provided by Littleton Public Schools
*Data courtesy of Education Bug .
**Data courtesy of Ed.gov
** *Data courtesy of the NCHEMS Information Center for Higher Education Policy Making and Analysis
****Data courtesy of the National Center for Education Statistics
##Average salary courtesy of Teacher Salary Info
