Format for scores helps track students' yearly progress.

Byline: Shari Chaney Griffin and Ed Seal

Aug. 1--The state released some CSAP scores in a new format for the first time Tuesday.

In selected categories, the state provided longitudinal data tracking how students progressed over time.

Statewide, for example, roughly 71 percent of the third-graders who scored proficient in reading in 2005 remained proficient when they took the reading test as fifthgraders in 2007.

Eight percent improved to the advanced category this year from proficient in 2005, and nearly 20 percent fell to partially proficient this year after being proficient in third grade.

The data only include students who took the test in 2005 and 2007.

"This is the data that truly matters," said Tanya Price, assistant director of communications at the Colorado Department of Education.

The information provides a picture of how the same students improve, or not, rather than comparing different students -- this year's third-graders to last year's third-graders, for example.

Thursday, Commissioner Dwight Jones said that of the 450,000 students who take CSAP tests each year, state officials…