States Vie to Participate in NCLB “Growth Model” Pilot

In response to Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings’ November 2005 announcement of a pilot project to test the use of growth-based accountability models, twenty states have submitted proposals to change the measures of school improvement used to calculate “adequate yearly progress” (AYP). Schools and districts in the selected states will be able to meet their performance targets under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) based on the academic growth individual students show from year to year.

Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah submitted proposals to the Department of Education requesting to begin incorporating growth measures into their accountability systems during this school year. Maryland, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota have proposed to adopt components of a growth model in the 2006-2007 school year.

At least initially, only 10 states will be selected to participate in the pilot, which will attempt to test whether growth-based accountability models are a more accurate measure of improvement than the present approach. Currently, NCLB requires schools and districts to meet 40 annual targets in each grade tested for the percent of students who score proficient or above on state tests, both for the overall student population and for targeted subgroups.

Response to Backlash

The growth model pilot is the most recent effort by the Department of Education (ED) to respond to the growing legal and political challenges to NCLB by offering states “more flexibility” in complying with the law. States and education advocates, ranging from the American Federation of Teachers to the National Association of Public Charter Schools, have complained that NCLB unfairly punishes high-poverty schools and districts whose students are showing dramatic improvement, but have not yet reached the required proficiency levels. In the 2004-2005 school year alone, the number of high-poverty schools not meeting AYP under the current performance targets, putting them at risk of sanctions, grew by 50 percent, from 6,000 to 9,000.

Spellings and ED emphasized that this increased flexibility did not represent a break from the “core principles” of NCLB. States selected for the pilot would still be required to reach 100 percent proficiency by 2014 and to disaggregate student achievement data by targeted subgroup.

The Education Trust and the Citizens Commission on Civil Rights have expressed concerns that a growth model requiring only a year of gain for each year a student is in school might be a step backward in the attempt to ameliorate the gaps in achievement NCLB was intended to address. Ross Wiener, policy director at the Education Trust, framed it as an issue of “How much growth is ambitious enough that you’re being fair to kids versus what’s fair to schools and school systems?”

The outcome of this growth model pilot will be determined largely on the basis of which state proposals are selected. Officials from ED will first determine if states meet the seven required criteria, which include having had its system of standards and assessment approved for the 2005-2006 school year. Then ED will forward the proposals to a panel of outside experts from academia, private organizations, and state and local education agencies. The reviewers include Eric Hanusheck, senior fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University (chairman); Kati Haycock, executive director, the Education Trust; and William L. Taylor, chairman, Citizens Commission on Civil Rights, all of whom have been staunch supporters of NCLB. Reviewers will make recommendations based on the initial guidance they receive from ED. States are expected to receive final approval in May.

As the 2007 reauthorization of NCLB approaches, ED is expected to continue to consider ways of responding to critics and of compromising with states, in an effort to preserve what it views as the fundamental principles of NCLB.

Prepared by Elisabeth Thurston, February 28, 2006