Publications & Resources

The Practical Benefits of Growth Models for Accountability and the Limitations Under NCLB

Apr 2007

Pete Goldschmidt and Kilchan Choi

The No Child left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 requires states to monitor student and school performance based on “adequate yearly process” (AYP) which essentially is a count of the number of students meeting a specified targed. States, many of which have a growing number of schools and school districts entering NCLB’s “needs improvement” status, have urged the U.S. Department of Education to consider alternate ways to measure and report student progress because AYP disproportionately identifies certain schools as failing (Choi, Goldschmidt, & Yamashiro, 2005). In November 2005, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced a Growth Model Pilot program (U.S Department of Education, 2006) to which states may submit alternative accountability models to monitor schools. This policy brief addresses the broader topic of education accountability models, or systems, describes both status and growth accountability models, and provides several policy recommendations.

Goldschmidt, P., & Choi, K. (2007). The practical benefits of growth models for accountability and the limitations under NCLB (CRESST Policy Brief No. 9). Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles, National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST).

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