The ‘Growth Model’ Pilot Isn’t What You Think It Is

By Michael J. Weiss

As policymakers think about the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, one of the key considerations is the measurement of school performance. Many people find the federal law’s original measures of school performance (“status” and “safe harbor”) to be unfair because they do not take into account students’ initial achievement levels. As a result, schools are judged in large part by that which is beyond their control: the amount of knowledge their students had when they entered the school. Consequently, schools are held to very different standards; some need only to produce modest learning gains, while others must...