Study Flags Drawbacks in Growth Models for AYP

Experts see disconnect between 'rhetoric' and pilot-program findings

Amid battles over teacher quality and school restructuring, there’s one thing everyone seems to want in the next version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act: an accountability system that measures student growth.

Yet the results of the U.S. Department of Education’s growth-model pilot program, whose final evaluation was released earlier this year, suggest lawmakers may have to do some heavy lifting to include growth in accountability. Not only do state growth models vary considerably, but they also play out in ways that can run counter to the aims of providing greater transparency and better accountability for all students, not just those “on the bubble,” or just below passing rates for their state exams.

“It seems to me there is a serious disconnect between the rhetoric supporting growth models and the incentives and structures they end up creating,” said Andrew D. Ho, an assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a co-author of the federal...