Margaret Spellings' Growth Model Pilot

Curriculum Evaluation
Dr. Dugan
Summer 2009

In April of 2005, Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings announced a new pilot project called, A New Path for the No Child Left Behind Act. It uses a set of principles and approaches that guide states as they measure their progress in meeting the bright line goals of NCLB. These goals include: assessing all students in grades three through eight and once in high school every year, disaggregating the data by student subgroups to help close the achievement gap, improving teacher quality and the prompt notification of parents as to their options concerning the education of their children and that all students will achieve grade level or better in reading and mathematics by the end of the 2013-2014 school year.

Many states, educators and parents have called for more flexibility in the way the No Child Left Behind Act assesses student achievement. NCLB law requires that when states calculate their Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), they use a status model. A status model of assessment is a federally approved model that takes a "one-time only" approach to evaluating school performance. Districts test students only once a year under NCLB. Status models use proficiency scores to evaluate student performance (for example: "advanced proficiency", "proficient", etc.) Status models use across grade, or cohort, samples. An example of this would be looking at last years fifth grade reading scores and comparing those to this year’s fifth grade reading scores. Testing that corresponds to this model would be norm-referenced, standardized testing. Status models do not record individual student progress over time. The model that looks at student progress over time is called a growth model.

A growth model assessment tracks student progress over time. Although there seems to be a lot of confusion over terms, there are basically two types of growth models: average growth models and value-added growth models. Average growth models look at every student’s performance over time. Average growth models use scaled scoring to report results. This model can be used to determine the effectiveness of instruction in a certain classroom, grade level, school or district. Value-added growth models are statistical methods that take years of a students’ test data and estimates students’ growth. This model is very complicated and difficult for most to understand. Overall, growth models answer questions about the quality and quantity of a students’ instruction. They show promise in terms of fairness and reliability.

The New Path for the No Child Left Behind Act gives schools credit for student progress by tracking individual achievement year by year. It allows the government to "rigorously" evaluate growth models in accordance with NCLB and to share the results with other states. In the beginning of the pilot project, states had to apply for the New Path program. These states had to meet the bright line principles for NCLB which are:

1. States had to ensure that all students are proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014 and to set annual goals to close the achievement gap.
2. States had to set expectations for annual achievement based on meeting grade level proficiency, not on student background or school characteristics.
3. States had to hold schools accountable for student achievement in reading and mathematics.
4. States had to ensure that all students in the grades tested, were included in the assessment and accountability system.
5. States had to test in each of the grades three through eight and in high school for both reading and mathematics. The assessment system must also produce comparable results from grade to grade and year to year.
6. States must track student progress as part of the state data system.
7. States must include student participation rates and student achievement on a separate indicator in the accountability system.

Also as a condition, states must share their data on which schools made AYP under each model, the original status model and the new growth model. The USDOE is to gather and share the results of the data. Under the pilot, students who are on a growth trajectory within a four year time span can be added to the numbers of proficient students in the school.

The Department of Educations received many requests to participate in the New Path Project. The USDOE uses a strict peer review process to ensure that the selection of participants is fair and transparent. The peer review process was carried out by a panel of nationally recognized experts in the field of academic testing, members of the private sector, and members of state, local and community organizations. For every school, only ten schools are able to apply for the New Path project. In the school year, 2005-2006, the state of Tennessee was given approval for participation. The state of North Carolina was given conditional approval; eight states applied. In November of 2006, the state of Delaware was given approval and the states of Arkansas and Florida were given conditional approval for the pilot year, 2006-2007; five states applied. In July of 2007 the states of Alaska and Arizona were given full approval.

According to Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings:

"A growth model is not a way around accountability standards. It’s a way for states that are already raising achievement and following the bright lines principles of the law to strengthen accountability."
"We’re open to new ideas but we’re not taking our eye off of the ball. There are many different routes for states to take, but they all must begin with a commitment to annual assessment and disaggregating of data, and they all must lead to closing the achievement gap and every student reaching grade level by 2014. This is good policy for all students and we will stick with it."

The Department of Education has reported great success with the New Path pilot project but there are no published reports of results that I found. Many states have posted their proposals and acceptance letters for New Path online but I could not find any data about their implementation. We just don’t know if the pilot worked or not. In my opinion, the DOE wants to say that NCLB is working and that every state is in full compliance with the law but it can’t. Maybe the DOE is dragging its feet and hoping that a new administration can get the states back on the "right track." NCLB may be re-authorized or not, but greater accountability, assessment and transparency are here to stay.

For more information visit:

www.nclb.gov
www.qualityednow.org
www.dpi.state.nc.us
www.ed.gov/print/news/pressreleases