About Damn Time

From the December 12th Education Week:

All states that meet federal criteria will now be allowed to take part in the US Department of Education’s 2-year-old experiment with growth models, which let states measure individual students’ achievement gains as a way of ensuring accountability under No Child Left Behind.

I like this. The NWEA MAP assessment is a great example of a test that shows you the growth of the kids from the beginning of the year to the end, and getting the results back instantaneously is a powerful, powerful tool for school improvement.

I hope that OSPI considers something like this. There’s also more information to be found about growth models in the December 19th Education Week, here.