States try out remodeled NCLB assessments

District Administration, Feb, 2008 by Steven Scarpa

WITH CONGRESS STYMIED IN its efforts to rewrite the controversial No Child Left Behind law, which turned six last month, the Department of Education is attempting to create more flexibility within the legislation in terms of gauging student performance.

As of February, eligible states can apply to take part in the DOE's growth model pilot program. Rather than measure the performance of groups of students, as NCLB does currently, growth models track the progress of individual students. Participating states will use both methods so the DOE can determine if growth models elicit more accurate information.

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings hopes broadening the federal law's scope will allow states another way to measure individual student progress. "Our work on reauthorization has shown broad bipartisan support for growth models, and now many states have improved data systems so they can track individual student growth over time," Spellings said in a statement in December.

The growth model pilot program was first initiated in 2005. Nine states--Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio and Tennessee--have tried it out.

"Some combination of models may be an appropriate measure," says Les Morse, director of assessments and accountability for Alaska's department of education.

Morse believes that Alaska's efforts to gather student information under both models will have one unequivocal result: "We can make more decisions based on better evidence."