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U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings today announced approval of three high-quality growth models, which follow the bright-line principles of No Child Left Behind. Delaware is immediately approved to use the growth model for the 2006-2007 school year. Arkansas and Florida have also submitted quality growth models. They must first have their assessment systems approved by the department before they can implement their growth models for the 2006-2007 school year.

Tennessee and North Carolina received full approval to implement their growth model this past school year. As a condition of participation in the pilot, NC and TN must share data on which schools made AYP under each model (status and growth). We expect to have data from these states by the end of the year and to share that data with the public.

"A growth model is a way for states that are already raising achievement and following the bright-line principles of the law to strengthen accountability," Secretary Spellings said. "Arkansas, Delaware and Florida were recognized by our impressive group of peer reviewers to have written strong growth models that adhere to the core principles of No Child Left Behind."

"There are many different routes for states to take, but they all must begin with a commitment to annual assessment and disaggregation of data. And, they all must lead to closing the achievement gap and every student reaching grade level by 2014. We are open to new ideas, but when it comes to accountability, we are not taking our eye off the ball."

The Department plans to approve no more than 10 high-quality growth models for the pilot program. When Arkansas and Florida complete the necessary work on their assessment systems they will be able to implement their growth models. Thus, 5 remaining slots will remain in the pilot.

A rigorous peer review process was used by the Department to ensure that the selection process was fair and transparent for all participating states. A panel of nationally recognized experts reviewed and made recommendations on states' proposals, choosing Tennessee and North Carolina for approval.

The Department intends to gather data to test the idea that growth models can be fair, reliable and innovative methods to measure student improvement and to hold schools accountable for results. Growth models track individual student achievement from one year to the next, giving schools credit for student improvement over time. The pilot program enables the Department to rigorously evaluate growth models and ensure their alignment with NCLB, and to share these results with other States.

September 15, 2006: Deadline for five States that were previously peer-reviewed to submit revised proposals to the Department for consideration for the 2006-07 school year.

October, 2006: Second peer review for the five States that submitted revised proposals.

November 1, 2006: Deadline for all other states to submit new growth model proposals to the Department for the 2006-2007 school year. Nine states: Arizona, California, Iowa, Hawaii, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Utah have applied for the remaining five slots.

The bright-line principles for high-quality growth models are:

• Ensure that all students are proficient by 2014 and set annual state goals to ensure that the achievement gap is closing for all groups of students;
• Set expectations for annual achievement based upon meeting grade-level proficiency and not upon student background or school characteristics;
• Hold schools accountable for student achievement in reading/language arts and mathematics;
• Ensure that all students in tested grades are included in the assessment and accountability system, hold schools and districts accountable for the performance of each student subgroup, and include all schools and districts;
• Include assessments, in each of grades 3 through 8 and high school, in both reading/language arts and mathematics that have been operational for more than one year and have received approval through the NCLB standards and assessment review process for the 2005-06 school year. The assessment system must also produce comparable results from grade to grade and year to year;
• Track student progress as part of the state data system; and
• Include student participation rates and student achievement as separate academic indicators in the state accountability system.

The peer reviewers, who represent academia, private organizations and state and local education agencies, reviewed each proposal based on the Peer Review Guidance (http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/growthmodelguidance.doc) issued by the U.S. Department of Education as a road map for developing the models. The reviewers are as follows:

Chair: Eric Hanushek, Stanford University

Academia:

• Chris Schatschneider, Florida State University (peer for the 2005-2006 proposals only)
• David Francis, University of Houston
• Margaret Goertz, University of Pennsylvania

State and District Practitioners:

• Robert Mendro, Dallas Independent School District
• Jeff Nellhaus, Deputy Commissioner, Massachusetts Department of Education
• Mitchell Chester, Assistant Superintendent for Policy and Accountability, Ohio Department of Education
• Lou Fabrizio, North Carolina Department of Public Instruction

Education Organizations:

• Kati Haycock, The Education Trust
• William Taylor, Citizens Commission on Civil Rights
• Sharon Lewis, Retired, Council of Great City Schools

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