Experts Tell Congress About Alternative Methods for Measuring Student Progress Under No Child Left Behind

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

WASHINGTON, DC -- At a House Education and Labor Committee hearing today, education experts offered specific ideas for changing the way states and schools measure schools' progress under the federal No Child Left Behind law. 

Under the law, states are required to set benchmarks each year for the share of students who can read and do math at grade level. If the percentage of a school's students who are proficient does not meet these annual benchmarks, then the school does not make adequate yearly progress.  The experts at today's hearing all testified that there may be more accurate and fair methods that to help schools measure their progress.

"Having the most accurate information on student progress is critical to closing the academic achievement gap," said Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee.  "This is one of the most important issues we must address if we want to improve and strengthen the No Child Left Behind law, and we are going to give serious consideration to the ideas we heard today."

One method discussed by witnesses at today's hearing, often referred to as a growth model, is to credit schools for the academic progress that children make during the year. Witnesses said that growth models should credit schools for progress that students make toward proficiency in reading and math. They also said that growth models could improve the quality of information teachers get about the academic progress of individual students during the school year.

Allan Olson, co-founder and chief academic officer of Northwest Evaluation Association said, "As NCLB has been implemented, it has become increasingly obvious that the way student achievement is measured currently does not begin to tell us whether the school is doing a good job or poor job teaching the students that come through its doors ... Students come to school with different preparation, motivation, and support resources.  It is the job of every school to help every student move forward regardless of his or her current achievement level."

Chrys Dougherty, director of research at the National Center for Education Accountability, said schools should focus "on whether students, particularly disadvantaged students, are growing toward readiness for college and skilled careers after high school."

And Valerie Woodruff, Delaware's Secretary of Education said, "It is not enough to measure the average performance of even a small cohort of students.  Systems must focus on the performance of individual students and must provide schools with the appropriate incentives to address student needs."

Witnesses also testified about the possibility of including additional measures of schools' and students' progress, from items like the quality of instructional interventions to performance, or classroom embedded assessments.

Peter McWalters, Rhode Island's Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education, said states need "more than just a scorecard based on student performance and a list of mandated responses.  We need indicators to measure all components of the health and capacity of the system ... And we need the freedom and capacity to do our work, while always keeping the goals clear and the actions and outcomes transparent so as to improve the public education system."

"I believe the [adequate yearly progress] provisions could be strengthened if multiple measures were added," said Harold C. Doran, a senior research scientist at the American Institutes for Research. "An accountability system that includes multiple measures uses test scores from more than a single test, achievement indicators collected by other means, or various statistical methods for evaluating data."

For Chairman Miller's opening statement at today's hearing, please click here.

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