Ten states allowed to use growth models to calculate AYP.

In November, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced a pilot program to let up to 10 states use growth models to determine Adequate Yearly Progress. Many states and lobbyists have requested this approach.

"We've been strongly advocating that states be allowed to measure individual children accurately and to show student growth as an indicator of a school's effectiveness," says Allan Olson, executive director for Northwest Evaluation Association, a provider of testing services to more than 1,800 districts. "The current AYP is one indicator but far from sufficient, given the consequences."

To qualify for the program, states must meet certain core requirements, including the following: the state's NCLB assessment system must have been operational for more than one year and must receive approval through the NCLB peer review process for the 2005-06 school year.

Ross Wiener, policy director at The Education Trust, an organization charged with closing the achievement gaps in public education, is cautiously optimistic about this new model. "The growth models that states put in place before NCLB didn't reflect that bedrock expectation that all students were going to get that education," says Wiener. "More often, states used past performance as a predictor of current or future performance." Looking at growth alone won't show if a student has met the state's standards. Wiener says the most useful plan would be growth blended with the absolute level of achievement. Above all, he wants to ensure we can distinguish schools that, while still near the bottom, have made progress.

Steve Peha, president of education consultancy Teaching That Makes Sense, says it's ironic to call this new aspect of NCLB a growth model when the reason for its existence is that growth isn't happening. He says it's valuable to have testing as a means of measurement, but that it is a huge mistake to connect it to standards and curriculum: Everyone teaches to the test.

Still, states are eager to participate. Oregon and Nevada have both expressed interest in applying to the pilot program. Doug Thunder, deputy superintendent of administrative and fiscal services for the Nevada Department of Education, says his state wants to recognize any progress schools make, even if it's small. The current system hasn't allowed for that.

"I can't think of a more important element of NCLB to examine than this one," says Olson. "It's a huge step in the right direction."

Ongoing Changes in Calculating AYP

A new Center on Education Policy report shows that states are continuing to change the way they calculate AYP. Today, nearly every state has its own method of determining AYP, resulting in a lot of confusion. Here are a few of the report's findings:

* 45 states now use confidence intervals.

* The Department of Education has approved retesting, where students retake a different version of the same test and their best scores are used for AYP.

* The department also approved an increase in minimum subgroup sizes, which means that in many schools, subgroups do not get counted for AYP purposes.

www.cep-dc.org