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SBE Approves Colorado's Growth ModelThe State Board of Education adopted rules on March 6, 2008, that will lead to implementation of a new system of accountability based on the progress of individual students over time in reaching state standards and readiness for post-secondary success. The system is called Colorado's Growth Model. According to the Department of Education, "Colorado's Growth Model is an essential part of (CDE's) goal of developing a system that relentlessly focuses on the learning of all students. This commitment is central to 'Forward Thinking,' the department's blueprint for transforming its role in public education. "To focus on the learning of all students, Colorado needs a tool to understand the progress of all students based on where each student starts. Colorado's Growth Model enables parents, schools, districts, and the state to understand how individual students are progressing from year to year and provides a common, statewide means to understand how much growth is needed for each student to reach post-secondary readiness. "The model focuses attention on maximizing student progress over time and reveals where, and among which students, the strongest growth is happening?and where it is not. "This will allow educators from the state, district and school levels to focus service and support on closing the achievement gap. It also offers a means for schools and districts to learn from one another, and allows the department of education to target its limited resources toward the greatest need. "Colorado's Growth Model recognizes that the most effective schools and districts are those that produce the highest sustained rates of growth in student achievement, which may or may not be districts and schools with the highest test scores each year." Background from CDE on Colorado's Growth Model The development of the model was based on three essential questions about student, school and district performance:
In addition, the model provides information based on measures that are fair, balanced, and transparent:
Over the last decade, the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) has actively pursued the analysis of student, school and district CSAP data over time at the individual student level. Legislation enacted in 2004 (HB 04-1433) established growth analysis techniques employed by the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) for diagnostic purposes. Building on this initiative, legislation enacted in 2007 (HB 07-1048) directed CDE to refine the methodology and produce more useful information for schools and parents, while expanding its use for accountability purposes. A technical advisory panel was appointed by former Colorado Governor Bill Owens and tasked with recommending a model to the State Board of Education. The advisory panel recommended that Colorado's Growth Model calculate a growth percentile for each student relative to all other students in the state with the same prior academic history (academic peers). Prior to making this recommendation, the advisory panel relied on the resources and expertise of the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment (particularly Dr. Damian Betebenner) to develop procedures used to derive student growth percentiles and to provide technical advice on their implementation in a state accountability system. Colorado's Growth Model provides students, parents, teachers, principals, administrators, policy makers and the public with an easily understood yet rigorous means by which to understand student progress over time. Colorado's Growth Model:
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