How are the growth targets set for students and schools?
Although the ABCs Accountability Program is designed to evaluate schools, it begins with the scores of each individual student on each test to make that evaluation. Statistical formulas are then applied to those test scores to evaluate how much progress students in the school have made for that year. These formulas determine whether each student makes “a year’s worth of growth in a year’s worth of time” on each of the state tests they take. The extent to which students accomplish this (i.e., meet their growth targets) determines whether the school as a whole makes “expected” or “high” growth. Although these formulas calculate growth student by student and test by test, the accumulation of growth is averaged across the entire school. Regardless of how high or low a student scored the year before, s/he is expected to show a certain amount of growth on the current year’s tests. If a student scores high compared to her/his peers one year, then s/he is expected to score high compared to her
