Feds approve NCLB growth model plans from Michigan, Missouri
U.S. Department of Education (ED) has announced its approval under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of state growth models submitted by Michigan and Missouri. Michigan’s model has been immediately approved for the 2007-08 school tear, while Missouri’s “on the condition that the state adopt a uniform minimum group size for all subgroups, including students with disabilities and limited English proficient students, in Adequate Yearly Progress determinations” for that year. More information about growth models for recognizing academic progress instead of an all-or-nothing standard, the growth model program, and the criteria for approval of state plans is available from the department’s press release and at the NSBA link below. Meanwhile, Time magazine reports in a story below that former Bush administration ED official Sarah Neufeld has gone public with her recollections of the tensions during the early, inflexible years of the administration between “NCLB believers” like herself and the “blow-up-the-schools group” in the department “who saw NCLB as a Trojan horse for the choice agenda.” “Going to the growth models is the right way to go," she says. "I wish it had come earlier. It didn't because we were trying to be tough.”
ED press release
NSBA School Law pages on growth models
Time, 6/8/08, By Claudia Williams