What does student growth measure?

Student growth measures how much a student progresses academically during a given period of time. It takes into consideration a student’s entering achievement when measuring how much the student grew over the year, and, as opposed to measuring student proficiency on a single assessment, student growth isn’t concerned with whether or not a student passes a test. By measuring growth, a teacher who has students who enter multiple years behind grade level could still demonstrate his or her effectiveness based on how much those students progress during that year. Students who move from three years behind to one year behind make considerable growth, and although a proficiency measure would still show those students as unable to pass the test, student growth would capture the remarkable progress (two years’ worth) those students made during their time with that teacher. Campus-level student growth captures the aggregation of growth demonstrated by the campus’s teachers and students. Student growth also incentivizes principals to address the needs of all students, including those who are unlikely to meet certain levels of proficiency and those who are likely to meet them regardless of how much they learn in a year.