Local Growth Models for
Accountability
A value-added approach for Local
Education Agencies to:
▪ Set individual student growth targets
▪ Incorporate student achievement in teacher evaluations
▪ Document return on investment for programs
▪ Support leadership and board governance
2010
What are Value-Added Growth Models?
Value-added growth models are designed to answer a basic question
that has frustrated educators for decades.
How do we know if a student or group of students performed
any better than they would have anyway:
- In a different school?
- Under a different curriculum?
- With a different teacher?
- If they were not in a particular program?
Historically, our inability to answer this question has been
related to the absence of control groups.
Sorting out the Terms
Growth models transition student achievement from an achievement
status model to a model designed to rigorously capture student growth
at the individual and aggregate level. Growth models help to address
the following questions:
Typical: What is a typical year’s growth?
Actual: How much growth actually occurred?
Aspiration: How much growth would we like to see?
Value-added models are a broad class of statistical models used to
quantify value-added growth.
How it Works
Value-Added Model
Students
and their
historical
achievement
Projected Achievement
What a student would have
most likely achieved under
typical district growth.
Math
24
Statistical
Comparison
Score
28
Class, School,
Program, etc.
Actual Achievement
Valueadded
impact
The Meaning of Growth
ECRA promotes the use of Growth Percentiles. Growth percentiles express
the difference between projected and actual achievement as a percentile. This
enables schools and districts to:
Document whether each student’s growth was similar to, greater than,
or less than typical growth
Identify which students are at risk of not making grade-level proficiency
Examine which teachers, programs, and/or interventions are positively
affecting student growth
Communicate the comparison of model projections to actual
achievement.
Set rigorous but attainable individual student growth targets.
Value-Added Growth Models: Steps
Below are the steps necessary to develop a value-added growth model.
Identify which summative assessments will be incorporated
into your model.
Choose anchor years – the multiple historical years of data used to
develop models.
Use anchor years to develop a model that quantifies the typical growth
for any individual student, given that student’s prior record of
achievement.
Use the model to project the most likely future achievement for every
student.
Compare model projections to actual achievement.
Applications
Below are some applications of value-added growth models:
Individual student growth targeting
Teacher and administrator evaluation
Program evaluation
Board governance
Examples
Growth Model Development
Growth Model Development
Applications: Individual Student Growth Targets
Applications: Individual Student Growth Targets
Applications: Teacher Evaluations
Applications: Teacher Evaluations
Applications: Teacher Evaluations
Applications: Program Evaluation
21st Century Learning Program
Achievement growth for students in this
program was typical of similar students not
in the program.
Applications: Program Evaluation
Reading Support Program
Achievement growth for students in this
program was greater than typical growth of
similar students.
Applications: Leadership and Board Governance
The model can be applied to all district schools, programs,
courses and interventions to quantify the student
achievement return on investment.
Example
Program
# Students
Served
Financial Achievement
Allocation Return
(value added
ACT points)
Reading Support
112
$250,000
0.8
21st Century Learning
248
$780,000
0.1
58
$112,000
1.5
Summer Academy
…