One of the many criticisms swirling around about NCLB is that by setting a uniform passing score and holding everyone to it, schools that serve disadvantaged students are put at a further disadvantage for making AYP because there is more ground for them to make up. A brief analysis of this question was recently posted on the Education Gadfly, published by the Fordham Institute. The point of this analysis is that only a small number of schools will meet AYP in a growth model who do not already meet it in the current absolute model.
My sense is that it doesn't particularly matter how exactly we define the goal, so long as the end goal is a school system where students are ready for college or work on graduation. This goal can be implemented with absolute goals that expect all students to be on grade-level, or with growth goals that are scaled to take into account the achievement gap, so that a student who is three years behind is expected to make more than a year's worth of growth. It seems to me that the former system would be easier to implement, but if a state decides that a growth model would be more effective or egalitarian, then I have no problem with them implementing it so long as they ensure that schools who make AYP are putting their students on track to graduate adequately prepared to contribute to society.
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