Measuring Student Growth in Non-Tested Grades and Subject Areass
Teachers in traditionally non-tested grades and subject areas (e.g. early elementary, high school, fine arts) often lack objective, valid, and reliable assessments that can be used to measure student learning.
VARC works with and advises states, school districts, and policymakers on the development of student growth measures for educators in traditionally non-tested grades and subjects, acting as a "thought partner" to help identify the technical and policy considerations associated with options that include:
- Selecting existing standardized assessments for which student growth can be calculated by value-added and other growth measures;
- Creating new state-developed or district-developed standardized assessments for use in value-added and other measures of growth;
- Designing and implementing Student Learning Objective (SLO) processes which strike an appropriate, context-specific balance between ensuring technical rigor and allowing educators to have some degree of ownership in the selection of growth measures.
VARC's work in this area helps our research partners implement the most valid, fair, and reliable student growth measures for use in educator evaluation and human capital management systems.