Monitoring student academic development accurately is difficult but crucial. A July 2007 New York Times article, “Schools Move Toward Following Students’ Yearly Progress on Tests,” elaborates on the advantages of “growth models” to analyze test scores, as opposed to the more common practice of comparing this year’s fourth graders to last year’s.
By tracking the improvement of the same group of students from year to year, educators can more accurately determine advancement, focus on students at all levels, and more easily satisfy federal requirements. The data provided by growth models keeps the spotlight on the students and their achievement, allows educators to assess what programs are working, and helps to provide a more level playing field of demonstrable gain for both high-performing schools and those with a wide spectrum of poor and minority students.
Q: How can ClassLink help measure student progress, including through the use of growth models?
ClassLink OnTrack™ is a simple-to-use and affordable curriculum management tool that improves student achievement. OnTrack has something for everyone:
•Administrators define their scope-and-sequence.
•Teachers have one-click access to aligned lessons and activities.
•By submitting assignments online, students build electronic portfolios demonstrating subject mastery.
Continuous improvement was never this easy. ClassLink OnTrack was designed at teacher request as an easy-to-use and affordable tool to build a mapped curriculum aligned to standards. There are even curriculum import services where we take your existing curriculum sitting in blue binders and upload it into OnTrack. Unlike those complicated lesson planning tools on the market, OnTrack was built for ease-of-use and is Internet available if you want.
Most importantly, in terms of the growth model measurement described above, OnTrack links your curriculum to work submissions from your students.
To read the entire article and find out more about growth models, please click here.
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