The Eastern Pulaski School Board had a lengthy discussion with the building principals and administration about the new growth model for the State of Indiana. This new model will not only be for student assessment, it will also be for teacher, administrator and school assessments.
“Not only is it going to be a proficiency index, where they’re going to measure how a student progresses against the Indiana standards, it’s also going to be how much you grow in a given year,” said Superintendent, Dr. Robert Klitzman. “The way the new Indiana Growth Plan works now is that every student is going to be placed in a group, statewide, based on the score on the ISTEP. Then as that same group takes the test next year, they are going to find the average score and that becomes the target. When you do an average there’s obviously half above and half below and so arbitrarily, half the students are going to be above and below, and then they’re going to divide that whole group into thirds. The top third is going to be called high growth, the middle third will be middle growth, and the bottom will be low growth. We’re not happy with that concept. For those that can remember the old Bell Curve, that’s what this is, in a new fashion.”
