On Growth Models, Time for California to Show Some Improvement

California is one of just two states (with Kansas) that does not use a student-level growth model to measure school performance. This brief lays out a number of common beliefs about growth models and provides evidence that these beliefs are inaccurate or unsupported. In so doing, the brief makes a positive case that the state should adopt such a model and replace the current "change" metric in the California School Dashboard. Two specific models—student-growth percentiles and residual-gain growth models—would be a dramatic improvement over what the state currently uses and would much more validly identify schools succeeding and in need of support.