In recent weeks there has been a lot of discussion in our nation about what student growth and student proficiency really means and what is the difference between them. Growth is the amount of progress a student makes from one point to another point in time. For example, student A is a seventh grader that is reading at a 5.0 grade level at the start of the school year. By the end of the school year student A is reading at 6.7 grade level. In this case student A had a 1.7 grade level growth. If this were a real case this would be considered a very good year and great growth in that the student improved by 1.7 grades in just one year. Proficiency, on the other hand, is a measure of a student’s ability at one moment in time compared to a set standard or measuring a student according to their level of mastery of grade level material. In the above example, student A would be considered non proficient because they were not at or above their grade level. In many cases proficiency is a yes or no question. The student is either proficient or is not proficient.
So, how does this apply to Vestaburg Schools? At Vestaburg, we use a tool called N.W.E.A. This is an assessment that students take three times a year (Fall, Winter, and Spring) that is intended to measure student growth first and foremost. While it provides data that can be used to help determine proficiency its primary goal is to measure a student’s growth. The goal is for every student to make at least one year of growth during each school year. However, in Michigan every student is required to participate in the M-STEP (formerly MEAP) assessment each year. This is a proficiency test that is designed to measure whether a student is proficient (at grade level) and how many students in our school are proficient (at grade level). Making this confusing is teachers are evaluated by growth rates and schools are measured by proficiency rates. This would be less of an issue if every student came to school with the same skills and matured at the same rates. However, we all know this not be true. For many reasons some students come to school with different abilities and struggles. This does not mean that they cannot and will not be able to learn or be successful, but rather that they all do it at different rates and times.
While we use both measures to evaluate our program, our primary focus is growth. We believe that all students can and will learn. We expect our students to make a full years growth each year and for students that are behind or not at proficient we work to help those students make more than a year’s growth so that they can become proficient. We cannot change where a student is or their past but we can change where they are going and the progress they make. We believe in a Growth Mindset. I will be discussing this in more detail in future articles and blogs, however, a simple way of thinking about a Growth Mindset is that it is not that a student cannot do something, it is that they cannot do it yet!
Lastly, there is an very likely chance that in the coming weeks you may see reports and articles about the Michigan Department of Education discussing the state test (M-STEP) and either making changes to this test or possibly adopting the N.W.E.A. as the new state assessment. As you hear or read about this keep in mind the difference between student growth and student proficiency and it relates to what we are doing at Vestaburg Community School. We ARE Vestaburg!
