Craig Waterman explained to me new guidance for the use of student growth percentiles as measures of student growth. Craig is DESE’s Assessment Coordinator for district determined measures.

Major Points:

• Educators required to use SGP data as a growth measure (about 14% of all teachers):
  • Teachers with 20 or more students who take the MCAS and have MCAS data from the previous year (Ex: a fourth grade classroom teacher)
  • Teachers with 30 or more students teaching one MCAS-tested subject across multiple grades (Ex: a special educator)
• Educators not required to use SGP, but may be required by the district (about 6%):
  • Teachers with between 8 and 19 students (“SGP is more reliable than a DDM.”)
• Every teacher with the same job description uses the same measure. (Ex: One math teacher has 21 students, another has 19. They should both use SGP or both use a DDM.)
• The spread defining low, moderate, and high growth will be different than that currently used at the school and district level:
  • Instead of a range of 40 to 60 defining moderate growth, that range will be 35 to 65. This will result in a teacher distribution comparable to the distribution currently found in SGP ratings of schools and districts.
• Districts will wait to file their impact ratings till October, when SGP data become available, though performance ratings will still be due in June.

Questions? You can post them as comments here or ask Damon Douglas via email by using the box at left!