student achievement

Remember the scientific method? You probably learned about it in school. Let’s review. These are the basic steps:

• You observe the world around you.
• You raise questions about what you see.
• You form a hypothesis (theory) about how something in nature works or will work given a specific set of circumstances.
• You conduct an experiment to see if your hypothesis is correct. If it’s not, you revise your hypothesis.

So: creationism:

Here’s a modern myth: lowering class sizes will improve your child’s education. This is supported by the American Federation of Teachers. The A.F.T., one of the nation’s largest teachers’ unions, quotes a research study in support of lowering class sizes:
http://www.aft.org/topics/classsize/index.htm

U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings is experimenting with a new and (potentially) promising model of accountability: the Growth Model. Some states are experimenting with this model in order to meet the NCLB requirement that all children be proficient in reading and math by 2014. What is the model?