Laura Chapman says it is no improvement to substitute student growth in test scores for plain old test scores. Both reduce teaching and learning to multiple choice test questions.

She writes, in response to this post:

“Instead of judging schools solely by test scores, they might be judged–at least in part–by student growth.”
This is not an improvement of any kind, but the precise language from Race to the Top Legislation (see reference below).

In federal and state policy “student growth” is just a euphemism for a gain score from pre-test to post-test, or year-to-year. In other words, the term “growth” has been thoroughly corrupted to mean just another score, and preferably a score with properties that can be processed to produce a VAM–value added score. (See reference below on the new grammar…)

Do not be mislead. The marketeers of “growth” as if this is some gold standard or “fair” measure for judging educational activity are engaging in a propaganda campaign. Participants include USDE and its hired hands who know that this term “growth” has a rich and elaborate semantic reach in education. They are cynically trying to cut away understandings of growth and development as teachers understand it for individual students–multifaceted and asynchronous (e.g. bright but socially awkward; coordinated dancer, but not an athlete; enchanted with calligraphy but has terrible handwriting). To be sure, there are normative patterns for a large number of students, but so-called “developmental levels” also mask all of the wondrous variability in students. Forget all that, the new meaning of “growth” is a gain or increase in a metric derived from a test.

A perfect example of the marketing effort on behalf of redefining “human growth” (as a difference in metrics) is the infamous “Oak Tree Analogy” (see reference below)–that conveniently ignores that fact that students, unlike trees, have minds of their own.

I call this a cynical move because the oak tree analogy is framed to place teachers in the role of workers in a nursery in charge of providing the “nutrients” that are needed for trees to thrive. This frame, as Lakoff and Johnson remind us, taps a “nurturing parent” metaphor for teachers, and also the traditional role for women. The campaign to portray teachers as bad nurturers, lay, soft, uncaring is nowhere more evident that in the excessive use of “rigor” and “rigorous” as obligatory adjectives for almost everything bearing on “improvements” in education. See Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (2008). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago press.

Repeat. Federal and state policy documents define “growth” as a gain in pre-test to post test scores, and a gain in year-to-year scores. Such scores are used to radically simplify judgments about districts, schools, teachers, and students. The distorted views of education produced by aggrandizing tests and “metrics” as if these refer to the actual complexities of human growth and development–perceptual, intellectual, social, physical, creative, aesthetic–is a fraud.

For federal language for “growth” see: Final Definitions 559751-52 Federal Register / Vol. 74, No. 221 / Wednesday, November 18, 2009 / Rules and Regulations DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 34 CFR Subtitle B, Chapter II [Docket ID ED–2009–OESE–0006]

RIN 1810–AB07 Race to the Top Fund AGENCY: Department of Education.Retrieved from http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2009-11-18/pdf/E9-27426.pdf

For the false comparison of human development and oak tree “growth” see:

Value-Added Research Center. (2012). Teacher effectiveness initiative value-added training oak tree analogy. Madison: University of Wisconsin. Retrieved from Retrieved from http://varc.wceruw.org/tutorials/oak/index.htm

For the cynical promotion of a preferred “grammar” for education see:
Reform Support Network. (2012, December). Engaging educators, Toward a New grammar and framework for educator engagement. Author. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/implementation-support-unit/tech-assist/engaging-educators.pdf