The Importance of Understanding Growth

 

Often times the quality of a school is measured by how many students are achieving at grade level. While this is a meaningful measure of the quality of a school, it does not take into account the progress made by the students who arrived at the school well behind grade level. The NWEA has become a useful tool in measuring our progress.

The NWEA sets a growth target for each individual student based on their specific performance. Each student is given a growth target. This target is derived by comparing students at the same grade level, who had the same score on their tests. So a 7 th grade student who scores 210 on his mathematics exam will be compared to all other 7 th graders who scored a 210. This is a great step in comparing apples to apples; we are not comparing gifted students to remediated students. Nor are we comparing an accelerated 4 th grader to a struggling 8 th grader both of which may have scored the same on the NWEA test. The goal is calculated by averaging the progress made by all of the students in the same grade with the same scores. The two million plus students from which this data is collected come from across the nation and do not factor in any demographics other than age as a result of grade level.

 

 

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What curriculum does the Academy use?

The Academy has adopted the Core Knowledge Sequence, a content-rich curriculum that focuses on student achievement and results. The curriculum encompasses a core of basic subjects at every grade level including reading, writing, math, science, history, geography, music, and physical education.

The Academy will continue to emphasize and focus on basic skills at every grade level with every student. In this environment, high achievement will be valued, encouraged and rewarded.