The Indiana Department of Education introduced a new way to track students' progress on Wednesday with more emphasis on yearly growth in academic skills.
The Indiana Growth Model uses a statistical model to calculate each student's progress, or growth, on state assessments and can be used to display student, school and district results to teachers and the community.
"The goal is to focus on the outputs of education and expect progress from all students, not just those close to passing," a DOE press release said.
Ball State University Teachers College supports the growth model as long as it does not only judge teachers, Dean John Jacobson said.
"We believe it's important to track students' growth," he said. "But it's also important not to judge the teacher as the only influence in their progress."
Jacobson said tracking the progress of students is more complicated than only looking at the teacher's development in the classroom.
"The inside of the classroom is different to how the environment they live in is outside the classroom," he said.
Although the growth model could change how college students with a teaching degree prepare, Jacobson said the Teachers College will be interested to see how the new model develops.
"Across the nation, when we brought No Child Left Behind and the assessments through ISTEP, schools would not accept student teachers during the spring because they wanted to prepare their students to do well," he said. "We don't know yet how much of an impact this new model will have on our student teachers."
Like the uncertainty of how the growth model will change teaching students, the effect of the new growth model is unknown for Ball State's sponsored charter schools.
The charter school office at Ball State had already taken measures before the announcement of the new growth model, school accountability coordinator Shirley Hill said.
Charter schools sponsored by Ball State do assessments every fall and spring to report the progress of students, but the process might change with the new model.
"The first step for us will be understanding the new growth model, in order for us to accommodate to it," Hall said.
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