Castle Welcomes DE Secretary of Education Woodruff to Washington for Hearing on No Child Left Behind 

DE Secretary of Education, Val Woodruff, testifies at Education hearing regarding Growth Models and student achievement

Washington D.C. -- Delaware Congressman Mike Castle, Ranking Member of the Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education Subcommittee welcomed Delaware Secretary of Education, Val Woodruff to Washington D.C. today for a hearing outlining the potential importance of well-designed growth models being incorporated into the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) reauthorization.  Castle stressed that these growth models may help to improve NCLB's adequate yearly progress measurement over time.

During the hearing, Secretary Woodruff reiterated Castle's support for incorporating well-designed growth models into the NCLB reauthorization as well as outlined a growth model designed for implementation in Delaware which supports the philosophy of continuous improvement for all students.  The model provides schools with information that shows which students are making progress toward proficiency, which students are maintaining proficiency, and which students are slipping backwards.

"The implementation of growth models may be an effective way to measure the progress of America's students in conjunction with the high standards put in place by No Child Left Behind.  This reauthorization of NCLB is critical to ensuring that we continue our commitment to reaching the goal of proficiency by 2014 and the use of growth models could be a tool to help us reach that point. I was extremely pleased today to bring Delaware's expertise in this area to Washington, by welcoming Valerie Woodruff, Delaware's Secretary of Education who shared techniques being used by schools and teachers in our home state that help students meet proficiency," Castle said.

"Moving forward, the law should not only allow but also encourage the use of a variety of accountability models. These models should be focused on individual student achievement and build on adequate yearly progress to promote more valid, reliable, and educationally meaningful accountability determinations. States must be encouraged to innovate and to seek new and better ways of supporting continuous student achievement." Secretary Woodruff said at the hearing.

Growth models generally allow schools to measure progress by assessing how their students have improved in one school year when compared with the previous school year.  This contrasts with the current method (the "status model"), which assesses student performance at a single point in time to determine if schools have met NCLB's proficiency targets.

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Kaitlin Hoffman
Deputy Press Secretary
Congressman Mike Castle
202-225-4165