LOL. What an awesome blog post – and I love the conversation!

I totally agree, they are both equally important. Keeping in mind that they must both be growing.

Thank you, Katherine. Please continue to “shout from the rooftops” that ALL students benefit from teaching that understands where they are, how far they’ve come, and how much more than can grow.

Thank you, Lloyd. The “good enough” idea came to me as I researched dozens of proficiency benchmarks—and all reflect the minimum entry point into near/on-grade-level performance at this point in time. Like you, I wonder why we would give that so much weight. Without a doubt, it’s important to know and to make plans to close skill gaps and challenge on-level or higher-performing students, but the concept of “good enough for now” leaves me wanting to know more. A focus on growth—as you suggest—gives me that information. Yes, the remedial pianist has as great an opportunity to grow as the virtuoso. Their growth should be equally celebrated! (As you most likely suspected—the story of the virtuoso who can’t read music is true. The university failed to recognize that even as a virtuoso, he needed to grow. I believe, to this day, he could have been taught to read music.)

Thank you for this thoughtful reply, Carly. Your comments about Maslow and the whole child are particularly poignant in a time when educators are asked to implement social-emotional learning—with a focus on the whole child. We will get it right one day—once we realize that understanding and teaching to the whole child requires us to understand where the child is, whether or not that place is appropriate for this content and grade level, and how much this child grown. We need it all.

Just a quick FYI for you regarding RTI/MTSS. I have a blog post on how RTI has matured over the past 50 years considering Student Growth Percentile (growth) is now acceptable in progress monitoring. See https://www.renaissance.com/2016/08/04/fastbacks-flashbacks-and-response-to-intervention or http://www.ednetinsight.com/news-alerts/voice-from-the-industry/response-to-intervention–this-generation-of-data-fueled-decision-making.html.

Also, if you want to learn more about SGP in progress monitoring, download the Renaissance Special Report at https://www.renaissance.com/resources/student-growth-percentile/special-report-request-form.

Thank you for reading, Renee. We double-checked the problem you came across downloading the Special Report on Student Growth Percentile, but we didn’t notice anything unusual on our end. I would make sure your pop-ups aren’t being blocked. Otherwise, your school’s firewall could be preventing you from downloading the report as well.

Let us know if you’re still unable to download the report!

I really like your analogy.

Secondly, academic growth and the data to support it is important. It drives instruction. “Over time” can be any period of time from a day to a year or over the course of one’s education. My issue, is how “growth” is documented. I am currently frustrated by paperwork that projects my long term goal for particularly low students as being on grade level by the end of the year. To accomplish that, some of my children would have to make over two year’s growth. I’ve had children who’ve accomplished that; however, laying that expectation on any teacher, is not reasonable, especially since the paperwork does not show the more important unmeasurable growth that child is making. The paperwork holding me accountable does not, “bring the child into the equation!”

Whether schools are part of an RTI or MTSS accountability program, the short and long term goals are always shown as academic, which will always be only part of the whole child. Until the paperwork includes Maslow’s heirarchy, the whole child will never be part of the equation!

Thank you, Lisa. There are some great comments here about proficiency or growth. You’ve successfully captured that it is actually proficiency and growth (and exceptional teaching, and relationships among students, the content and the teacher, and…)

Thank you, Rita. Growth does inform day-to-day instruction in a mutually supportive way. The more you know about students and how they learn, the more potential you have to help them grow. The more you focus on growth, the greater your understanding of how students learn.

Thank you for this insightful reply. Using both growth and proficiency is one of many keys to unlocking the mystery that is learning. Knowledge of subject matter, understanding how learning progresses in a discipline, and instruction expertise, just to name a few, also belong on that key chain. Your comment about growth, but still needing to identify and address gaps is a critical component in learning. Proficiency, growth, content knowledge, instructional expertise, and a deep understanding of learners (including ballerinas) matters. Thank you for the eloquent example. I shall now always think of David the ballerina each time I consider growth.

Thank you for your comment—especially your approach of focusing on SGPs to build the power of discouraged teachers. Of course, we cannot deem one over the other, for both proficiency and growth are required, but I’ve not yet considered growth as a measure to build teacher expertise and confidence. Thank you.