On Friday, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced that all eligible states are welcome to adopt the “growth model” for assessing student progress under NCLB. Educators have complained that the current method of measuring progress unfairly lumps the scores of students together, without taking into account gains by individual students. The growth model allows states to track the progress of individual students over a period of time, and requires states to have a system to track students’ scores and to protect their privacy.

North Carolina, Tennessee, Delaware, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Alaska, and Arizona are using the growth model, but the Department of Education will have to approve additional states that want to use it.