Mary's Students' Test Scores

Mom has been bugging me for a while to post about this, so here you go!

OK, I am going to boast on here because I can!! :) The state of Colorado recognizes two ways to "grade" teachers: number of students proficient or advanced (old way), and growth of students (new way). It is always difficult in the area where our school is located to be graded on the number of students scoring proficient or advanced since so many of our students don't come to us proficient. So, in our case, growth more accurately shows the work we are doing (think: we are moving kids two and three grade levels and some are still not proficient or advanced. In the old way, their growth wouldn't matter unless they score proficient or advanced.)
Anyways, each student is given a percentile of where they fall in growth in comparison to other kids in Colorado. Think of the height and weight percentiles that babies get assigned, which compares height and weight against others their age. Only, in Colorado, a student earns a percentile based on other kids their age that scored the exact same they did the year before. The state says that "typical" growth (equivalent to one-year's growth) is anywhere from 33% to 66% (to make it easier, I think 50%, but I guess that is not always the case). Anything above is "exceptional" and anything below is "low."
OK, are you ready for this? I had 70% of my students make exceptional growth!! With the median growth being 78%!!!!!!!!! Meaning that if you lined up all my kids based on their growth, the middle student's growth would be 78%! Meaning that the "average" kid in my class gained the equivalent of two-years growth! I had a good amount earn 99% and 98%, so they "beat" 99% of the students in Colorado who were essentially their peers in 5th grade. Booyah!
This makes me feel so good, especially since I wasn't there the five weeks before the test. It proves that it is not what you teach, but how you teach. I could have had my maternity leave sub make them memorize dozens of formulas and all of the fraction/decimal/percent equivalents, but it isn't about that. It's about teaching kids how to think, how to be critical problem solvers and how to approach any problem in a systematic manner.
Yeah for my group last year!!! I can't wait to try and do it again this year :)

PS- I don't know if you remember, but I had similar results last year. But I think my median growth percentile was 82% last year.