Blog

By Jessica Paulsen, President, Innovation & Impact, LEAP Innovations

As schools nationwide work to accelerate student learning and close persistent achievement gaps, policymakers are taking a closer look at how we measure student growth — and whether current approaches give educators and families the actionable information they need. When Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, released a Request for Information on school-level academic growth indicators, we saw an important opportunity to share what we’ve learned from more than a decade of working alongside educators to implement personalized learning.

As a member of the America Forward Coalition, LEAP Innovations was proud to contribute our perspective on this critical issue. Our response emphasized a central insight from our work: test scores alone don’t tell the whole story, and schools need complementary measures to identify opportunities for growth — even when achievement levels appear strong on the surface.

LEAP Innovations is a national nonprofit that partners with schools and districts to design and scale engaging, personalized, and future-ready learning. Since 2014, we have worked with more than 450 school systems across 24 states, supporting educators and leaders to implement research-based practices that have reached over 425,000 students. Our LEAP Learning Framework translates decades of learning science into a model for high-quality personalized learning, while our LEAP Learner Engagement Survey provides research-validated insights into the daily learning experience, helping school systems measure engagement, identify gaps, and prioritize strategies that improve outcomes.

This experience has shown us what works, and where the current accountability system falls short. With that in mind, we offered two key recommendations for federal policymakers:

1. Support States in Leveraging Complementary Measures of Growth

The limitations of relying solely on test scores to measure student growth are well documented. In our experience, additional measures — including those focused on student engagement, agency, and durable skills like critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and adaptability — can illuminate opportunities for progress when traditional indicators show stagnation. Federal policymakers should support states, districts, and schools in designing, validating, and implementing these complementary measures alongside standard achievement metrics under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act by leveraging the Innovation Assessment Pilot authority, investing in practitioner-focused R&D through the Institute of Education Sciences, and utilizing tiered evidence programs like Education Innovation and Research (EIR) to scale promising approaches.

2. Empower Districts to Conduct Learner Engagement Surveys

School and classroom-level learner engagement surveys can provide critical context that helps educators, leaders, families, and students identify strengths and opportunities for improvement — before challenges show up in test scores or behavior data. Validated surveys like our LEAP Learner Engagement Survey ask both students and teachers about their perspectives on the daily learning experience, belonging, and classroom conditions, enabling leaders to align resources and professional learning proactively. Since 2015, LEAP has supported the administration of this survey across 24 states, leveraging deep research validated by expert partners including the American Institutes for Research, SRI International, the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development, and Resonant Education.

By informing federal policy frameworks with these insights, we can help ensure that growth indicators actually drive improvement — not just compliance. Schools need measures that empower educators to take action and give families meaningful information about their children’s learning experience.

We’re grateful for Senator Cassidy and the HELP Committee’s attention to this issue and for the opportunity to share our perspective. As the conversation around accountability and student growth continues, LEAP Innovations remains committed to working alongside policymakers, educators, and communities to build measurement systems that capture what truly matters for student success.

Jessica Paulsen is President of Innovation and Impact at LEAP Innovations.