The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 requires states to monitor student and school performance based on "adequate yearly progress" (AYP), which essentially is a count of the number of students meeting a specified target. States, many of which have a growing number of schools and school districts entering NCLB's "needs improvement" status, have urged the U.S. Department of Education to consider alternate ways to measure and report student progress because AYP disproportionately identifies certain schools as failing (Choi, Goldschmidt, & Yamashiro, 2005). Some researchers have predicted that by the 2013-2014 school year, nearly all schools and school districts will not meet AYP requirements, even many of America's highest achieving schools in affluent areas (Goldschmidt, 2006; Linn, 2005). In November 2005, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, announced a Growth Model Pilot program (U.S. Department of Education, 2006) to which states may submit alternative accountability models to monitor schools. As of February 2007, five states--Tennessee, North Carolina, Delaware, Arkansas, and Florida--have had their growth models approved for use in 2006-2007. Growth models are a different way to track student progress compared with current NCLB requirements that use AYP. This policy brief addresses the broader topic of education accountability models, or systems, describes both status and growth accountability models, and provides several policy recommendations. (Contains 5 figures and 4 notes.)