This document provides guidance on the research, policies, and practices necessary for appropriate development and implementation of student growth goals, which are often referred to as Student Learning Objectives (SLOs). Over the past few years, federal and state education policies have shifted to require teachers to set SLOs with the intention of strengthening accountability for improving student outcomes. These goals are typically part of a teacher evaluation process that combines a teacher's attainment of SLOs with observations of the teacher's performance. The creation of meaningful SLOs is not a simple endeavor and requires: (1) An understanding of how setting goals can improve teacher performance; (2) A moderate level of assessment literacy for teachers and administrators; (3) A commitment to collaborative discussions between teachers and principals within the SLO-setting process; and (4) A similar level of challenge across all the SLOs created, as well as similarity between the difficulty of SLOs and difficulty of achieving the results determined by other means (e.g., value-added ratings generated with state test data). Research shows that high-quality goals have two defining characteristics: (1) Specificity: how specific the goal is and what the goal is specifying; and (2) Difficulty: a combination of what a teacher's target is and how long the teacher has to achieve it. Based on the existing research, NWEA has three broad recommendations that educators should consider in the development of SLOs: (1) Student learning should be the priority; (2) Teachers and administrators should have adequate assessment knowledge; and (3) Each classroom situation should be treated uniquely while recognizing the need to have similar expectations for all teachers. By implementing this guidance, the SLOs created and used as a portion of a teacher's evaluation will be fairer to teachers, yield overall improvement in teacher performance, and ultimately have a greater likelihood of improving the rate of learning for the teachers' students.