This report examines one component of the current school accountability system--learning gains. We find that learning gain percentages are affected by a variety of factors including starting achievement level, socioeconomic status, and English language learner status when the current definition of learning gains is used. Hence, we propose a new methodology for defining learning gains in terms of scale score increase targets. Under this new definition, students who are behind their peers in academic achievement will be required to demonstrate higher scale increases to meet the target for learning gains. We find that the proposed definition of learning gains reduces the variability in percentages of students making such gains depending on their initial achievement results. In addition, it reduces the gap between the learning gain percentages for certain accountability subgroups.