I've been in a couple districts where this is practiced, and my mom is an intervention reading teacher. Growth policies are good for low-performing and average students, because they have an obvious place to grow to. High-performing students have less places to grow. It's a learning curve. It takes a lot more effort and resources for the students who are ahead to make the same amount of growth, and if that isn't accurately reflected in the policies, they end up hurting their school's testing performance and losing those resources. Another policy change that could help: accountability targets that emphasize growth for all students.
Yep. Once I got placed into private schools, no more gifted programs, I was disliked by many of the other students, because most of the tests, I'd score 100%, while everyone else performed 75% or under. On one hand, it was frustrating for me, because then the test scores in aggregate would be graded on a curve, lifting the other students' scores up, and devaluing my higher score. On the other hand, I can somewhat understand (though I can't quite understand the details of) why the lower scoring students would get frustrated with me.
Curves are great when just a few people are doing really exceptionally, and then everyone else is in about a 20% range. They break down and lead to tension between students when they are spread different. I had one class where I pretty much always set the curve (the top student was given a 100%, and then every one else got as any points as they got). So, I felt pressures to either be really sure I got a 100 (then the second top set the curve), or to miss 8-10 on purpose to help everyone else the class, which wouldn't change my score at all. You are completely right about multiple intelligences. On one level, there are some teachers who can work different ones into tests, but they can never test all of them. And that is only the good teachers. Some make tests that don't work for anyone.