Schools may not get passing grade

Dozens of Utah schools that squeaked through No Child Left Behind's requirements based on a couple of obscure rules likely will be red-flagged as not passing after all.

Last month, Granite and Alpine school districts were seeking to allow 34 schools to make adequate yearly progress toward achievement goals based on new federal guidance on test-score averaging and students with disabilities. Davis School District had used those rules in at least some appeals.

State associate superintendent Judy Park has been looking into whether the same opportunity should be extended to districts that didn't know about those rules. Friday, she told the state school board nobody can grant appeals based on those two rules, citing stands taken by district superintendents.

"This is a huge change in philosophy and practice at the state office," Park said.

And not all school districts are buying into it.

"I don't care what they put on that state Web site — it can say we're all flying to the moon. The reality is, the local district decides," Davis Superintendent Bryan Bowles said Friday. "I stand by the designations of our schools as we released them. There was nothing we did that was dishonest."

No Child Left Behind expects all students, regardless of race, income or disability, to be able to read and do math well by 2014. States issue reports measuring "adequate yearly progress," or AYP, toward the goal.

Last spring, 256 Utah schools failed to make AYP, the state education office reported.

The federal department allows schools to appeal AYP designations for serious calculation errors or extreme circumstances like natural disaster that affect test taking.

This year, 61 schools made AYP on appeal — the highest number in four years, according to State Office of Education data obtained by the Deseret Morning News through a Government Records Access and Management Act request. The all-time high came in 2003, when the law was new and 81 schools appealed.

Utah has more than 900 public schools.

Reasons for appeals are not all certain.

The federal government recently started allowing schools to average scores or their participation rates over the past three years to help them make AYP. It also has said students no longer needing special education services still can have their test scores count in the students with disabilities subgroup for two years.

Those changes are not in Utah's AYP plan. But Davis School District used them in some of its 17 appeals this year, more than triple last year's count and more than any other Utah district.