Utah students are performing about the same as last year and are hovering just above the national average, according to state-level results from the Iowa Tests, a norm-referenced test measuring student performance against a national average.

But language and math scores among third-graders have not only dropped slightly from last year, they are below the national average. And a large achievement gap continues to exist between white and minority students.

"This is just one more piece of evidence that we have a large achievement gap among students in our state," said Judy Park, associate superintendent for data, assessment and accountability for the State Office of Education. "We are seeing some closing of achievement gaps on CRT scores but this is just another indication that we have a long way to go."

The Iowa Tests are given annually in the fall to Utah third-, fifth- and eighth-graders and are scored in percentiles which tell where Utah students fell in relation to a national norm group that's held as the standard for scoring with a median score of 50.

Third-graders scored in the 47th percentile in language and math but in the 57th percentile for reading, the 61st for social studies and 63rd for science. The total composite was the 57th percentile, meaning those students outperformed 57 percent of the national norm group.

That's a slight drop from last year's score, which was a total composite of 58, but Park said the decrease wasn't enough to be statistically significant.

Fifth-graders had a 58th percentile composite score, the same as last year's score, with the strongest showing in the 65th percentile in science. The group scores in all subjects were above the national average.

Eighth-graders posted an identical high science ranking, and overall scored a 56th percentile composite, the same as last year.

"Looking at scores it shows that we performed pretty much the same as last year — we've remained stable," Park said.

But achievement gaps between white and minority groups, were as wide as nearly 30 points in some areas.

For example, while Utah's Caucasian fifth-graders' composite score was 62, Hispanic fifth-grade students posted a score of 33, black students posted a 39, Native American students posted a 36 and Pacific Islander fifth-graders scored a composite of 44.

Shauna Carl, associate superintendent of Salt Lake City School District, which has around 53 percent minorities, said historically low achievement is closely correlated with lack of resources.

"I don't think we are going to see a difference in terms of the gap, although in pockets and isolated instances we're seeing some good gains where the gap is decreasing and we work very hard daily to increase achievement and close the gap," said Carl. "But this is a national issue and we have got to seriously look at improving the economic future of minorities in our country and in our state and our city and help them with the resources they need.

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E-mail: terickson@desnews.com