Students' test scores do Utah proud

Statewide test results released Friday show that Utah students have maintained a steady lead over national mean scores on the 2003 Stanford Achievement Test, which compares Utah students to peers throughout the country.

At the same time, results of the state's own tests — designed to test students' mastery of Utah's core curriculum — reveal the majority are meeting those standards. And students also scored well on the final pilot of the Utah Basic Skills Competency Test, which all students, beginning with the class of 2006, will have to pass to earn a high school diploma.

"We have a quality school system and solid results," state testing coordinator Louise Moulding told the State Board of Education.

However, "we don't want to pretend we have nothing to worry about, though, because we do," she said.

Of particular concern is bringing up CRT (the core "criterion reference test") scores for ethnic minority and low-income students. "We still have tremendous work to do in finding resources and remediation programs . . . helping all stu- dents to achieve," Moulding said.

Such remedial help could be forthcoming as the state falls under the federal microscope.

The No Child Left Behind Act aims to have all children, regardless of ethnicity, income or disability, proficient in reading and math by 2014. Schools that don't meet the standard could face federal sanctions.

The act requires that schools

make "adequate yearly progress" (AYP) toward the goal on the CRTs and have high participation rates and, in some cases, attendance or graduation rates.

School districts will release yearly progress reports Dec. 15. Already, the AYP provisions have created a hubbub among Utah's 40 superintendents, many of whom have said several schools won't make the progress standard because a few students were absent on test day and because special education scores didn't improve enough.

Stanford Achievement

Preparing data for AYP, in fact, has consumed the State Office of Education and local school districts so much that Moulding's annual testing report to the school board was abbreviated. And details on how students did in each subject on the Stanford Achievement Test have not been put together, spokesman Mark Peterson said.

But in complete battery scores, Utah's third-, fifth-, eighth- and 11th-graders held the line above the 50th percentile — the national median.