A primer on the federal No Child Left Behind Act

Having trouble grasping "adequate yearly progress" and the federal No Child Left Behind Act?

Here are answers to some frequently asked questions.

What is No Child Left Behind? It's part of President Bush's initiative, rooted in his Texas governorship, to hold schools more accountable for student achievement by publishing test scores, rewarding high-achieving schools and helping or penalizing chronically low-performing ones. Its goal: All children will score as proficient on state exams by 2014.

What is "adequate yearly progress"? Commonly referred to as AYP, it's a way of quantifying improvement toward NCLB's ultimate goal.

Who is counted? The entire school, plus nine demographic subgroups: African-American, American Indian, Asian, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, Caucasian, economically disadvantaged, students with limited English proficiency and students with disabilities.

The law counts only third- through eighth-graders' and 10th-graders' scores on the core curriculum tests, or CRTs. The CRTs are taken each spring by first- through 11th-graders under the Utah Performance Assessment System for Students, or U-PASS.

What criteria are used for AYP? This year, schools must show AYP in two areas:

• Academic achievement: Schools are expected to have at least 65 percent of third- through eighth-graders, and 64 percent of 10th-graders, scoring as proficient in language arts, and at least 57 percent of third- through eighth-graders, and 35 percent of 10th-graders, proficient in math.

If a school doesn't meet the goal outright, it has two things to fall back on.

Under a "10 percent rule," a school can show it has reduced the number of children scoring below proficient by 10 percent from the year before. So, if a school has 100 low-income students, and 50 were proficient on last year's test, and 60 are proficient on this year's test, the group makes AYP.

The state also is using a "confidence interval" on scores, similar to a statistical margin of error, used to determine whether test score increases or declines are real or a statistical anomaly.

Also, groups that have fewer than 10 students are considered too small to count. So they get an automatic "pass" in academic achievement.

• Participation: Schools must show 95 percent of students took the tests.