A third of schools fail to make grade

About a third of Utah schools failed to make adequate yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, statewide reports released Monday show.

But the act has teeth for a mere fraction of those schools — the ones in low-income neighborhoods.

Those schools that receive Title I federal funds are put on what's called "school improvement" if they fail to make adequate yearly progress, or AYP, two years in a row.

Six of the Title I schools — Central Middle School in Ogden, Whitehorse High in San Juan, West Junior High and Lapoint Elementary in Uintah, East Carbon High in Carbon District and Parkview Elementary in Salt Lake City — identified last year as on "school improvement" remain there. And some are facing more severe sanctions because of their lengthy stay in the program.

Officials at the State Office of Education are meeting with Uintah and Ogden school districts to see what should happen next.

"We can't keep going business as usual in those schools. We really need to zero in on the students that need help rather than focusing on the group as a whole," said Leonard Sullivan, Uintah District curriculum and testing director. "The question is, though, will it be enough to put us over the top? The longer they are on school improvement, the harder it is going to be to get off."

Monday's reports come under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, signed into law in early 2002.

The act aims to have schools address student populations that may be falling behind academically. It requires them to publish test scores for nine different groups, including ethnic minorities, students with disabilities and children with limited English language skills.

The goal is to have all children scoring as proficient on state tests by 2014.

Movement toward the goal is measured through annual public reports on "adequate yearly progress," or AYP. This year is Utah's debut AYP report.

To make AYP, Utah schools must have 95 percent of students in each group taking language arts and math tests. They also must meet state proficiency benchmarks in those subjects or show improvement toward them.

Deseret Morning News graphicWho's on, who's off school sanctionsRequires Adobe Acrobat.

Superintendents, however, have worried about the law's all-or-nothing approach. Each of a school's student subgroups must have enough students taking the tests and scoring high enough, or the whole school fails to make AYP.