Progress reports are out

Westmore and Ibapah made it.

Central didn't.

Two out of three isn't bad.

Actually, the success rate of these three "needs improvement" schools, examined over the past 17 months by the Deseret Morning News, mirrors the state's on the No Child Left Behind reports released this week.

Westmore Elementary School, nestled in a tidy Orem neighborhood, benefited from the district's meticulous re-accounting on special education test scores.

Ibapah, a rural Tooele County elementary an hour's drive from the nearest high school, got a statistical boost from the federal government for being so small.

And Central Middle School in inner-city Ogden got a leg up from efforts to shepherd students — some of whom read on par with a first-grader — through a year's worth of academic improvement.

All but Central received a stamp of approval.

Deseret Morning News graphicFailing schoolsRequires Adobe Acrobat.

While that school made strides in academic achievement, not enough students showed up on test day.

No Child Left Behind is designed to ensure schools focus on all students, be they learning English as a second language, poor, ethnic minorities or disabled. Its goal is to have all students testing as proficient in language arts and math by 2014.

The goal is measured through adequate yearly progress. To make AYP, each student group in a school has to meet state proficiency benchmarks in language arts and math, or show sufficient movement toward those goals. Ninety-five percent of students in each group also have to take tests.

Any trouble for any group on either measure, and the whole school fails to make AYP.

For schools in middle- or upper-class neighborhoods, the label has no teeth.

But for high-poverty schools such as Westmore, Ibapah and Central, which receive Title I money from the federal government, it bites down, and hard.

Those three schools were among 22 in Utah — a list whittled to 18 following appeals — on "school improvement" in 2002 for letting test scores slip two years in a row. All at least had to make school improvement plans and tell parents they could send their kids to higher-achieving schools if they wanted to.

Schools that stay on the list get progressively tougher sanctions. Ultimately, in the sixth year the district or state takes over the school.

Of last year's 18, six schools remain on the list.

The Deseret Morning News selected the three to see what life was like inside a "failing school." Reporters followed the schools through high hopes, hard work, frustrations and final AYP reports.

Ibapah and Westmore not only made AYP this year. They've done it two years in a row — their ticket out of school improvement. And they're plenty happy about it.

And as for Central?

AYP has become a test of teachers' resolve — and a community's call to action.

Read their stories on the related links above.