16 schools on hot seat

Teachers are kicking up their heels at Parkview Elementary in Salt Lake City.

They're getting used to a new principal hired to turn around San Juan County's Whitehorse High.

And they're feeling the full force of No Child Left Behind's stick for the first time in four Davis County schools.

In all, 16 Utah schools have fallen under federal scrutiny for failing to improve test scores two years in a row — or more — on No Child Left Behind progress reports issued last week.

The number has nearly tripled from last year's six.

Four of the schools were there last year, too. But two are starting to work their way out. And two others improved enough to slide off the feds' radar — at least for now.

No Child Left Behind aims to have all students, regardless of ethnicity, disability or poverty, proficient in language arts and math by 2014. It measures schools' work toward the goal in public "adequate yearly progress," or AYP, reports.

The reports are all or nothing. A school must have all students in each ethnic and other group meet state testing goals, plus an average 95 percent of students taking the tests, or the whole school fails to make AYP.

AYP aims to shine light on students who need extra help, or who may have been falling through the cracks for years.

But the light shines a lot brighter on schools with lots of poor kids.

Schools that get Title I funding and don't make AYP two years in a row are put on "school improvement," with subsequent sanctions intended to whip them into shape.

This year, 39 of Utah's 217 Title I schools took their first step toward school improvement in failing to make AYP.

Schools going into school improvement face sanctions ranging from offering to transfer students to higher-performing schools, to having the state take over.

Schools can get off school improvement by making AYP two years in a row. Problem is, the state raises the bar every other year, making the task even tougher.

And the longer they are in the hot seat, the more sanctions they face. Eventually teachers could lose their jobs.

So it's no surprise schools that have made it off the list are shouting it from the rooftops and schools that have been on the list will tell you it's no picnic getting off.