84% of Utah schools make the grade on AYP reports

More than four out of five Utah schools got a gold star on No Child Left Behind reports this month. Next year won't be so dazzling, testing experts predict.

And it's the highest-scoring schools that should worry most, one says.

"There will be more schools identified (as not passing), and there will be a higher proportion of higher-achieving schools," said Charles Hausman, assistant superintendent of Salt Lake City School District.

No Child Left Behind is a federal law requiring students, regardless of race, income or disability, to read and do math well by 2014. States created their own tests and plans on how to achieve the goal. They monitor schools via "adequate yearly progress" (AYP) reports.

The State Office of Education says 760 public schools — or 84 percent of Utah's total — cleared the No Child Left Behind hurdle this year.

But just 38 percent of them actually jumped over the bar, according to numbers provided by the State Office of Education.

The others made it under special conditions allowed in Utah's NCLB plan.

Utah allows a sort of error margin, called a confidence interval, for small schools and schools that don't have a lot of poor, ethnic minority or disabled children. The idea is to not judge a school on the performance of a couple of kids.

Basically, the smaller the populations, the wider the confidence interval — and chance to make AYP.

This year, 56 percent of Utah schools making AYP did so under the confidence interval, according to State Office of Education numbers provided to the Deseret Morning News.

Another 6 percent made AYP because of successful appeals, including a complaint a test was scored with the wrong answer key.

Sprinkled into those totals are schools making AYP because of "Safe Harbor," meaning they didn't meet academic standards, but reduced the number of students not doing well on tests by at least 10 percent and had acceptable attendance or graduation rates.

In all, 290 schools, or 38 percent of the total making AYP, did so under Safe Harbor.

Education officials believe Safe Harbor and the confidence interval help the state more accurately pinpoint schools needing help.

"We've been feeling like making it under Safe Harbor or the confidence interval is just as good" as making AYP outright, said Darryl Thomas, director of research, assessment and evaluation for Granite School District.