Keep the accountability

Until the No Child Left Behind federal program, Utah's public schools weren't truly accountable. Utah has had statewide testing programs for many years, but the test results were little but a snapshot of academic performance. There were no carrots to reward top-performing schools or schools that have demonstrated substantial improvement. Likewise, there were no penalties for schools that perform poorly, aside from the sting of making the test results public.

Then came the federal government's high-stakes No Child Left Behind education reforms. Under that program, schools that don't make the grade are deemed not to be making "adequate yearly progress." Schools that don't work their way off the list face sanctions that range from offering to transfer students to higher-performing schools to having the state take over control of the school. It's a big club.

This is not to suggest we are sold on the NCLB. It flies in the face of local control of schools. It demands a lot from the states and provides inadequate resources to implement and run the accountability program. It has made ridiculous demands of special education students, insisting they take grade-level tests with their peers.

But it is difficult to argue with the academic progress that has been made in Utah under NCLB. Many schools that had traditionally had poor scores on statewide assessments met the challenge presented by the AYP standards. School administrators and faculty committed to do whatever it took to improve academic achievement and student success. As one principal in the Salt Lake School District explained, "It's not as if we weren't working hard; we (just) might not have been working as smart as we needed to be."

Some schools made extraordinary efforts to improve academic achievement and school climate. Ogden's Central Middle School teachers and administrators visited children at home, asked parents to sign compacts with the school to help children do well in class and held regular faculty meetings to identify students who weren't showing up to school.

That broader commitment to students and the school community means Central Middle School is working its way off the "school improvement list." It is a work in progress, but the staff's dedication to the students' academic achievement is highly commendable.

As Utah school administrators and state lawmakers consider Utah's future participation in NCLB and the possibility of forfeiting federal funds (which Utah could ill afford), they need to consider the positive pressures the NCLB program has exerted on Utah schools.