Student test group to remain at 10

If there are 10 students or more in a student educational group, the state will hold schools accountable for how well they do on tests.

That's the unanimous action taken Wednesday by the State Board of Education following concerns voiced by ethnic minority student advocates.

"We are trying to listen to the minority community," board chairman Kim Burningham said. "Their concerns are very important to us; a highest priority of this board is to seek high achievement for all students."

The issue stems from the State Office of Education's application to use U-PASS, Utah's budding accountability system, to meet federal No Child Left Behind mandates. The Utah Legislature also last month passed a bill giving Utah educational goals priority over the controversial federal law.

Currently, Utah's NCLB plan holds schools accountable for the performance of groups with at least 10 students in them.

The state had sought to change that number to 40.

Ethnic minority student advocates decried the change, saying it would allow perhaps half of schools to be let off the hook for the performance of minority student groups.

Harrington said the intent was to bring the state more in line with other states. Utah is one of the few with a group size so low.

State associate superintendent Christine Kearl noted the group size at 10 could identify more schools as not up to snuff based on the performance of kids who don't speak fluent English and those with disabilities. "It does start to identify more schools."

But the board unanimously voted to keep the group size at 10 — as requested by its Coalition of Minorities Advisory Committee.

Rep. Duane Bourdeaux, D-Salt Lake, said the decision is a clear win for the minority community.

"It's a victory. I commend the state superintendent as well as the board for taking the advice of the CMAC organization," he said. "To have all the groups working together is key in the best interest of all of our kids. From that perspective I am ecstatic in the sense that it truly is a win for the students and the minority community to come together to get the achievement gap closed."

In other news, the board voted to have a dual state-federal accountability system, where reports to the public would highlight U-PASS data but also contain full reports on NCLB progress. All scores would be broken down by, and schools held accountable for, student group performance. A team is getting together this month to determine just how to do that with U-PASS.

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