Funds for students at risk among ideas to push achievement

Getting a handle on data, giving money to help students at risk, creating solid school accountability — these are the ways Utah should promote student achievement, a governor's working group recommended Thursday.

The Governor's Working Group on Student Achievement has firmed up five ways it thinks could close achievement gaps between the haves and have-nots and help all students reach their academic potential.

The group, which includes representatives from ethnic minority communities, school boards and districts, the Legislature and governor's office, hopes the suggestions will be championed by the governor, make their way into legislation and be debated by school boards statewide.

"This will carry quite a bit of weight, I think," said Tim Bridgewater, education deputy for Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.

The recommendations are:

• Fund a comprehensive data management system. The state now is working on a unique student ID to keep tabs on students academically when they move. The working group believes teacher and school bosses will need training to use it, and make the best use of the information it provides.

• Comprehensive accountability. This would include developing an accountability system that includes accountability for maintaining high performance and closing achievement gaps. Other measures include requiring school community councils represent school diversity.

• Provide adequate funding to help at-risk students access programs that would help them. Eligible students would be those with three or more risk-factors, which range from disability to ethnicity to poverty. Programs would include more training for teachers including multicultural competency, money to recruit teachers and administrators of color, and ensuring programs funded are tied to measurable outcomes.

• Create a permanent governor's commission on raising student achievement.

• Consider funding to provide all-day kindergarten and preschools in schools enrolling students at risk for academic failure, and incentives to teachers and school systems to raise achievement of at-risk students.

That last recommendation generated the greatest debate.

Some said there was no research showing merit pay works and that a Los Angeles program failed.

But San Juan School District's Toni Turk says it helped first-graders at Mexican Hat Elementary achieve huge gains in a single year.

Local data and national research show full-day kindergarten makes a huge difference in leveling the playing field for at-risk students. But Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, said it would never fly among conservatives in a state where kindergarten is left out of compulsory education laws. He said full-day kindergarten would have a better chance with legislators if it were tied to something conservatives might like, such as merit pay.

The recommendations are expected to be submitted to the governor within 10 days, Bridgewater said, and to legislators in October.

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E-mail: jtcook@desnews.com