Raising the U-PASS bar boosts numbers needing assistance

The state says 100 Utah public schools, or about 16 percent, "need assistance" to notch up their academics — nearly three times as many as it named earlier this year.

That's according to the U-PASS reports unveiled today and publicized online, along with a slew of other factoids and No Child Left Behind reports mandated by the federal government. The information can be found at www.schools.utah.gov.

So did schools just get worse in a year's time?

Probably not. Think moving target.

The State Board of Education last June lifted its expectations by five points so more schools would be identified as not up to par.

Last year, the state identified 34 schools as needing assistance.

The board felt it was better to raise the bar than allow schools to struggle on the borderline without getting help.

But Nebo assessment director Seth Sorensen questions whether that's the "best justification for increasing the standards, but that's how it is."

"It's not that we all don't want to encourage the best for our students," Sorensen said, "so if this helps us to do that, I guess it would be a good thing."

But there doesn't appear to be much help on the way for schools needing funding to performance.

"We'd like to receive some," Salt Lake City Superintendent McKell Withers said. "Where is it?"

State testing director Judy Park says her office wants to work on that.

"We are really hopeful the state Legislature will provide the resources needed to really give assistance," she said. "There are a lot of things we can do without additional resources, but we can only do so much without additional resources."

The U-PASS reports, required under a 2000 law, aim to judge the health of the Utah public school system. The first report placing a judgment on schools came out last April, and used 2005 test scores. These use tests from spring 2006.

The reports won't place judgments on high schools until next school year, because only scores for the Class of 2006 are in for the Utah Basic Skills Competency Test, and they'll need this spring's scores to say whether the school improved on that or not.

U-PASS reports tell people whether their school met the scoring benchmark — basically, 80 percent of students have to score as proficient on language arts, math and science CRTs, plus the sixth- or ninth-grade writing test, where applicable — or made enough progress under a formula giving credit for test scores.

Both groups created by U-PASS — white students who can afford to pay for school lunch in one group, everybody else in another — also have to either meet the benchmark or show progress to pass. If one group doesn't, then the school is identified.