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.

In 54.5 percent of schools deemed needing assistance in this report, neither the whole school nor the subgroups made the mark.

U-PASS sounds like the federal No Child Left Behind yearly progress reports, but U-PASS is quite different in that U-PASS designates just two groups to be accountable for progress. NCLB has separate subgroups for every ethnic group, students with disabilities, English language learners and low-income students. Also, in the federal report, one slip-up and the school is identified as leaving children behind. U-PASS is more forgiving and allows more credit for moving students up and essentially, more chances to make the grade.

Park calls U-PASS Utah's premier report and wants the public to focus on it instead of the No Child Left Behind reports, which in the past few years have stirred school communities and attracted a lot of public attention. She notes U-PASS includes every single child, is a more realistic view of schools, and even has a higher scoring standard than No Child Left Behind, at least at this point (NCLB will expect 100 percent of kids to meet the mark in 2014).

Some district officials agree with her.

"I feel that the U-PASS reports are more fair than the NCLB report, because they do allow you to make progress" and capture every student — important in a state where some schools have so few ethnic minorities that they're never counted, Granite assessment director Darryl Thomas said. "I think NCLB overamplifies low-performing groups."

But Salt Lake City's John Erlacher, principal of Mountain View Elementary, says U-PASS makes it too easy to hide lagging student groups because they're not individually scrutinized. Though student group performance is broken down and reported in U-PASS, there's no accountability for it.

Salt Lake District Associate Superintendent Shauna Carl also says the state's formula determining student growth is flawed, giving students who score high but make little progress a bunch of points anyway. While the reports are different, there's considerable overlap in them.

In Jordan, about a third of the 19 schools the state says need assistance actually passed the federal report. Conversely, of 18 elementary and middle schools flunking the federal standard, two-thirds met state requirements.

Ogden, where the state identified 43 percent of elementaries and 75 percent of junior highs as needing assistance, had the same issue.

"It's kind of almost a double-edged sword — we can make it in one area, but not another," Ogden district community relations coordinator Donna Corby said. "Why do we have two performance (reports) — ugh!"

Some fear the reports might confuse the public. So districts offer this advice:

Take these with a grain of salt.

"There's an incredible amount of information here that principals and teachers pore over. They're just working so hard," Corby said. "You can't judge an educational system by the U-PASS report. You need to look at your child."

---

E-mail: jtcook@desnews.com