Utah kids score above average on Iowa Tests

Results showing how Utah students stack up nationally on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills — dubbed by the State Office of Education as an important part of its school accountability plan — were released at a State Board of Education meeting Thursday, but they were not listed on the agenda for formal discussion.

The state board agenda gave no public notice that the norm-reference test results — the only yardstick measuring student achievement prior to the 2000 U-PASS law — were to be discussed in the board's Thursday meeting.

Members of the board's curriculum committee received and briefly discussed data handed them in their Thursday morning meeting, two board members said. Utah students outscored national peers on the exams.

"We regret it was not on the agenda," State Board Chairman Kim Burningham said. "Certainly (there was) no attempt to cover it up."

The Utah Open and Public Meetings Act requires public bodies to post items for discussion, with reasonable specificity, with at least 24 hours notice. The idea is to alert the public to topics of interest so it can listen in.

Attorney Carol Lear, director of school law and legislation for the State Office of Education, said the law also allows non-agenda items to be discussed, as long as there is no vote. In this case, no votes were taken.

"Given this, I don't think there was any violation of the law," Lear said. She said the board is careful to adhere to the open meetings act.

The lack of agenda posting also was not a signal that the test scores were unimportant. "It's the only national comparison we have," board member Teresa Theurer said. "I definitely think it's an oversight."

The Iowa Tests are national, norm-reference tests required of Utah's third-, fifth-, eighth- and 11th-graders. They are scored in percentiles, which tell where Utah students fell in relation to a national norm group that's held as the standard for scoring, with a median score of 50. Utah students took the exams, required under the Utah Performance Assessment System for Students (U-PASS), in September and October.

The test's standard has changed. A new norm group took the test and a different median score was set based on its performance. The norm group outperformed the old one. Utah students outperformed the new norm group, but not by as much as they had the old group.