Schools measuring up?

At least 101 Utah schools are not measuring up to the state's academic yardstick — a number that is sure to grow early next month, when Utah high schools are added to the mix.

The State Office of Education's U-PASS report cards, made public today, identify about 15 percent of elementary and middle schools as needing assistance. Those schools are located in 16 of Utah's 40 school districts.

The reports, required under the Utah Performance System for Students, tell which schools made the grade in the math, language and science end-of-the-year tests students took last spring — or enough progress toward it under a special formula that gives credit for improvement.

The number missing the mark is just one greater than last year's 100 identified schools.

Utah high schools' U-PASS report cards will debut Oct. 4.

"Because this is the first year for the high school U-PASS, we have been working through several issues in getting all of the details correct," state associate superintendent Judy Park said in an e-mail.

The state wants 80 percent of students to score as proficient on language arts, math and science CRTs, the year-end tests. The sixth- or ninth-grade writing test is added to the mix, where applicable.

To make the grade, schools first have to have 95 percent of students taking the tests. Then, they have to have two student groups — one, containing white students who can afford school lunch; the other, everybody else — meet the 80 percent scoring mark. If they don't make the grade, they can show enough progress toward the goal and be OK. Schools that don't do that either are identified as "needing assistance."

The state, however, does not have specific resources to assist those schools.

Two dozen school districts, mostly small or rural, got perfect U-PASS marks. Also in that group are the metro Murray and Provo school districts.

"We're pleased, and our district also passed (No Child Left Behind's 'Adequate Yearly Progress') as a district, and we've not done that for a couple of years," Provo Superintendent Randy Merrill said. "I really think that we've worked hard as a district to identify students who had fallen behind and try and lift them and help them in areas of numeracy and literacy."

At the same time, he notes, "we have some work to do." Despite perfect state reports, the federal AYP report shows eight Provo schools missed the mark.

That's a statewide trend. In Granite District, for instance, just over half of schools passed AYP, versus three-fourths of schools passing U-PASS.

The AYP report focuses on every individual student group, broken out by race, income, disability and English language acquisition. If one group misses the mark, the whole school fails.