Nation's Report Card mixed for Utah

Utah's achievement gap remains huge between whites and ethnic minorities, low-income and more well-to-do students, but some gaps are narrowing, with students learning English as a second language posting some huge gains on the Nation's Report Card issued Tuesday.

The Report Card for Utah, part of the national report from the U.S. Department of Education, is mixed. Its overall showing is good. Students here overall have made gains in the past two years, and remain above national averages. However, the rest of the country is catching up, posting more of a climb than the Beehive State's overall showing.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Patti Harrington believes more money to pay teachers and improve classroom instruction is a key to better student performance.

"As states put forth more financial effort into hiring and developing their teachers and improving classroom instruction, we can expect to see them make more progress relative to Utah," Harrington said in a prepared statement, adding she hopes the Legislature continues recent budget boosts. "Of course, this is a critical matter to the future of each child and to the future of Utah's economy and well-being."

The report card examines a sample of each state's fourth- and eighth-graders' performance on reading and math tests from the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Since 2005, fourth-grade reading scores increased in 18 states and no states showed a decline, said Mark Schneider, commissioner of the National Center for Education Studies. For eighth-graders, reading scores increased in Texas, Florida, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Vermont and Hawaii and declined in North Dakota and Rhode Island since 2005.

Wyoming, Florida, the Department of Defense Schools, the District of Columbia, Delaware and Massachusetts shower higher average scores in 2007 from the first eight-grade reading assessments in 1998, according to the findings, while seven states showed declines.

For math, 23 states had higher math scores at the fourth-grade level compared to 2005 and no states had a decline. For eighth-graders, 26 states had higher scores than in 2005. None showed a decline, and 15 states increased in both fourth- and eighth-grade math.

Overall, Utah has more students scoring at or above the "basic" benchmark than in 2005. Sixty-nine percent of fourth-graders here hit the reading goal, and 83 percent the math goal, compared to 66 percent and 81 percent posted nationally, the report states.