Reader comments
15 schools in Utah face federal sanctions

The link does not seem to work. The .ut.us part of the url usually refers to a state address, not the U.S. Office of Education.

Moral of the story...

Fail for a couple of years.

Get the grant money.

Bring your scores back up.

This is the only way to get proper funding for our schools?

Ridiculous.

Personally I never have liked this No Child Left Behind. The requirements are unfair and students do get left behind and just forgotten. It needs to seriously be re-evaluated.

Look at all of these schools. They all serve students in poverty, either rural or urban, not suburban. In most cases, the student's parents have little education and can provide little support at home. These students come to school unprepared, they move every year or two and in many cases, sometimes multiple times in the same school year. Many of these students do not speak English as their first language or in their home. It does not take NCLB to realize these students need help.

Rather than punitive measures and negative labels, these schools and students need help. They need extra resources, more one on one help and support services not needed in suburban schools. It is time to quit sanctioning these students, their teachers and their schools and start helping them. It is obvious from this article that the educators are willing to do what ever is needed, they just need the resources.

It is time to do way with the negative labels and punishments of NCLB once and for all.

NCLB should sit back and relax a bit, then think about how to improve - think, not just work, it is good idea, so make it better.

Personally I like the No child left behind... It makes principals get off their ,,,, and actually start working..


Principals in Jordan and Granite Districts get paid 50 thousand more than the highest paid teacher whether their school performs well or not...

the address needs to have www. in front of it & no period after the us

As a student, I've always hated the NCLB law. It doesn't help the students that are struggling, and makes it more difficult for particularly bright students to succeed. By restricting the teachers and making them focus on the unhelpful standardized tests, they aren't able to actually help either group of students in the ways they need.

Come on Deseret News, this story is a day late. The other daily newspaper had all this yesterday.

Most definitely AGREED with all of your comments made so far!!!! Yea for people finally understanding that NCLB is discriminatory, based upon failing labels, rather than funding for improvement without labels, and although accountability is important---making improvements in school has far more to do with finding the good, rather than sanctioning these schools!!!

I personally like NCLB. It may not be perfect, but it does mean schools can't flounder on with no accountability.

My father was an elementary school teacher for 30 years. I remember his frustration with fellow teachers who slept in class and who didn't really put their full effort into making sure the kids learned the material. They would do the "status quo" and be ok with that. It was all dependent on the personal philosophy of the teacher if anything good was to come out of the class, not on whether or not they would be fired if they didn't do their job properly like most of the private job sector.

Life is tough. Sometimes we have to face the music. It usually isn't fun nor does it do our "self-esteem" any good. But it does force us to step it up. I'm tired of the ultra-sensitive crowd who doesn't think discipline, criticism, or accountability is good for us. Getting your feelings hurt is worse than anything else imaginable. My grandfather once said that failure is the best remedy for success. Often failure is the motivation we need to do better. He was a smart man.

If you were to talk to an Elem. Teacher, you would know that NCLB has put some unreasonable strain that should not be there. If a child has a disability, say something like Autism, NCLB does not differentiate it. A child goes into the class at a 2nd grade level, when the rest of the class is at a 6th grade level. Therefore, you start behind. There is no way this child can move up to the the 6th grade level because their brain doesn't work at that level adn will not ever. Therefore, the class may not pass NCLB. It would be interesting to see the statistics on these schools that did not pass, how many of these students had disabilities. NCLB is a great idea in theory, but should be centered on individual abilities rather then the group as a whole. There are always going to be children with disabilities, and at some point, that should be factored in, with a report on the improvement of these children individually rather then their problems bringing the entire school down. They need to be encouraged, and helped, not looked at as the reason they are failing NCLB.

NCLB is useless without parental help. I just graduated last year and I can tell you that the students who needed the most help, were the ones who were not getting it at home. By the time high school comes around it is almost too late; their habits are set, graduation is on the horizon, and there are more fun things out there than improving grades. If NCLB is going to succeed it has to be done early on, with the help of parents. Teachers can only do so much to help a student, so in a sense it's not the school who is failing, it's the parents.

Relax A Day Late...you spend your time following dates of publications?

It's interesting that the article states that these schools get extra funding--apparently to improve education; but yet these schools then are required to PAY for transportation to send the kids to a different school if the parents so choose. How does that help to improve the situation?

I teach in a school that is close to being a failing school. We have a 96% migrancy rate. That means that we start and end the school year with only 4% of the same students. But we are required to test all of the students on their grade level no matter where they are really performing. What about those students who see 2-3 years of growth in a school year, but when they take the test on their assigned grade level they will fail. We are setting up our kids for failure even when they are making progress.

There's no doubt that accountability for work done is needed in schools. But that accountability has gone too far and is now pushing teachers to focus on teaching the test material rather than teaching what the children are lacking.

I taught at Midvale Elementary and let me tell you it was TOUGH! 86% turnover rate when I was there. I could immediately tell those children who had positive home support and consistency. I felt terrible for most of those kids, because I knew their chances at a good future were very slim.

The federal mandate to provide a free and fair education for all needs to be continued. We need to get resources where they need to be. But schools can only do so much for children. Without help from family and other near them these children will still fail most of the time. Agreed that we need big changes, but those changes need to start at home.

I hold a teaching certificate but have chosen a different career path, seeing that I can make a greater difference not in the classroom. I'm saddened by that, since I love to teach. Hopefully I can be an asset to society still.

I had taught at a private school in the Philadelphia area for twenty years. The Philadelphia tri-state area (parts of PA, N.J. & Del.) have more private schools than anywhere in the nation. The disparity between the educational level of the private vs. public schools in some cases is staggering. Many of the public schools are equal with the best private schools but too many are so far behind it is scary. Consider two public schools less than ten miles apart:
Math scores above state average: 3% compared to 96%
Verbal scores above avgerage: 8% compared to 98%
The NCLB has done zero to improve the poor school.
The economic level of the two school districts is just as revealing. It is so bad that the state was considering closing the poor performing school and dispersing the students throughout the county.
The post by 'Help' at 10:16 was a perfect example of how shallow and off track the NCLB concept is.

Any of the failing schools private schools? No? Didn't think so.

Why are no Park City schools on the report card?