The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, UT)
August 11, 2011
Headline: More Utah schools facing No Child Left Behind sanctions

By Rosemary Winters and Lisa Schencker

The number of Utah schools facing sanctions under No Child Left Behind has grown from eight to 17 in one year - even though testing targets haven't budged.

The ultimate goal of the federal NCLB education law is for 100 percent of students to test as proficient in math and language arts by 2014. To reach that goal, increasing percentages of students are expected to test proficient in those subjects over time.

The U.S. Department of Education gave Utah permission to not raise its testing goals for this year only. And in a separate action, the feds have announced they will extend waivers to states this year to give them more flexibility under the federal law, absent action from Congress.

John Jesse, director of assessment and accountability at the State Office of Education, said if the targets had been raised in Utah, it's likely even more schools would have missed the mark.

"We feel actually pretty good about the number of schools in improvement in Utah," Jesse said. "Secretary [Arne] Duncan described it as a train wreck in slow motion. In another few years, you're going to have all schools not passing."

While NCLB goals apply to all schools, only Title I schools, which accept federal dollars for serving low-income students, face sanctions for falling short. After two years of failing to meet testing goals, they must adopt measures, aimed at school improvement, that range from offering to bus students to better-performing schools to restructuring, depending on for how long a school has failed to meet goals.

A school must meet the testing goals for two years in a row to exit the so-called "improvement" program.

Ann White, the state's Title I coordinator, said most of the schools that were facing sanctions last year made adequate yearly progress (AYP) this year. There was the potential for 43 schools to slide into the improvement program, she said, but only 17 did. Utah has more than 240 Title I schools.

There are far fewer schools facing sanctions in Utah than in surrounding states, White said, noting that Arizona and Nevada have "hundreds" in the program. Idaho has about 40.

"It tells me that the teachers in our state are very attentive, and they are working very hard," she said.

This year and last, high schools made AYP if 82 percent of their 10th-graders in a number of ethnic, income and ability groups tested proficient on state language-arts tests, and 40 percent of high-school students tested proficient on certain math tests, among other requirements. For elementary and middle schools, making AYP meant 83 percent of students tested proficient in language arts, and 45 percent tested proficient in math.

One Utah school achieved AYP for a second consecutive year and exited the improvement program: Provo Peaks (formerly Farrer) Elementary in Provo district.

Another Provo school, Timpanogos Elementary, met testing goals this year but will have to do it again next year to no longer face sanctions, which for Timpanogos includes offering extra tutoring and optional busing to higher-performing schools.

"We're floating," principal Diane Bridge said of the good news.

She said teachers want to see the students - most of whom come from lower-income homes and about half of whom are learning to speak English - succeed.

"AYP aside, our biggest mission and concern is to give our kids enough of a chance that they can have a better life," Bridge said.

She credits the school's progress mainly to three factors: more testing accommodations allowed for students with certain needs; a focus on helping teachers use a variety of strategies; and a series of interventions for struggling students.

At Fast Forward High, a charter school in Logan, principal Stephanie Sorenson was disappointed to learn her school is facing sanctions because it did not hit the language-arts target.

She sent letters home to parents on Wednesday notifying them of the school's status and the option to send their students to another school. The school also must adopt a school improvement plan, but it is not required to offer busing since charter schools are not obligated to provide transportation to students.

Fast Forward's focus as a charter school is on serving at-risk kids. And 54 percent of the school's 215 students are considered economically disadvantaged, Sorenson noted. One reason the school did not make AYP is that not enough students participated in the test.

"Sometimes our students are not as skilled or they have severe attendance problems," she said. "We just need to raise the bar and help the students to understand how important it is to take the testing seriously."