Even though Utah’s education officials have created what are considered more stringent testing standards than the federal mandate under the No Child Left Behind Act, Utah schools have fallen behind in performance.
More Utah schools have stumbled in their effort to meet federally mandated No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education standards, according to 2005-2006 data released Thursday. Statewide, 18 percent of schools failed to meet a host of testing and attendance requirements compared with 13 percent in 2004-2005….152 Utah schools failed to meet minimum federal proficiency standards last year compared with 118 schools the previous year.
There is contention between the feds and the state of Utah. NCLB mandates that all students achieve academic proficiency by 2014. Federal officials are apparently critical of Utah’s testing standards which does not require the same. Under federal mandate, schools who do not acheive this requirement face losing federal funding.
Most schools who fail the AYP have already been examining how to improve their standards. It is frustrating to be labeled as a failing school. Schools who fail more than once are required to offer choices of attending other schools to parents.
The Salt Lake Tribune outlines the requirements’ differences:
How AYP differs from U-PASS
* PHILOSOPHY: AYP focuses on group performance, with all students expected to be proficient in math and language arts by 2014. U-PASS focuses on individual student improvement, with all students expected to be proficient or improving.
* DEMONSTRATING PROFICIENCY: To meet AYP, every group within a school must achieve the academic target, and academic targets increase every two years until 100 percent proficiency is achieved in 2014. To meet U-PASS, 80 percent of every group in a school must demonstrate proficiency or must demonstrate a specific level of progress toward proficiency. Both systems require 95 percent participation.
I have been an educator for a long time. Utah’s school system has some of the hardest working teachers I have ever encountered – and I have taught in three states in my career. I do not feel that our state is lacking in quality eduactors. Having said that, however, I do feel that Utah has some of the largest schools I have ever experienced. And that is a problem. Utah does not see the amount of money that other states to for education. More money needs to be diverted to education to reduce school and class size and help our dedicated teachers more efficiently deliver the quality instruction they already do.
Let’s face it – our schools are like warehouses, where students are herded about into classes of close to 40. Many of our more educationally needy students(including those with language barriers) get lost in that shuffle and fall through the cracks. There is no way we can expect teachers to give each student the attention she deserves with this situation as it currently exists.
If we are truly focusing on the learning of our children, we must make drastic changes in some of these areas. Simply labeling a school as “failing” is more punitive and hindering than helpful. The root causes of “failure” need to be examined and assistance provided to school systems to improve, including the drastic overhaul of our system to reduce the size of schools.
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 