MEASURING ED

Utah, Race, Education and a Failing Fed Law

By Headwaters News, 10-13-05

In this land of national education standards and the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), trying to figure out if, how and why race plays a role in what students learn isn’t easy. Imagine having to compare the 920 students at Philadelphia’s St. Christopher Elementary School with the three kids in the Bill, Wyo., Dry Creek Elementary School. It’s tough, but federal and state laws call for it.

Last week, Headwaters News wrote about how officials in Colorado were trying to wade through the results of standardized tests to figure out how, where and why race was affecting student performance in its school districts. Now it’s Utah’s turn for the media attention.

Today, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that Utah education officials approved a plan to gauge school performance by lumping together the progress of ethnic minorities, English language learners and students with disabilities separately. The plan is part of the Utah Performance Assessment System for Students (U-PASS), which is the state’s own performance and accountable measuring tool for education. The new lumping technique is a way for schools to erase what others can see in differences in the student body and measure the school as a whole.

And that’s different than the way schools are compared and held accountable under NCLB. That federal law requires that all subgroups meet certain federal standards in order for a school to comply with the law. But it’s no secret that the Beehive state, known as one of the reddest states in the nation, doesn’t like NCLB. Officials aren’t happy with a provision in NCLB that says that if one segment of a school’s students doesn’t meet federally mandated definitions, the entire school is considered failing.

That’s why Utah asked the federal government if it could use its U-PASS system instead. But the feds said no. Risking losing funding, the state decided to use both systems. It seems, though, that complying with NCLB has devolved into simply going though the motions while officials will continue working with the U-PASS system.

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