All but a handful of Utah County schools met the federal government's expectations last year.

While most schools met their targets, and charter schools fared well, two of the county's three districts failed, according to data released on Thursday.

The Utah State Office of Education released results on Thursday from the Utah Performance and Assessment System for Students and federal Adequate Yearly Progress. AYP uses state scores to judge a school's performance under the 2001 No Child Left Behind law.

Both UPASS and AYP take into account attendance, test participation and how well sub-groups, such as special education students and students with limited English proficiency, perform. Schools that fail under any one academic category or sub-group do not make AYP.

The Nebo School District made AYP overall and hit the federal government's targets for math and language arts. The Alpine School District made the mark in both subjects but did not make AYP because of scores for students with limited English proficiency. The Provo School District missed AYP overall, along with federal math and language arts requirements.

In the Provo School District, six out of 24 schools did not make AYP. In the Alpine School District, seven of 53 schools missed the mark. In the Nebo School District, four schools out of 35 fell short, and Springville Junior High is appealing its failing marks for both AYP and UPASS.

Some schools, such as Lehi High, met state expectations but failed at the federal level. Russell Klein, results coordinator for the State Office, said that’s because Utah's state test weighs improvement more accurately.

"AYP measures this year's fourth graders to last year's fourth graders, and they call that improvement. But you know the students in fourth grade this year aren't the same students who were in fourth grade last year," Klein said.

"UPASS measures the same student in their science in their fourth-grade year to science in the fifth grade,’ Klein said. ‘We call that growth, and we believe that's a more accurate measure of progress."

The federal Department of Education has refused to allow Utah to pilot a program using its growth model for AYP measurements.

All seven of the charter schools tested in the Alpine School District and the two charter schools in Provo met AYP goals. In the Nebo School District, the American Leadership Academy in Spanish Fork failed to make AYP because of its language arts scores. The Walden School is appealing its UPASS failure, and no UPASS scores were listed for American Leadership Academy.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D1.