Just as you became used to the federally-mandated No Child Left Behind reporting of school performance — UPASS and AYP — it is being discontinued. That is right: The dreaded Adequate Yearly Progress reports that everyone predicted schools would fail, making them all but meaningless, are going away.

AYP reports showed if students were proficient based on the Utah Criterion-referenced tests, or CRT. The reports broke down the proficiency into groups based on economic and ethnic demographics. As the requirements were getting harder and harder to meet, educational leaders predicted that all schools would fail in two to three years, even the best schools. The Utah Performance Assessment System for Students report showed the progress of students as well as their proficiency. 

Both of these reports are now going to be replaced by one report that shows a combination of proficiency and progress. Proficiency is the ability of a student to perform at the same or higher level than other students on the same grade level. Progress data will show if the student is progressing at the same rate as other students who are on the same proficiency level.

Let’s take some examples. A student may have a learning disability that keeps him from performing at the same level as other students in his grade, but he is gaining skills from year to year and growing at the same rate as his peers. This student will show up on the reports as low proficiency but good on progress.

Another student may be achieving much higher than other students in his class. This student would benefit the school and be shown as high proficiency. But perhaps the student has had a bad year and made no progress or even lost proficiency. This student would count against the school for progress.

The new reports parents will see starting with this school year will combine proficiency and progress. Schools will get an equally weighted score based on a 600 point scale. Three-hundred points are awarded for progress and 300 for proficiency. The scores also take things like graduation rates and attendance into account.

Developed by the State of Utah and approved by the federal government under its new flexibility guidelines, the new reporting system was already under way and approved by the state Legislature and the state Board of Education for implementation before being sent to the federal government.

One great improvement about the new flexibility program is that it allows the State to reward schools who are doing well in progress and proficiency instead of only giving money to schools performing poorly.

The old scoring system was a Yes/No, Pass/Fail system that many predicted would fail every school across the country. Parents in Utah are now getting a much better system to determine how their school is performing.

Jeanne Whitmore is the founder and CEO of an American Fork charter school, Aristotle Academy, and an education columnist for the American Fork Citizen. You can learn more about Aristotle Academy at aristotleacademyk8.org or on Facebook.