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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Some legislators still have issues with giving diplomas to students who fail to pass all of the state's new competency tests.
For this year -- the first year seniors were suppose to pass the tests to get a diploma -- the state Board of Education decreed that districts would indicate on diplomas how the students did on the tests.
Sen. Howard Stephenson, rules committee co-chairman and president of the business-backed Utah Taxpayers Association, said that decision sent a message that the pressure is off.
"Students are saying they dodged a bullet," he said Wednesday during interim committee meetings.
Rep. David Ure, R-Kamas, said, "This topic is not dead."
Students are given multiple chances to pass the reading, math and science portions of the Utah Basic Skills Competency Test.
After the first two times the test was administered, 13 percent of seniors still had not passed one or more of its sections. Among them were students with disabilities and students not fluent in English.
Results of February's tests "will roll out any day now," said Patti Harrington, state superintendent of public instruction.
Utah law says failing students "may not receive a basic high school diploma but may receive a certificate of completion or alternative completion diploma."
State education officials balked at granting certificates of completion or alternative completion diplomas for fear that the recipients might be barred from getting federal aid for further education.
The state school board then created three designations: diplomas stating UBSCT was passed, diplomas stating sections of UBSCT were not passed and certificates of completion.
Specific decisions about how diplomas look were left to schools and districts.
Calls by The Salt Lake Tribune to several school districts found compliance with the state board's required wording for the two types of diplomas, but use of the "certificate of completion" was less uniform. In Nebo and Wayne districts, for example, no such certificates are issued.
"Students have to meet the minimum 24 units of credit to graduate," said Jessie Pace, superintendent of Wayne School District.
In Washington School District and others, certificates of completion are given to students who do not try the UBSCT three times but meet other graduation requirements. They also are given to severely disabled students who attend school through their senior year but don't pass required classes.
Harrington said that although some states with exit exams do not give diplomas to students who do not pass them, several are backpedaling in various ways, such as by instituting review processes for students who do not pass the tests.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
