SALT LAKE CITY — Despite modest improvements in SAGE scores last year, schools in Utah received worse grades overall from the Utah State Board of Education based on school rating data released Thursday.

This year, just 54 percent of Utah schools made A or B grades, down from 62 percent the year before.

Meanwhile, the number of high schools making D's or F's doubled from 16 to 33. The number of elementary schools making D’s or F’s also increased, from 58 to 85.

But students aren’t doing worse. In fact, they’re doing better.

The reason for the reduction is because new legislation was passed in March that raises the bar for grades if more than 65 percent of schools earn A or B grades.

Because 74 percent of Utah elementary schools earned A or B grades this year, as did 66 percent of high schools, the scores were recalculated and the letter grades lowered.

The changes frustrated many school administrators who said the law unfairly penalizes schools for making progress.

Granite School District testing director Rob Averett said several principals who saw their scores downgraded were "very, very, very disappointed as grades dropped for no other reason than to force the distribution lower."

Kearns High School, for example, improved enough to go from an F to a D this year, according to Averett, but was revised to an F due to the law.

"They're all working hard and it's been disappointing to each of the schools," Averett said. "They saw this positive sign and then this positive sign evaporated."

Utah's school grading system was created by the Legislature in 2011. Since then, the program has been tweaked every year, causing controversy.

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Letter grades are awarded based on SAGE test scores that take current scores and improvement over time into account. High schools are also graded on graduation rates and percentage of students who meet ACT benchmarks.

Sen. Ann Millner, R-Ogden, who sponsored the bill that triggered the point structure change, said the idea was to make the rubric more rigorous over time.

After SAGE was introduced, Millner said, the rubric was relaxed to avoid a large swath of schools getting low grades. Under the rubric that was created, a score of 64 percent and above would constitute an A, 51 percent to 63 percent would constitute a B, and so on.

Legislators who felt that was too easy wanted to come up with a way to tighten the point structure over time until 90 percent and above constituted an A.

Under Millner's bill, which was signed into law by Gov. Gary Herbert in March, the grade cutoffs are raised each year by 5 percentage points if more than 65 percent of schools earn A's or B's.

"I know for schools right now it seems disruptive, but it really was meant to try to begin to move that benchmark back to where it was originally set — but to do it in a more incremental and thoughtful process,” Millner said.

With more and more educators expressing frustration with the system and the future of the SAGE test in question, Millner said she expects that more changes may be made next year.

"We're trying to get it closer to right this time," she said. "There's a great deal of concern about that, and I think we're all aware that while we may need to make some tweaks, we also need to establish as much consistency as possible."

Logan Toone, director of assessment at Davis School District, said administrators have existing frustrations with the grading system on top of the year-to-year fine-tuning.

Toone expressed skepticism that a school's strengths and weaknesses can be boiled down into one letter grade and said the grades have a negative impact on public relations for schools.

Under last year’s rubric, 30 Davis School District schools would have received A grades and 46 of them would have received B grades, he said.

With the recalculation, just nine schools received A grades and 58 received B's.

"I don't think tweaks are good enough at this point," Toone said. "I really think we need a complete overhaul of the accountability system."

Heidi Matthews, president of the Utah Education Association, which represents more than 18,000 current and retired educators, said school grades tend to reflect the demographics and affluence of a school more than achievement or progress.

“There’s so many factors that play into how students succeed and in what way you’re measuring success,” Matthews said. “Sometimes success is simply getting to school. Sometimes success is having a safe place to go and do your homework.

“It just speaks to the purpose of school rating in general,” she continued. “Why are we doing this? Why do we insist upon grading a school?”

The Utah State Board of Education acknowledged educators’ frustrations and advised parents to look at the base scores beneath the letter grade to see if their children are improving.

"Schools want to be recognized for the work they've done, and indeed they moved schools in the right direction this year," board spokesman Mark Peterson said.

Like Millner, he said that assessment and accountability standards may be changing again next year as administrators consider putting more emphasis on the ACT instead of SAGE, particularly for high schools.

"What the Legislature has in mind, since they're the funders of this system — we'll have to see," Peterson added.

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