The Nations Report Card, a regular government publication on the state of education, ranked Utah 31st in writing scores out of the 45 states that participated.
The report, which is made up of data collected by the National Assessment of Education Progress, contained other alarming indicators for Utah's education system. For example, only 31 percent of Utah students were considered "proficient" or higher in their writing.
"As a whole, Utah students scored just below the national average, but when broken down by race, gender, or economic status, Utah students scored significantly below their American counterparts in almost every category," said Robyn Bagley, co-chair of Parents for Choice in Education, a Utah education watchdog group, in a news release.
According to the report card, Utah was only two points short of reaching the national average. Students in New Jersey scored the highest, with a score 21 points above the national average while Mississippi came in last, 20 points below the average.
Utah's Hispanic students scored lower on the test than any other state except for Rhode Island. Both states Hispanic students scored 13 points lower than the national average for their demographic.
"Hispanic children are the fastest growing population in Utah and scored the worst among all states," Bagley said. "This ought to be of great concern to policy makers and Utah parents."
Despite some of the grim indicators on the report card, there are signs of improvement.
In 1998, only 21 percent of Utah's students scored at or above the proficient level. Over the past nine years, that number increased 10 percent.
According to the same results from the 1998 report card, 76 percent of students scored above the "basic" writing level. In the 2007 document, that number has increased to 84 percent.
The National Assessment of Education Progress writing test is designed to measure narrative, informative and persuasive writing skills in students in the 8th and 12th grades.
More information on the test, and on national scores can be found online at nationsreportcard.gov.
Writing Ability Levels
Basic
-demonstrates appropriate response to the task in form, content, and language
-uses some supporting details
-demonstrates organization appropriate to the task
-demonstrates sufficient command of spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization to communicate to the reader
Proficient
-creates an effective response to the task in form, content, and language
-expresses analytical, critical, and/or creative thinking
-demonstrates an awareness of the purpose and intended audience
-has logical and observable organization appropriate to the task
-uses sufficient elaboration to clarify and enhance the central idea
-uses language (e.g., variety of word choice and sentence structure) appropriate to the task
-has few errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization that interfere with communication
Copyright Brigham Young University 16 Apr 2008
