For many years the USOE has touted how great Utah is for standardized test scores.  This past year they ran a pilot program paying for most of Utah’s students to take the ACT as an assessment test. It appears that about 97% of students took the test, and as expected, our state’s scores dropped with all the people taking the exam who normally wouldn’t.

Judy Park, Associate Superintendent at the Utah State Office of Education was quoted as saying in a KSL article, “We’re thrilled and pleased that the decrease is as small as it is and compared to other states we’ve done very well,” she said.

The USOE then proceeds to tell how we’re ahead of almost all comparable states that have more than 95% of their students take the ACT.

What’s amazing is that for several years the USOE has been very well aware of a fact that they don’t report.  At least since February 2006 and a few big reminders since then, they have known that these aggregated scores don’t represent reality. Utah’s population is over 80% Caucasian. Minorities typically score less on standardized tests. When you take a weighted average score of 80% of the population outscoring the minorities, it’s going to tend to skew the figures toward a higher average. Comparing our weighted average to other states with sometimes significantly higher minority populations is an un