"It was a crazy year," said Lori Oliver, a third-grade teacher at Heritage Elementary School in Layton. "It was hard to know what to focus on."

That's because state math tests didn't match Utah's new math core curriculum. State officials didn't have time to completely rewrite the state math test after pressure to quickly put a new math curriculum in place, partly because of a controversy over math instruction in Alpine School District.

The result this year is that the state gave a pass to 37 schools that didn't test well enough in math to meet the yearly goals of No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

Nearly 8 percent of Utah schools reported as meeting NCLB progress goals this year actually didn't meet the goals. Instead, they were allowed to appeal their failures based on the argument that teaching math to the test last year was confusing. Those appeals allowed some Utah schools to avoid sanctions they otherwise might have faced, such as having to bus students to better-performing schools or offer extra tutoring.

"You don't want to incorrectly identify a school as failing when they may not have failed," said Judy Park, state associate superintendent. "It's kind of giving them the benefit of the doubt."

Allowing schools to appeal to meet testing goals isn't unusual. In fact, a total of 98 Utah schools met the goals through appeals this year. Typically, schools appeal because of data errors or extreme circumstances, such as school construction during testing.

But this year Utah schools were also allowed to appeal based on confusion over the math tests and new curriculum.

And school districts took advantage of the new allowance to different degrees.

The state's largest district, Jordan School District, appealed for one school based on the math issue. Granite School District, the state's second-largest district, appealed for 10 schools because of it.

Some districts, such as Alpine, did statistical analyses to determine which schools most likely failed to meet goals because of the confusion over math and then applied appeals only to those schools, said John Jesse, Alpine director of research and evaluation. Alpine appealed for three schools partly because of the math confusion.

Other districts, such as Granite, automatically applied the appeals to some schools - namely Title 1 schools and schools that hit language arts goals but failed to meet math testing goals. Title 1 schools are those that accept federal dollars for serving low-income areas; they are the only schools that can face sanctions for not meeting testing goals.

"I think some school districts did more than others in looking at it psychometrically," said Darryl Thomas, Granite director of research, assessment and evaluation. "We didn't want to overdo it."

Many education officials said offering schools the chance to appeal based on the confusion over math was a good decision. Though the state did ultimately end up yanking questions off the test that weren't common to both the new and old curricula, teachers didn't know what to expect until shortly before the test.

Orem Junior High, for example, would not have met goals if it hadn't been allowed to appeal.

"We wanted to be judged based on what we're doing in the classroom with the current curriculum, but when it's changed we need time to kind of let the changes filter down to the classrooms and the kids," said Steve Stewart, Orem Junior High principal.

Still, it's confusion educators hope they won't have to deal with again. And it's anyone's guess how those schools that appealed because of the math changes will fare on this year's tests, which should be better-aligned to the new state math curriculum.

Jesse said the decision to put a new core into place so quickly wasn't well-planned. Part of the reason state education officials and lawmakers wanted to rush implementation of a new curriculum was a controversy in Alpine over "Investigations" math (which focuses on conceptual math over drills and memorization) that created concern at the state level. Also, the Fordham Foundation gave Utah's old math curriculum a grade of "D."

"If you're going to try to be a super school board and govern education in Utah, you better be careful what you're doing and do things that are educationally sound and not change the core without changing the test," Jesse said of lawmakers who supported the rush to put the new curriculum into place. "My hope is they're willing and able to learn from errors in judgment."

Rep. Greg Hughes, R-Draper, and Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, lead the legislative Education Interim Committee. Hughes could not be reached for comment, and Stephenson said he wanted more information on the situation before commenting.

Kim Burningham, who was chairman of the Utah Board of Education at the time, said the new curriculum was put into place quickly, but the result is better math education.

"It did move quickly but not unreasonably so," Burningham said. "Most people think it was a really good updating of the curriculum. It was a definite improvement."

Each year, the federal government expects schools to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) toward the ultimate goal of No Child Left Behind - that all students test at grade level in math and language arts by 2014. To make AYP, a certain percentage of students in schools must test proficient in math and language arts each year. Schools that don't make AYP but accept federal dollars for serving low-income areas can face sanctions. Schools that don't make AYP can sometimes appeal that status if there were extenuating circumstances or data errors that led to the failure. Schools that appeal are usually considered, ultimately, to have made AYP.