If it is approved, the new Utah Performance Assessment System for Students, or U-PASS, would require schools to report on the progress of students in four groups: ethnic minorities, English language learners and students with disabilities or economic disadvantages. Individual schools would report one combined score for those four subgroups and would also report on the progress of each group separately.

The combined score would determine whether schools meet state standards. That is the difference between U-PASS and the federal No Child Left Behind system, which Utah educators and legislators have protested is unfair. NCLB rates a school as "failing to meet adequate yearly progress" if the score of even one of 10 subgroups is below standard.

Before NCLB, test scores of all students were lumped together. That system allowed schools to "hide" low scores by averaging them with the generally higher scores of white, English-speaking students who are not struggling with disabilities or economic disadvantages.

And that has led to a disgraceful achievement gap that rightly has minority advocacy groups up in arms. Children who fit into the four subgroups have substantially lower test scores and much higher dropout rates than their non-minority peers. To its credit, NCLB forced schools to address the gap. But we believe a state-controlled system can do the same without so arbitrarily labeling a school as "failing."

Besides getting low-scoring students out of hiding, U-PASS's use of several tests, rather than just one as specified by NCLB, to plot the improvement of individual students from year to year could help minority students.

So far, so good. But the state proposal is incomplete. It should include consequences for schools that fail to improve the scores of high-risk students, funding for remedial programs to help them and incentives for schools that narrow the achievement gap. If U-PASS is to succeed, state legislators will have to provide that funding.

We are guardedly optimistic. A fully developed and funded U-PASS has the potential to caulk the cracks that have swallowed up the futures of so many children.