During a few minutes of free time Friday, one of Jim Martin's students drew flowers and caricatures on the dry erase board, while another munched on an apple as she worked on the latest Harry Potter puzzle.

Across the room, a group crowded on the floor around a "Taboo" game board, blurting out words they hoped matched the one on the secret card held by a classmate.

But it's not just any fourth-grade classroom. There are more brown faces than white, more poverty than privilege.

And if state and national statistics hold true, a good many of Martin's students at Riley Elementary will fall so far behind by the time they reach high school that they risk failing state tests required for graduation.

To Martin and a growing chorus of minority advocates, that's contemptible. It's also, they fear, a real possibility if Utah loosens accountability policies that require schools to track, report and address academic achievement shortfalls among minority and disadvantaged students.

"I just don't think it's the students' fault," Martin said. "We have to figure out how we can better serve these kids rather than say, 'Well, there's nothing I can do because these are the deficits this child brings into the classroom.' "

Martin is among the dozens of educators, activists and business people organizing a rally for tonight - in advance of this week's special legislative session - to raise awareness about the alarming achievement gap between white students and students of color, poverty or other disadvantage.

The consequences of that gap are significant, said Ruth Pati o Stubbs, a multicultural counselor at Weber State University who also is involved in the group hosting the rally.

"These students are not moving up the pipeline to go to a higher education institution," Stubbs said. "I don't have a lot of answers, but I want to be involved in looking at what we need to be doing."

Organizers hope lawmakers will take notice and perhaps commit - in legislation - to closing the gap.

Legislators will be considering House Bill 1001, a proposal to substitute the Utah Performance Assessment System for Students (U-PASS) for the federal accountability system spelled out in President Bush's No Child Left Behind initiative.

Politicians, state school officials, states' rights proponents, even the teachers' union overwhelmingly support the bill, but minority advocates worry it could weaken the emphasis on minority and disadvantaged students' achievement.

"We're not in support of No Child Left Behind, but we're also not sure U-PASS addresses the achievement gap," Martin said. "We expect the bill to pass, so we're focusing on how U-PASS is shaped afterward."

Other minority advocates worry that some state leaders are complacent when it comes to closing the gap.

In a recent legislative meeting, state schools Superintendent Patti Harrington told lawmakers that a minority advisory committee endorsed a plan to hold schools accountable for demographic groups with 40 students instead of the current 10.

The higher number means hundreds of schools - especially suburban schools with largely homogenous populations - would be off the hook for improving their minority students' annual test scores.

Members of the committee, known as the Coalition of Minorities Advisory Committee,, refuted Harrington's claim and say they have argued to keep the group size as low as possible.

"We'd much rather negotiate than go clear up to 40," CMAC President Kitty Stewart said.

Harrington said she was led to believe the group supported the higher number but is willing to settle on a number that is acceptable to both CMAC and district superintendents - whom Harrington said supported the higher number.

"We're working toward a compromise position," she said. "If we err, we'll err on the side of holding schools more accountable even though it tends to over-identify them" as failing.

Tonight's rally will feature speakers to frame the issue, as well as an open discussion to generate ideas for solutions.

rlynn@sltrib.com

Public input

* What: Rally to get legislative support and raise awareness about the achievement gap between white kids and kids of color or economic disadvantage

* When: Tonight at 6:30

* Where: Riley Elementary, 1410 S. 800 West, Salt Lake City