States Anxious for Federal Guidance On Yearly Progress

By Lynn Olson

New ESEA Tension is mounting among state officials anxious for federal guidance on their obligations under the "No Child Left Behind" Act of 2001.

With just two months to go until states must submit detailed plans to the federal government for how they will comply with the accountability provisions in the law, the U.S. Department of Education has yet to release final regulations. And five states that helped pilot a peer-review process late this past summer, an approach that federal officials will use to review state accountability plans, have yet to hear anything back in writing.

"We think it went really well," Mary Tiede Wilhelmus, a spokeswoman for the Indiana education department, said of the review. "But where...