Spellings Won’t Seek Minimum Subgroup Size For NCLB

Nashville, Tenn.

As Congress gears up to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act, some state officials are worried that the Department of Education is becoming increasingly less willing to give them leeway in implementing the law. A few even came to a meeting on accountability issues here earlier this month dreading an announcement that the department was planning to push for tougher, more uniform standards for state accountability plans.

Their fears were assuaged—sort of. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings told the Dec. 8 session that she doesn’t believe in forcing a single standard on states, at least when it comes to one of the more technical, but critical, factors of state accountability plans: a state’s “N” size, or the minimum subgroup size that counts toward schools’ and districts’ accountability under the federal education law.

“I firmly believe that a one-size-fits-all N size is not appropriate,” Ms. Spellings, speaking from Washington via teleconference, told an audience of school superintendents, state accountability directors, and others responsible for carrying out the federal school improvement law...