More States Defiant on NCLB Compliance

U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., left, the leading Democrat on the House education committee, listens as U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan makes a point during a discussion of ESEA reauthorization last month at the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based think-tank.

—Andrew Councill for Education Week

By Michele McNeil

With big questions still surrounding the fate of the nation’s chief education accountability law, states are beginning to put federal officials on notice that they plan to disregard key pieces of the No Child Left Behind Act if Congress fails to make changes.

So far, Idaho, Montana, and South Dakota have notified the U.S. Department of Education that they will stop the clock as the 2014 deadline approaches for bringing all students to proficiency in math and language arts. In separate letters to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, each has said it will freeze its proficiency targets at 2009-10 levels in hopes of limiting the number of schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress, or AYP, and face penalties under the nine-year-old federal accountability law.

Kentucky is taking a different tack and has asked permission to use its own accountability system...