U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan awarded the 40th waiver from provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act today, this one to New Hampshire.

That leaves Illinois, Maine, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wyoming with outstanding requests for flexibility under the NCLB law. The Education Department still counts Iowa as having a “pending” request, but we put Iowa in the “rejected” category.

Also pending is the application submitted by nine California districts, which are hoping for a decision on their one-of-a-kind waiver request by July 1. A spokeswoman for those districts told me that the districts and federal officials continue to go back and forth.

“The list of issues that we are fine-tuning get narrower and narrower with each conversation. We feel like we are getting close,” said spokeswoman Hilary McLean.