Lawsuits? Who Tutors? AYP Changes (NCLB in the News)

Once again, we have a wave of highly speculative and thinly reported stories about lawsuits against NCLB, including this one from AP: Flood of lawsuits expected against No Child Left Behind Act (San Jose Mercury News). Unlike the Gadfly, I'm not sure the lawsuits are any more likely to go beyond consideration now than they were over the last two years.

In the meantime, Edwonk points to a NSBA piece AYP around the states about how AYP is being defined differently in each state, which has made comparing this year to last year all but impossible and lowered the percentages of schools not making AYP this past year in many places: Fewer Iowa schools in danger of not making AYP The Des Moines Register (Iowa)
More Utah Schools Meeting Federal Law (Desert News).

Not that everyone's having an easy time of it. For example, see: More Mich. High Schools Fail (Detroit News), State's Goals Elude Many Schools (St. Louis Post-Dispatch), Tennessee misses Nov. 1 deadline for state report cards (The Tennessean (Nashville), Report Card on Schools Gets F for Timeliness (Tennessean), Schools Struggle with Mandate (Rocky Mountain News), NCLB Presents Middle School Complications (Education Week), Measures to reform education get mixed reviews (Indianapolis Star), Law Leaving Arkansas Teachers Behind (Arkansas Democrat Gazette), Left Behind' Schools Cited (Hartford Courant), and California may test in Spanish to cope with NCLB (San Jose Mercury News). Last but not least, the Gadfly opines about the need for more choice in New York City and elsewhere: Yearning for choice.

In the near term, several districts including Chicago are trying stay in the tutoring business despite being labeled in need of improvement: Districts Spar With Ed. Dept. Over Tutoring (Education Week). This is a story that I may have helped break in my September Catalyst article: Chicago corners tutoring market.