Still waiting on Feds, state to release school progress data

State education officials say they will release data related to the federal No Child Left Behind law next week because they haven't yet heard from the feds on a waiver from that law.

The state wants to be freed from some requirements of the nation's preeminent education law, including the section that critics say labels schools as failures.

Schools that don't meet a measurement called "Adequate Yearly Progress" — or AYP — for two or more straight years must offer students choices, everything from tutoring to transferring to a new school.

Letters detailing those choices are usually mailed to families before the school year, but that's on hold this year while Minnesota seeks its waiver.

The current No Child Left Behind law requires all states to release AYP data by September 30. Minnesota's waiver seeks to ease that mandate but because the feds haven't yet replied, the state said Wednesday it will make that AYP data public.

Schools, in turn, will then have to scramble to send out those letters and make those services available to families.